As you get older, fear becomes a negative experience that should be avoided as much as possible. However, as you know, toddlers like to play in a risky way.
Playing in a risky way means combining the excitement of free play in a scary way, resulting in a feeling known as adrenaline. What’s more, coupled with a high curiosity, children are easily triggered by a sense of adrenaline.
No need to go far outside the house, stairs can be the most dangerous place for your little one. It’s all too easy to trip and fall down stairs, but toddlers don’t know it yet. Once he begins to walk, he is easily attracted to the stairs like a magnet.
No matter how many times you try to keep the child off the stairs, the child just wants to walk back there. Why does this happen?
Here Thevolume.net will discuss in detail below and important tips that you need to know. Let’s see!
6 risk categories that attract children’s attention while playing
Reporting from Psychologytoday.com, Ellen Sandseter, a professor at Queen Maud University in Trondheim, Norway, has identified six risk categories that seem to attract children’s attention wherever they play. This is:
1. Incredible altitude
Children climb trees and other buildings from scary heights, here children can see the view from above and thrilling feeling.
2. High speed
The child swings on vines, ropes, or swings in the playground, slides on a skateboard, ski, skate, or playground slide, and rides a bicycle, skateboard, or other device quickly enough to produce an uncontrollable sensation.
3. Dangerous tools
Depending on the culture, children may play with knives, bows and arrows, or other tools known to be potentially dangerous.
Of course there is great satisfaction in a child playing with such tools, but there is also a sense of pleasure in controlling them, even though the child may know that a little mistake can hurt him.
4. Dangerous element
Children like to play with fire, or around deep water, both of which pose a danger.
5. Rough and falling
Children usually chase each other, fight playfully and they usually prefer to be in the most vulnerable position.
Meanwhile those who are being chased or who are in a position are most at risk of being hurt, and require a lot of skill to overcome them.
6. Disappear or get lost
Little children who play hide and seek, love to experience the sensation of a temporary separation from their friends.
While older people are immediately filled with dangerous shadows, including the dangers of getting lost while exploring, being alone, moving away from adults, or going into new territory.
Not only humans, other young mammals also enjoy risky games
Other young mammalian creatures also enjoy risky play. Young monkeys love to swing from branch to branch on trees, young chimpanzees love to fall from high branches.
Young mammals of most species, not just humans, spend a lot of time chasing each other and playing fights, and they also generally prefer the most vulnerable positions.
The obvious question about playing risky is, “Why did that happen?” because it can cause injury sometimes serious injury, and even death. However, this has been shown in laboratory studies with animals to provide some clues.
Researchers discovered game emotion regulation theory from research in mammals
Reporting from Psychologytoday.com, researchers have tried to eliminate risky play in young mice during a critical phase of their development, but without depriving them of other social experiences.
Rats raised without play run the risk of growing up to be emotionally paralyzed. When placed in a new environment, they overreact with fear and fail to adapt and explore like normal mice.
When placed with an unfamiliar companion, they may take turns freezing in fear, then attacking with inappropriate and ineffective aggression.
In previous experiments, similar findings occurred when young monkeys were prohibited from playing. These discoveries have contributed to the theory of game emotion regulation. The theory is that one of the main functions of play is to teach young mammals how to manage fear and anger.
A child can behave adaptively when experiencing fear
In places of risk, children actually fill themselves with a number of fears that can be controlled by practicing keeping their heads up and behaving adaptively when experiencing those fears.
Children also learn that they can manage their fears, overcome them, and survive. In rough and tumble play, the child may also experience anger, as the opponent may inadvertently injure the child.
But in order to continue playing, to continue the fun, the child must overcome the anger. If he attacks, it’s game over.
So, according to play emotion regulation theory, the way young mammals learn to control their fear and anger so that they can face dangers in real life, and interact in close quarters with other people, without succumbing to negative emotions.
Even though they play risky games, children also know their capacity to take risks
Children are highly motivated to play in risky ways, but they are also good at knowing their own capacities and avoiding risks they are not ready to take, both physically and emotionally.
Little ones actually know much better before Mama thinks what the child is preparing. On the other hand, when adults pressure or even encourage children to take risks that they are not prepared for, the result may be trauma, not sensation.
There are great differences among children, even among children of the same age, size, and strength. What is exciting for one child may be traumatic for another.
So that’s Mom, the reason why children often play or do risky things. As mentioned earlier, risk games may not only be outside the home, but also inside the house, for example, such as playing near stairs.
So that your child avoids the danger of falling down the stairs, you can follow some of the tips below!
Tips for making stairs at home safe and free from accidents
Stairs can be the most dangerous place in the house for your little one. As a parent, one of your responsibilities is to maintain a safe place for your child. Here are the steps to make stairs safe and free from accidents:
- Keep children off the ladder until they are ready to climb it
- Teach children to always use the safety fence.
- Install the stair railing and backrest
- Install the carpet on the stairs, the carpet can protect the child from slipping
- Install baby gates at the top and bottom of your stairs to avoid ladder-related injuries
- Keep the ladder free of toys and clutter.
Yup, that’s information about why children like to play or do risky things. Always pay attention to the child when he chooses to play alone, Mom, both inside and outside the house so that children are protected from danger when playing. Hope the information is useful!
