Ellen Sandseter on Risky Play Research

Lukas: Where did you like to play as a child? I ask this question a lot because childhood memories shape us into the people we become. Welcome to Play It Forward, a Worthy podcast. I'm your host Lukas Ritzen. Thanks so much for joining me. I talk a lot about play. I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm an educator, and I'm a playground designer, so I want to gather some of my favorite people who are advocates of children and nature and create a space to have an honest conversation about getting more kids outside. The power of play is very often underestimated and I think we all need a little more play in our lives. Our next guest has influenced Worthy Playground since the very beginning. She defined the six categories of risky play and her commitment to research of children's right to free play has changed the lives of countless children. A professor at the Department of Physical Education and Health at QMUC, she has a master's degree in Sports Science from the Norwegian School of Sports Science and a PhD in Psychology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. And lastly, she is an author of one of the best named papers in history: "Scary Funny: A Qualitative Study of Risky Play Amongst Preschool Children." A big warm welcome to the Worthy podcast Play It Forward, hero of mine, Ellen Sandseter. Thank you so much for joining us.

Ellen Sandseter: Thank you for inviting me. We were talking off-air briefly and a bit of backstory, and for anyone that's heard me speak before, I've probably referenced your research from even before I was building playgrounds as an early childhood educator. So I'm just going to say thank you for the influence, and I've seen that light bulb moment in so many educators when you can break down those categories and talk about unsafe freedom and things along those lines. So your research is reaching the world, so I appreciate you.

Lukas: Thank you very much, it's very nice to hear that all the way in Australia. As we start off with all guests on the platform podcast, we go a bit of a flashback. Where did you like to play as a child?

Ellen Sandseter: I would say I was playing all over the place, but usually I played in my neighborhood which was a neighborhood with a lot of children. So we were children from like five, six years old up until maybe eleven that all played together and we played a lot of games and we were roaming around in the neighborhood. And we had a little forest in our neighborhood so we were climbing trees, we had swing ropes that we tested, we were spying on the older children who did exciting stuff. And yeah, we had a very free childhood where we were just called down home for dinner and then we went out again. But I also, in the Norwegian culture, most people have cabins in the mountains or by the seashore, and my family had a place by the seashore with a large forest area. So I did a lot of playing in the forest there and by the seashore, so building a tree hut, climbing trees, jumping from stone to stone by the seashore, going out in a rowboat, do you call it that? Yeah. And of course in the winter, as a true Norwegian, I did a lot of playing with snow, sledding downhills, skiing a lot, ice skating, yeah, things like that, which you probably do not do a lot of in Australia.

Lukas: Maybe more water skiing than snow skiing over here. Yeah, absolutely. And by the sounds of it, really embodying what you're all about these days in risk and risk in play and that category that you've come to define in your later years. How did you come from exploring, experiencing, to finding yourself in researching this topic?

Ellen Sandseter: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, as you may have understood, I was quite a small risk seeker myself when I was a child, so I was exploring everything and I'm very grateful that I had parents who let me do that and they gave me the freedom to explore whatever I wanted, both in play and also in sporting activities. And when I started my education, I was very interested in risk seeking and sensation seeking, so I did my master's study on twelve to sixteen year old adolescents and how they kind of try to seek their or to get their sensation seeking drive fulfilled. And I found that the ones who didn't have families or neighborhoods or friends where they could do positive risk seeking, many of them ended up with negative risk seeking and some even more on a criminal record. So that was the starting point. And then soon after that I had my first son, my first child, and by that time the Norwegian government had passed the playground safety regulations in Norway and I was walking around in my neighborhood with my little son in a trolley and I saw that the playground suddenly disappeared. And I was thinking, what are they doing with children's play environments? They're just disappearing. And at least all the exciting stuff is disappearing. And also by that time I was engaged in my work at Queen Maud University College for early childhood education, so I was also interested in young children's opportunities for play and movement. Yeah, so that was kind of the interest was sparked because I wanted to see how this would influence children where if we restricted them from exciting play and thrill seeking and risk seeking in their play, is that a good way to develop or is that not so good, which was my thought. So that was the starting point. I wanted to explore, in the first place in the Norwegian context, how this worked out.

Lukas: You touched on it there, the younger children are mostly considered when talking about playing risky play, but you actually started in those adolescent years. How important is play for those forgotten timeline of adolescence?

Ellen Sandseter: Well, they would probably not call it play themselves, but it's very important. There, it's activities, it's friendship, and it's having something to do. And I think a lot of cities, and I know my dear friend and colleague in England, Tim Gill, is very interested in urban play environments and activity environments, and I think that's very important for that age group because they are not on the playgrounds necessarily. They are seeking out in the neighborhoods, in the city, and if you don't have places to play or to be active and to seek to experience risks and thrills and excitement, I think that's a very bad thing for that age group. They will be bored and they will find other ways to try to get that thrill.

Lukas: Yeah, we're kind of in the stage now in Australia where a lot of people are going, oh teens' activities just at the moment. So it seems to be a point of interest. But how much does those informative early years impact how a child plays as a teen?

Ellen Sandseter: The early years, it's kind of the ground for everything you do later on, and we can see that in studies on physical activity that if you kind of lay the ground for the interest and the habits for physical activities in the early years, there's a higher chance that you will keep on being physically active in adults and adolescent time. So I think if you through your childhood learn how to get this thrill seeking needs fulfilled, for at least for those who are high sensation seekers, you will have kind of tools for having those experiences that you need that makes you happy. So I think being able to climb and to ski fast downhill or surf in Australia or whatever is very important so that you don't find other ways and more negative ways for doing it.

Lukas: Yeah, and for those of our listeners that aren't familiar with risk and they're listening to this for the first time, they might be jumping into that default of risk is something to be avoided because they're used to that workplace health and safety and these assessments and risk is bad. So from a play standpoint, could you define what risk in play is for our listeners?

Ellen Sandseter: It's play where you're experiencing thrill and excitement and maybe some unpredictability. You don't know what is going to happen, but there's also a chance for a negative consequence. So you could, if you have bad luck, you could get injured during the activity. And for the very young children, the most important thing of course...

Ellen Sandseter: The thrill is the first part of that, the experience, the excitement, the drill, while the thing that adults usually focus on is the possible negative outcome and that's why many adults are restricting it or even forbid it.

Lukas: Yeah, and risk is for me, I perceive risk, it's inevitable. So why are we trying to protect our children from risk and failure when it's something they're going to have to deal with? What is the impact on the child for those parents listening if they're not exposed to this risk management and create that barometer of risk and hazard?

Ellen Sandseter: Well yes, as you wisely pointed out, nothing is risk-free and the world is certainly not risk-free. So to let your child explore risk and learn how to handle risk step by step during the early years and childhood would actually make them better at managing and assessing risks when you are letting them out in the world and when you no longer monitor them all the time and you have to trust that they are actually managing the world outside. You can be more relaxed because they have actually learned how to manage it. If you're restricting them, they will of course, they will develop physical skills, they will, their motor skills will develop, their cognitive skills will develop, but they will miss out on the experience and they will not have the experience base that they could, that would make them better risk managers. So they will not know for instance that if you climb a tree there could be a rotten branch up there. You can't put your full body weight on that branch without testing it first. That's something you learn and that kind of is a bodily knowledge for children. So yeah, so it's a lot of learning even though for children it's only play, it's also a lot of learning. Yeah, so that's, so it goes, it's about both the physical and motor side of it but also the psychological effects of it.

Lukas: Yeah, and that's something we see time and time again, parents considering that it's just a physical realm. Risk and play's a physical realm. You came to define six categories of risk in play, so I've always been intrigued on what was the process to define that diversity and risk in play?

Ellen Sandseter: Well, I decided to focus my PhD on risky play and I was doing a lot of searching and I found that there were a lot of discussion, at least in media, about risky play and the decline of play and children not allowed to take risks anymore, but none had defined it or categorized it. And I was interested in going out in the field to study it, so I needed some kind of categories and I needed to know what to look for. So I had to start at scratch. So I went out in several preschools and that's barnehager in Norway, it's kind of early years settings, so it's for children from around zero to six when they start school. And I did a lot of observations of how children played and I also did interviews with children and practitioners, teachers in those preschools to explore what risky play was. And so actually it is, yeah, it is teachers, but first and foremost children who have taught me what risky play is and helped me to define those six categories.

Lukas: Any of those children's statements stick with you that really were that light bulb aha moment?

Ellen Sandseter: Yeah, yeah, the scary funny, as you started with, was something that a lot of children said and it was quite funny because at that time, as you said, I had have a PhD in psychology and I was at the department of psychology at the university and there was a lot of emotion researchers there and they told me that children are not able to be aware of having two different feelings at the same time until they are at least eight years old. And I was there talking to three-year-olds and they told me that something was scary and funny at the same time. So I found out that those emotional researchers probably didn't ask the right questions. At least when you talk to children about something that they actually, that was an everyday experience for them, it made more sense and they were able to articulate that. So the ambivalent feeling of doing this kind of play and that it was that the children were so aware of it and so conscious about it was kind of a surprise and it was very, yeah, and very fun I think. And also of course talking to children about risky play is just a gift. All those stories about excitement, about hearts just jumping out of their chests, and they are just laughing and they can't stop. And if they are whittling with knives, all the many liters of blood that came out if they cut themselves. It was dramatic stories, but they were so proud and they were very happy about telling me about it.

Lukas: Can you recall any of those questions that you ask children? Because one of the challenges I find time and time again when you start to talk to children about play and risky play, by asking the question we're kind of asking them to define our interpretation of play. How do you get around that?

Ellen Sandseter: Yeah, that was something I had to give a lot of thought because you can't go to a child, at least in Norway, and ask them what's risky play. They wouldn't understand risk, it's too abstract concept for them. So it was kind of long conversations where we talked about what made them feel afraid when they were playing, what made them feel thrilled and excited, when did they think something was too scary and when was it just about enough scary. Yeah, things like that. And it was quite open interviews and conversations so that they could define themselves. And that image of the children with knives that I've had in my presentation so much, I'm still blown away to see the reaction of the participants with these little hands holding sticks and having knives and they freak out still.

Lukas: Children are, I've done a lot of child interviews and child conversations during a lot of my different projects in my research, and children are very good interviewees. They are very bodily in their way of expressing their answers. Yeah, we were just fortunate enough to put together a childhood summit where we had 15 keynote speakers and it was all children. And then we did the child friendly cities research where children articulating what they like and don't like in their suburbs and then recreating their suburbs as they see fit. And asking the children the questions around okay, why have you chosen to put a spa here? And one little girl, it was great, she says it's not for the children. I said okay, who's it for? She says oh, it's for the parents. Why the parents need the spa? Because they just need to relax. Why do they need to relax? And she says oh, because if they don't relax they'll just yell at us over the littlest thing. And I was like, only a child could give you that answer. And it always rocks me, some of the answers and some of the really heartfelt stories about children's experiences in their neighborhood. And sitting down and having the conversation, you obviously captured that child voice really beautifully. When it comes to those categories of risk and play, can you just give a quick breakdown? We've talked about these six categories and now listeners like, what are they?

Ellen Sandseter: Yeah, well the most popular one, both in what I saw the most in observations and also the first thing that both the children and the teachers talked about, was playing at great heights. So that would be when children are climbing in play structures or up in trees or jumping down from high places or swinging with a high pendulum so that they are high up, everything that goes on up in the air. And I haven't defined how many meters or feet or anything like that because this is a very subjective feeling when you kind of think that you are high enough for having this thrill and excitement. And of course the risk here is to fall down and injure yourself. The second category or second most popular category was play with high speed, which was yeah, sledding fast, running fast, bicycling fast, skating fast, skiing fast.

Ellen Sandseter: all these things when you have you kind of have a speed where you're not able to stop at the second so you can crash into something or someone around you and then you have a rough and tumble play where you play fighting play chasing play wrestling wrestling with sticks all of this kind of roughhousing fighting place and then you have play near dangerous elements and I know actually during my PhD work I was in Sydney in Australia for a period at Macquarie University and I found out that play near dangerous elements is quite a Scandinavian thing because in our preschools we often go on hikes to forest areas and nature areas and there you don't have fences you have maybe cliffs you have deep water things like that so dangerous elements where children are playing nearby and maybe they're not so focused on the dangerous ailments so the practitioners and teachers were very focused on that that this could be a risk and then you have a play where children go exploring alone where there's a chance that they could get lost and that's also a category where you're not in the fenced playground in the preschool so you go out you could go out to a forest area and the children are allowed to go on a little hike on their own so they had to take responsibility for what their yeah where they're going and if they're able to find back by themselves to take responsibility for their own choices and the last one is play with dangerous tools where children are allowed to play with knives hammering nails maybe ropes and even in Norway in nature and outdoor preschools they have they're able to use saws and in some occasions also actually axes

Lukas: excellent excellent and you'll be happy to know the forest school has been hugely accepted in Australia we rebranded it as bush kindy and a lot of early childhood centers across Australia have a bush kindy program where they go out and use the vegetation around them to explore we've got an amazing body called Nature Play and they're in each state and they'll actually go out and support people to do their risk assessments and be able to liberate the children from the fences

Ellen Sandseter: that's great great to hear

Lukas: with these categories and risk in play from an evolutionary standpoint if we're engaging in an activity that could cause injury death you remember just a few generations ago a broken leg could mean death why is it still so important to our learning self-discovery to risk injury to risk death for the sake of exploration

Ellen Sandseter: yeah evolutionary it's I mean it's quite a paradox that we're kind of we're born with an urge to seek risk and it could injure us and even kill us when and also evolutionary it's a paradox because the in evolution our main goal is to survive and to reproduce so and but that is only kind of giving us a stronger argument that this must have a function it will also evolutionary you know human beings are probably the most helpless individuals or creatures when we're born you know horses are after a little while standing up on their feet and start to walk while human beings were kind of lying on our backs and we're not able to walk or do anything ourselves and to help and we have very slow development the first years compared to other species so evolutionary we have been born with some fears that will help us not kill ourselves in the beginning of our lives so for instance we have an innate fear for great heights so that we're not just crawling out on top of a cliff or a great height and we have an innate fear for deep water so that we're not just jumping into water and killing ourselves before we can swim and these fears we have in our early childhood but they're helping us to survive but we're not supposed to keep these fears the rest of our lives that would be very impractical so during play where we're exploring these fears and these fear stimulus and trying and learning how to handle them

Lukas: am I answering the right question

Ellen Sandseter: absolutely

Lukas: I think what's beautiful about that is talking about that the vulnerability of birth being in such a vulnerable state not being able to move and everything like that but it's gone we're born vulnerable yet we spend the rest of our lives trying not to be but it's through vulnerability and the acceptance of failure that actually empowers us to move beyond our vulnerability and find strength

Ellen Sandseter: yeah and we need that urge to explore the unknown and things that could be a little risky and that could trigger a little fear because if we're not if we didn't have that urge we would not develop so for instance when a one and a half two year old child is standing up and taking his or her first step it's a huge risk they've never done it before they don't know if the foot would hold in the step they're letting their arms go they have kind of tried it with their arms hold on to something but they don't know if they will just fall if they when they try but still we have the urge to do it and all human beings normally developing human beings are walking and they learn by themselves how to walk so and this goes for all those physical and motor skill development that we have if we didn't have the drive to test the drive to explore the drive to try new and unknown movements we would not develop

Lukas: yeah like risk is the ingredient for innovation you know you're pushing beyond the boundaries you're pushing this might work it might not and if you're not have a strong enough disposition and develop that disposition in your youth how are you going to do that in your later years

Ellen Sandseter: yeah and that's a good point because there's a lot of researchers who also parallel risk seeking like physical risk seeking with the social and economic risk seeking and you know if we didn't have people that was willing to put their heads on the block in you know development within well innovations we would probably not be where we are as human beings and the world society today

Lukas: yeah I love the example of surviving as the hunter in the farmer's world the hunters out there taking the risk going I'm going to chase the thing that's scary I'm going to chase the risk but we also need the farmers but what we can't have is a world of farmers staying safe and just focusing on these very secure tested and proven processes

Ellen Sandseter: yeah and that's a good point because the critique on evolutionary theories and evolutionary psychology is that if if we kind of look to that everyone would be similar survival of the fittest but that's not that's not the case evolution secures that we are diverse enough to be able to develop as a group of people as a community as a society

Lukas: yeah and it makes me reflect and think of a line that I've read many times of yours it's about experiencing uncertainty and the feeling of coming out alive

Ellen Sandseter: yeah that's a great one it's a great experience and I think I think children experience it they're probably not so conscious that it's a life and death matter and mostly they're not taking you know that high risks so it's life threatening but for adults it's you know sensation seekers who are base jumping parachuting doing all those kinds of things that's the description that they have and that they're feeling so they're feeling so alive they're feeling so close to life when they're doing it and it's because it's close to death

Lukas: yeah absolutely and it's not a matter of adrenaline it's dopamine it's my understanding when yeah there's everyone's like oh they're an adrenaline seeker no adrenaline doesn't actually isn't fun the dopamine of surviving and coming out the other side is the scratch the adrenaline sharpens you but the dopamine gives you the rush

Ellen Sandseter: yeah yeah you mentioned there about the psychology considering like physical and emotional risk

Lukas: For you and your research and being involved in this topic for so long, where do you sit in your opinion with it? Is it one and the other or they're both synergistic?

Ellen Sandseter: Well, they're both. Since I come from physical education and sport, I was interested in the physical part of risky play, and also because most of the things that I saw when adults tried to restrict risky play was physical - like cutting down branches on trees, removing playground equipment, things like that. So that was my starting point. But of course there are many kinds of risks and I'm doing research also on bullying among children and that's more of an emotional risk, as also social risk. Being like taking the risk of inviting yourself into play with other children - that is a huge risk. You could be rejected and that's not a good feeling. So of course there are many kinds of risks. It just happened that I started to focus on the physical.

Lukas: Yeah, and I love the look on people's faces when you start to talk about risk and you know they're thinking of that default - the tree and they're climbing a tree and falling - and then to open up the realm that for some children the biggest risk they could be exposed to is going to play with a group and having that social interaction. A question: does the deprivation of physical risk impact the emotional well-being?

Ellen Sandseter: Yeah, we have data on that actually, or at least we have data on the association between risky play and children's well-being. So it's quite a strong association between that. So when children are allowed to play, to do risky play, the well-being goes up. And I think it's both the lack of the mastery experiences and the excitement and as you said the thrill and the dopamine. And it's also I think due to the lack of freedom and autonomy - being able to decide yourself and feeling that you're in control of your own everyday life. So if you have an interest in engaging in risky play and are not allowed or restricted from it, it's not a good thing for your well-being.

Lukas: Was there any parts - I'm not just referring to that study specifically, you've done many, written many papers on the subject - what are there any standouts that really surprised you in your research that you were like "wow, didn't anticipate that"?

Ellen Sandseter: One thing that surprised me was how accurately children were able - so that young children were able to assess risk when we talked about it and how conscious they were about the risk that they were taking. You might think that children just you know, throwing themselves out in play and not thinking of what they're doing, but they were very aware of it. They were very concentrated. And what I saw was that the worst thing that the adults could do was to shout at the children and tell them to be careful, because then they were taking them out of this concentration, and that's when injuries happen - when they're not being able to concentrate on this and how to handle it.

I was also a bit surprised, or at least I learned something about my own country, because I started this project and this research as I said because I was frustrated on Norwegian playground rules and what we did to the play environments of our children. And I thought we were very restrictive on children's play. But it took me just one or two international conferences and then I found out that we're quite liberal in Norway and in Scandinavia. So I was surprised how bad it was for children out there in the world, at least in the western world. And like when I came to Australia I thought you were the outdoor ultimate outdoor people, the kind of cradle for extreme sport, and I came to a country where children weren't allowed to do anything. And my colleagues told me it had happened in probably just one generation - the surplus safety and you know the safety hysteria. I looked at England and the USA and I really saw that, well at least I went back home to Norway and thought I have to protect what we already have.

Lukas: 100%. And I think the observation I've made is that adoption of the American culture around news around children's physical activity, it's like not even close to the Scandinavian models. And that's why as I became an educator reading the Scandinavian papers and yours, that was like "this stuff is going to work."

Ellen Sandseter: I think what I also discovered was how good Norwegian and Scandinavian children were to assess and handle risks even at a very young age. And I've also had a lot of researchers coming to Norway to visit nature and outdoor preschools who are amazed how independent they are, how they manage any kind of topography, terrain, elements even when they're you know one and a half to two and a half years old. They're really skilled at a very young age. But that's kind of a circle you know, so because in Norway we let children explore at such a young age, they get skilled and we relax more because we know that they will handle it. If you're not letting them and not observing them managing it, you will be anxious of what could happen and it would be just a kind of a negative spiral. So that's also an important message I think.

Lukas: Yeah, and when you're going to share this message with other countries and coming to Australia, you're in America where it is more of the surplus safety vibe, what's the messaging you use to create the culture of courage for our children?

Ellen Sandseter: Well, it's quite difficult. I just have to present my research and try to be as clear as possible on the empirical data that we have and the knowledge that we have. But I know that in many countries just using the word "risk" is controversial, at least in the US they're not very happy about that word. And I think different cultures should use whatever concept or word that they like as long as they know that they're talking about the same thing and that it is about risk. It is the risk that makes us restrict children's play. I think the most important message is the benefits that children get from engaging in that kind of play and also what they miss out on, and that if you're not letting them explore risks at a young age and in their childhood, they would probably have a higher chance of getting injured when they're older because they missed out on that.

Lukas: I feel like we're shooting ourselves in the foot a bit by preaching so loudly on risky play, and I'll unpack that due to the perception of risk being bad and plus it removes the listener from the fact that everything can have risk. What's your way of conveying the benefits to like a parent that's really risk adverse?

Ellen Sandseter: Well it's a little bit about the same thing and I'm asked to have a lot of lectures and presentations at the Norwegian preschools and I always say to the staff I would like to talk to both you and the parents at the same time. It's good because usually they have discussed this or they have had a case of something that made this come to the surface. And coming in as a neutral person that don't have any opinion on this particular preschool, I could tell them my research results, I could tell them about the benefits, what the children are missing out on. And it's not only development, it's also experiences as I said, well-being, having a great time. And then they could discuss themselves how they will manage this. And I usually also tell the staff in the preschools that this should be a topic on the parents meetings and also in - at least in Norway we have conversations between the pedagog and the parents about the child - and in all those meetings this should also be a topic: how much risk do the children manage, what do the preschool want to allow for that child, are the parents happy with that, and if you have done that...

Ellen Sandseter: That before something happens, an injury or something, it would be much easier to resolve it when something happens because you won't be trying to shoot the other person or blame the other part. That said, I've also done research on injuries in Norwegian preschools and we don't have almost no serious injuries. So it's actually not a problem if you let children learn how to manage risks. They will manage risks, get good care of themselves, and the injuries won't happen. Small bumps and scrapes, yes, we have a lot of those, but serious injuries, no. And many people say to me, well you must have a lot of injuries in Norwegian preschools since they're allowed to do so many crazy things, but we don't. And that's I think a result of letting them try this at an early age.

Lukas: We recently did an article with the ABC News network in Australia and we visited one of our early childhood centers that we renovated and they had about a 60% drop in incidents in one year by adding the diverse categories of risk and play into their playground.

Ellen Sandseter: Exactly, that's a great conversation. That's a great example.

Lukas: And even the director was like, "I'm scared someone might die," like not being serious but she was just conveying how nervous she is about, you know, we had a 1.6 meter platform that the children can go out on and previously the highest thing they went on was 600 millimeters high.

Ellen Sandseter: Oh yeah, but also it was strange but it was proof. But also for parents I think, talking to parents, my advice is to go out and play with the children. They should play with them if they're invited in. If they're not invited into the play, at least they should observe them so that they get to know what the children can manage. I think that's the thing that preschool teachers and preschool practitioners, they are more knowledgeable about the child's competencies usually than the parents because their practitioners are spending more time with the children around the children when they're playing. So they actually know more about the child in that sense, while parents are busy with after school activities, with dinner, with homeworks, with other children, so they don't spend that amount of time playing with or around the child, being around the child. So getting to know your child's competencies will make you relax more because you would know that they're able, they can handle to climb that high in the tree, and then you can also take a step back and wait a while until you go into the situation and try to resolve it or help the child. You could wait and see if they can manage it themselves because you can be more relaxed. And I guess Tim Gill told you about the seven second rules which we both experienced in Toronto actually. We visited a preschool there together and the staff there told us they have used the 17 second rule and they always counted to 17 before they intervened in something that they thought was scary. I also had a preschool teacher student several years back and she told me she had glue in her pockets, that was the same thing. So when she wanted to intervene in something, she put her hands in her pockets and imagined she had glue in her pockets so she couldn't intervene, and then she always waited a bit longer and then everything resolved.

Lukas: It would prompt the response, not the reaction. Is there any certain play theory that you use as a framework within your study?

Ellen Sandseter: Play theory? No, not the play theory is the underlying thing but any... Well, it's not a play theory but my work heavily rests on the theory of affordances. This is more universal ecological theory, but it's about how we as humans or any species interpret our environment and how we utilize our environment, like what kind of behavior, actions, activities we feel that our environment invites us to do. So that's more like, it's a little bit more unconscious and sometimes of course also conscious, but it's more perception of the environment around us. So when a child sees a tree, children are more interpreting their environment more functionally than adults. So if the child sees a tree it would see, "Is this a climbable tree?" while an adult would probably look at it and say, "That's a beautiful tree, it's green, it has beautiful flowers," and the climbing part is not that prominent anymore.

Lukas: That makes perfect sense. You are continuing your research. What research are you getting into at the moment and what are you excited about with that?

Ellen Sandseter: Well, at the moment I'm finishing a project about how to develop good physical environments in preschools both indoors and outdoors where we've had 86 children for a longer period and we've looked at exactly that theory of affordances and how children utilize their environment for play and how we can change the environment to promote even more play and different kind of diversity of play. And in that project we also looked at risky play and we had the opportunity because we had a large data material, we had the opportunity to look at the prevalence of risky play. And we found that within all this play that children engaged in when they were allowed to play freely and no one told them what to do, we found around 10% of risky play and it was a little bit above 13% outdoors and surprisingly, more than I thought, indoors in the indoor environment because we found more than 7% of the play indoors was also risky play. And interesting, well this is Scandinavia, it's Norway, there were no gender differences so girls engaged in it just as much as boys. And we didn't find any age differences so it seems like it's a universal kind of play that all children want to engage in. And it's quite a prominent kind of play, around 10% is the same as we found on symbolic play actually.

Lukas: Symbolic play being role play, drama, like dramatic play?

Ellen Sandseter: Yeah, yeah.

Lukas: Awesome. I look forward to you sharing it. I'll share it with everyone I can. Thank you so much for joining us. Finally, what's excited you most about the research you've done and the research that you continue to do in the field of risk and play? Sorry, well once again, what are you most excited about in the field of risk and play at the moment?

Ellen Sandseter: I'm very excited that so many people are interested in this subject like you and other researchers, so that we are more and more researchers that are actually doing and getting knowledge about this. And also I'm very excited that more and more countries are trying to turn around this safety focused notion and culture. And also here in Norway I'm very happy that the last curriculum for preschools in Norway actually has risky play in it and it's now by law that preschool teachers in Norway are supposed to let children engage in risky play and learn how to manage risks.

Lukas: Well another feel-good thing for you to wrap up today. As a part of the Early Years Learning Framework, the centers are assessed every three years, assessment and rating, they go through an assessment and rating process and if you want to achieve an exceeding standard of education in your center, you have to show evidence of children engaging in risk and play.

Ellen Sandseter: Great, that really warms my heart. That's very...

Lukas: So we're trying to fight back the missing generation, going back to beyond the good old days and doing something from a real ethical loving place. So thank you so much for giving us this beautiful framework to work from. Thank you so much for continuing your research and inspiring me personally to get this message out here. As a child growing up with risk and being one of six boys and then moving into an environment in schools as I progressed through schools that stripped that away, I just, you inspired me to be that influence that turns us around for children. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Ellen Sandseter: Thank you very much for this very nice conversation and for inviting me here.