Introduction

Play is an important element in early childhood education and care (ECEC) (Imai et al., 2022). Among the different types of play, the concept of risky play has gained attention as a result of perspectives from children and supervising teachers (Sandseter, 2007, 2009; Spencer et al., 2021). Risky play is defined as “thrilling and challenging forms of play that have the potential for physical injury and has been linked to developmental and health benefits for children in the early years” (Obee et al., 2020, p. 99), and this definition applies in Western as well as Asian countries.

Although risky play such as climbing and playing at high speed can be both dangerous and scary—for both children and parents—these experiences allow children to learn to negotiate risks (van Rooijen & Newstead, 2017), navigate uncertainty, and acquire coping skills to lessen anxiety (Dodd & Lester, 2021). Children learn confidence as they overcome fear. Children’s exposure to risk and emotion develops the prefrontal cortex, which is a part of the brain that manages risk and controls emotion (Keeler, 2020).

Nevertheless, this conflict between danger and benefits causes conflicts for adults who instead of simply prohibiting risky play would like to support children in how to navigate the risks (Spencer et al., 2021). Moreover, the task can be especially difficult in the context of differing perceptions of what constitutes risky play among different adults including educators (Keles & Yurt, 2020; Cevher-Kalburan & Ivrendi, 2016; Dodd & Lester, 2021; Niehues et al., 2015) as well as between or among different cultures (McFarland & Laird, 2018; Sandseter et al., 2019). These scenarios suggest that more discussion is needed from diverse cultural perspectives on risky play for children, such as from Asian countries. Accordingly, with this study, we aimed to understand the following two research questions. First, how do Japanese ECEC specialists perceive risky play based on their own childhood experiences? Second, how do their experiences inform their current practices as ECEC providers in charge of preschoolers’ activities?

Adults’ Perceptions of Risky Play and Cultural Background

Parents’ and practitioners’ perceptions of children’s risky play differ across countries and cultures (Brussoni et al., 2017; Cooke et al., 2021; Jevtić et al., 2021; McFarland & Laird, 2018). For example, Sandseter et al.'s (2019) study on similarities and differences in adults’ perceptions and tolerance of risky play in five European countries highlighted environmental influences. Correspondingly, in a detailed review of risk in childhood and ECE, Cooke et al. (2021) investigated health and protectionist viewpoints among largely Western-thinking practitioners.

Practitioners’ different perceptions have been based on their age, gender, and personality (Sandseter, 2013), but researchers have not considered cultural values. In many countries, ECEC centers incorporate guidelines for safety including safe play. These measures aim to ensure children’s safety, but they can also restrict children’s experiences. Accordingly, more strategies, including professional programs and providing children with opportunities for risky experiences (van Rooijen & Jacobs, 2019), are needed to improve the quality of ECEC practice (Keeler, 2020).

Researchers have explored barriers to risky play to facilitate practitioners’ increased flexibility in terms of determining the risk of children’s play activities (van Rooijen & Newstead, 2017). Instead of conducting a risk–benefit analysis, Van Rooijen and Newstead (2017) explored five interrelated factors through Bronfenbrenner’s (1973) ecological model: children’s constructs, personal attitudes toward risk, professional–parent relationships, regulatory factors, and cultural factors. The authors put forth that professionals typically must juggle potentially conflicting priorities related to providing a secure play environment versus creating opportunities for children’s development, independence, and competence. Keles and Yurt (2020) also analyzed practitioners’ childhood experiences and compared these with their judgments in practice, but they only identified specific practices within categories of play activities such as climbing trees to represent play at great heights and swings for high speed; therefore, there is still not a full picture of ECEC practitioners’ childhood play experiences.

Without focusing on specific childhood play experiences, researchers have also explored the origins of practitioners’ individual risk attitudes, for instance, Hill and Bundy (2012), who measured preschool teachers’ attitudes with a risk tolerance scale using 31 items of children’s play reflecting six categories of risky play (Sandseter, 2007, 2009). The authors found that the teachers’ attitudes differed according to gender and personality, although they generally did not support many excitement-seeking activities in work settings (Hill & Bundy, 2012).

As van Rooijen and Newstead (2017) showed, the different dimensions that affect practitioners’ judgments regarding risky play are intertwined, leaving multiple dimensions for research attention. Kawaguchi et al.’s (2018) students who were training to become ECEC practitioners showed different personal attitudes regarding their childhood experiences of playing in nature. However, there is a dearth of studies on practitioners’ memories of childhood risky play experiences, which should be corrected particularly because overall, limited evidence is available on the diversity of ECEC practitioners’ life experiences, especially considering the extensive changes in play environments over the years. Thus, evaluating practitioners’ childhood experiences is important in understanding their perspectives about risky play, as well as the culture of play surrounding them.

Risky Play in Japan

In Japan, there is scholarly discussion of risky play among preschoolers. Senda (2018) contends that Japanese children’s lack of outdoor experience is caused by limitations imposed by adults who are worried about natural hazards and crimes against children. Imai et al. (2022) supported this hypothesis and rationalized it as the reason that Japanese caregivers make it difficult for preschoolers to engage in risky play even in free play environments. This occurs even when facilities have been specifically designed to create inclusively safe spaces for children (Matsushima, 2019).

Three types of ECEC centers are available in Japan, namely, kindergartens, integrated centers, and childcare centers, which vary in services provided according to parents’ different needs. All centers and their activities, however, are geared toward learning through the environment and through child-initiated play. Another significant feature of Japanese ECEC practice is to observe children at play while intervening minimally, subject to a safe environment, which is called “mimamoru” (Hayashi & Tobin, 2015).

Despite these similarities, environments differ among centers, and outdoor spaces are not always available; in response, some centers use nearby parks or public spaces as their playgrounds. Similarly, although kindergartens and integrated centers often have playgrounds attached, ECEC practitioners have expressed their dissatisfaction with the adequacy of these outdoor spaces (Tsujitani & Miyata, 2017). Based on these reports, there appear to be no clear standards regarding particular types of play and playground equipment in Japan, and the ECEC guidelines do not mention risky play. Some ECEC centers do not provide children an environment with opportunities for risky play, such as high items that enable climbing, jumping, hanging/dangling, or balancing (Tsujitani et al., 2019).

The caution among Japanese ECEC providers could be because in the past, accidents, serious injuries, and the general lack of safety management in Japanese childcare centers were worrisome (Fukoin, 2021). The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2016) provided a guideline for safety management in childcare centers, but it does not include risky play. However, parks typically post signs suggesting age-appropriate equipment and instructions for their safe use (Japan Park Facilities Association, 2021).

Strategies are necessary for safety management, but such restrictions in minimally challenging environments can limit the possibilities of children’s physical development and thrill activation (Smith, 1998). Practitioners also tend to be concerned about climate or other environmental factors that can make play dangerous such as slippery equipment after a rain (Tsujitani & Miyata, 2017). In addition, outdoor environments in urban areas are often inadequate for children’s play because it can be difficult to supervise free play (Imai et al., 2022), as mentioned previously, and more restrictions tend to be set in children’s play in urban areas.

Thoughts and practices can also differ between new and expert teachers (Noda & Yamada, 2018) and between practitioners and parents (Tamura & Suzuki, 2020). However, there is little evidence of practitioners’ childhood experiences or of the impacts of these memories on their caregiving practices. By exploring ECEC specialists’ memories, perceptions, and attitudes toward risky play, we could come to think of risky play in terms of promoting as well as restricting play.

It is difficult to objectively capture a broad spectrum of thoughts or memories or actions through observation or interviews; these are better techniques for understanding detailed memories from individuals. A larger, more informative data set requires a method with broader reach, such as the use of a survey, which allows for collecting data from broad populations. We, therefore, used a survey in order to compare play practices across a variety of ECEC settings in urban areas.

Research Aim

Based on the previous discussion and the evident lack of research in this area within the Japanese context, we had two aims with this study. The first was to examine ECEC specialists’ childhood play as they recalled it including their perceptions of how risky their play had been and then to explore the relationship between their past experiences and their present practices regarding risky play. The second was to explore conditions for play, including risky play, in urban areas of Japan, where there can be limits to how fast or far children can run around or limited opportunities to learn to negotiate risky play such as around natural features or on playground equipment that could be risky. As mentioned earlier, exactly how play is handled varies greatly from center to center depending on both physical facilities and environments and the practitioners at a given center. The aim of this study, however, was not to reveal actual conditions of individual centers but to gain general perspectives on the views of ECEC specialists in urban areas on risky play for children in their facilities from the perspectives of how they had played as children.

Materials and Methods

The research design was a survey that was part of a previous study about rules and customs in Japanese ECEC centers (Tsujitani, 2021). In terms of safety management, children’s play is frequently restricted or bounded by rules (Kaneko et al., 2013). For instance, entering certain places might be prohibited, it might be forbidden to jump from high places or to climb or engage in roughhousing, and certain playground equipment might be limited to specific ages.

For this study, we considered that rules around play and safety will vary from center to center but also from practitioner to practitioner, and we proposed that practitioners’ views and practices might vary depending on their own experiences with play. Therefore, for this study, we conducted a survey to examine urban Japanese ECEC specialists' (anyone working in the space whether or not they care for their classes of children) memories of their childhood risky play and then analyzed their responses to determine if there were connections between respondents’ childhood experiences with risky play and how they managed play, safety, and risk at their centers.

Participants and Procedure

We designed a questionnaire that asked respondents about their memories of childhood including play, the most risky or dangerous play they remembered engaging in as children, and any play currently prohibited at their centers based on safety. We administered the survey between June and August 2019, sending it to 636 ECEC centers within six wards in Tokyo; however, only 190 ECEC centers responded (30% response rate). Of that number, 471 respondents completed the questionnaires. We asked practitioners in charge of a particular group or class of children to answer with respect to the specific children in their care, whereas we asked respondents without a particular classroom, or directors, principal teachers, semi-principal teachers, or chief teachers, to discuss children aged 3–5 years in general. Table 1 presents the roles of the survey respondents.

Table 1 Roles of Participants
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Specifically, we asked two main questions for the data analyses. The first was an open-ended question about the most dangerous play activities the respondents had engaged in as children within broad categories of risky play, and the second was about the types of play the respondents stopped children from engaging in at their centers. Following the main questionnaire was a set of questions on individual practitioner details: respondent’s job position, age composition of charges, years of experience as a practitioner, and on-the-job and childhood play preferences.

The study was approved by the ethics committee of our university of affiliation at the time of the research (Approval number: 201903). Participants were advised that responses to the questionnaires were voluntary, and only participants who agreed to the publication of the data would be included. Completed individual (anonymous) responses were placed in an envelope, collected at each center, and returned, and after the data analyses, we sent the results to the survey respondents after analysis as reference materials for their future practice.

Data Analysis

When we analyzed the responses to the two questions (see Fig. 1), we analyzed the specialists’ responses on their childhood experiences first, which we did because our first study purpose was to understand Japanese ECEC practitioners’ own memories of how they played. We analyzed the data from their current practices second because our second study purpose was to understand if their childhood experiences informed how they performed their caretaker roles in the present day. The answers to the first question were independently coded as shown in Fig. 2 by a graduate student in child studies.

Fig. 1
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Layout of questions

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Fig. 2
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Process of coding answers to question 1

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The intercoder reliability by Cohen (1960)’s kappa was κ = 0.65 for the large categories and κ = 0.48 for the small categories, and we made final determinations for unmatched categories after consultation. I only included in the analysis of Question 2 the large categories, for which there was the good agreement (κ = 0.65) according to Byrt (1996). For the second question, we gave six categories of risky play: great heights, high speed, dangerous elements, disappear or get lost, dangerous tools (Sandseter, 2007), and “other.” For each item, participants were required to write down concrete play rules if they existed.

In a study of children under age 3 (Kleppe et al., 2017), the researchers included a category they called “playing with impact,” but we did not include this category because our interest was in older children. We then analyzed the participants’ responses to what types of play were restricted at their centers. The results of the first question were compared with the presence or absence of statements for each category in the second question, using cross-tabulation and chi-square analysis.

Results

Respondents’ Childhood Experiences of Dangerous Play

Table 2 presents the findings for the respondents’ childhood experiences of dangerous play. Among the respondents to this question (n = 332), the largest proportion (36.1%) reported play involving great heights, and 14.2% reported playing with dangerous elements. Overall, in their reminiscences of their own childhood play, respondents named six types of individual play activities related to heights and added the category of exploring dangerous areas such as ruins, construction sites, and rocky tracts.

Table 2 Respondents’ Dangerous Play in Childhood
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As shown in the category of “Answers without detailed explanation of play,” some respondents (9.6%) only gave general answers about equipment that is generally found in Japanese parks (e.g., “a swing,” “playground equipment,” “a seesaw”). However, in the absence of more detail from them, we could not know why these pieces of equipment had been dangerous for the respondents who named them. Moreover, some respondents referred to playground equipment called “spinning towers” and “box swings,” which are relatively scarce in Japanese parks. This type of equipment was removed because it caused serious injuries (“Kiken” yugu 162 ki wo tekkyo he fukuisikyoui, kaisento jiko de/ fukui, August 18, 2000). Respondents may also perceive them as “dangerous” upon hearing such news of accidents and removal, regardless of their own experiences of danger or injuries. Conversely, some respondents (12.3%) reported no experience of risky play owing to their personalities or their fears.

Play Activities Respondents Restricted in Daily ECEC Practices

Table 3 presents the play practices that the survey respondents said they prohibited at their centers. The category with the most responses was great heights followed by activities related to high speed and rough-and-tumble play; this finding was consistent with the fact that the largest proportion of respondents had named playing around great heights as dangerous play they had engaged in as children. In contrast, only a few mentioned play at high speed or rough-and-tumble play during childhood.

Table 3 Current Play Practices that Respondents Restrict Because of Danger
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In responses to play activities related to heights, respondents said they prohibited stacking paraphernalia such as tires or blocks to great heights, a practice that no respondents said they engaged in as children. Next, in responses about play related to high speed, some respondents said they prohibited running in situations such as when there were many children in a narrow space or when younger children were playing in the same area. Moreover, some answers highlighted how respondents encouraged children to take care of themselves while not referring to specific ways to avoid dangers.

The respondents’ answers about play near dangerous elements at their current workplaces were different from the play they described having engaged in during childhood. Swings and slides were the equipment respondents most often named as dangerous; a moving swing can hit a child, and slides can act as tripping hazards. The second dangerous element respondents mentioned was water, because many centers or community centers have pools available, but only two respondents mentioned having played around water as children (ponds, rivers).

Respondents also said they watched with care around the roads near the parks where they took their children, and a few referred to fire. Interestingly, some participants said there were no dangerous elements at their centers that could harm children. However, this suggests that these children are losing out on experiences of navigating risk such as how to find their way after becoming lost or negotiating a tall tree.

Relationships Between Childhood Experiences and ECEC Practices

Table 4 shows the associations between the respondents’ own childhood experiences with risky play and how they restricted the play of the children in their care in the present day (or their general ideas if they did not directly teach any children), which we examined using cross-tabulation and chi-square analysis. We found that the relationships between the categories of risky play restrictions and risky play experiences were not significant. The numbers in bold indicate the number and percentage of responses mentioned in both of the questions. We did find however, and to a significant degree (φ = 0.215, df = 1, p < 0.01), that respondents who restricted some form of risky play also mentioned having engaged in childhood risky play.

Table 4 Predictors of dangerous play experienced in childhood and restrictions on risky play in each category
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As with many questionnaires, ours was subject to the limitations of respondents’ memories. For instance, we note that participants might have engaged in or restricted risky play activities that they did not list. For the respondents who did not restrict any activities, we do not know if that was because such respondents were especially permissive or there were no dangers at their centers or if children had no play space.

Discussion and Conclusions

Three key points about the survey respondents’ memories and perspectives and the contemporary ECEC environment of risky play were revealed during this quantitative study. Implications for practice and research are also discussed after the key points.

Respondents’ Memories and Perspectives

First, we identified one major similarity and certain differences between how the ECEC practitioner respondents to this survey had played as children and how they governed the children they cared for at their workplaces. First, most respondents recalled having played around great heights when they were children, and in turn, the largest proportion prohibited play around great heights at their centers. Researchers found that children frequently play around great heights when they have freedom of choice (Sandseter et al., 2021), indicating that they do not see their actions as dangerous even when adults do.

Conversely, respondents gave high speed the second-largest number of responses concerning play restrictions, but they did not identify it as dangerous play they had engaged in. It is possible that present day circumstances in Japan make play at high speed in early childhood centers more dangerous now than what those respondents experienced in various places other than centers. Similarly, many respondents restricted children from stacking paraphernalia too high (e.g., tires, boxes) but did not remember this type of play from their own childhoods. There are indications in our findings that children perceive the danger of their play differently from the caregivers who supervise them (McFarland & Laird, 2018).

Second, from the category of great heights, some responses only came up as memories because the dangerous equipment respondents had played on had since been removed from playgrounds; learning how to navigate the old equipment was a skill that the new preschoolers were not going to experience. In one response, a piece of equipment called a spinning tower, which closely resembled a piece of popular playground equipment called a roundabout (Bourke & Sagisson, 2014), was referred to. We think it is possible to satisfy similar thrills for children while still keeping them safe instead of simply removing supposedly dangerous equipment. In Japan, many parks are carefully planned and designed for safety (Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 2016; Japan Park Facilities Association, 2021). Certainly, children’s growth and development should occur in a safe environment, but there is also a need to provide children with rich environments similar to those of the earlier generations in which they can learn to negotiate risk balanced with excitement (Spencer et al., 2021; van Rooijen & Newstead, 2017).

Third, as children, some respondents had failed to engage in risky play because of fear, which aligns with the finding that perceived levels of danger and comfort differ for each person (Keeler, 2020), and these ECEC specialists are restricting play without having themselves experienced subjective feelings of thrill or fear (van Rooijen & Newstead, 2017; Imai et al., 2022). It is difficult for anxious adults to provide children with opportunities to engage in risky play unless they expand their comfort zones (Keeler, 2020). Thus, ECEC practitioners’ decision-making about children’s risky play must involve sharing experiences and feelings about the subject by discussing practical situations with their colleagues.

Contemporary Japan ECEC Environment of Risky Play

This research reveals certain features of the ECEC environment in Tokyo regarding risky play. First, the respondents reported that at their centers, they restricted children from playing around roads or places near roads, reflecting that the centers in this study were in urban areas. There are often inadequate outdoor spaces in urban ECEC centers, so parks are used as substitutes, but the heavy traffic can make getting to the parks risky, which is why play is restricted. Regarding getting lost, some respondents restricted children to certain areas within the park and forbade them to go out of the park, lest they get into danger and would be unable to manage themselves; safe play in urban areas is also a concern among European and North American practitioners and parents (Brussoni et al., 2017; Sandseter et al., 2019; Spencer et al., 2021). However, these types of restrictions deprive children of the chances for risky play that they should experience (Spencer et al., 2021).

In terms of the dangerous elements to which the respondents restricted child access, many said pools (which are available at some community centers) and fires (which may be present at the occasional seasonal event). Not many respondents mentioned forbidding children from playing with dangerous tools. Some of the respondents reported more dangerous childhood experiences such as play around construction sites, but these memories must have been from the respondents’ older days because Japanese preschoolers would have seldom entered these areas without adult supervision. In one study, Sandseter (2007) highlighted water, cliffs, and fires, but the Norwegian environment differs vastly from Japan’s; however, in this study, respondents did not specify their childhood environments. Mixed findings across cultures suggest the need to discover the influence of practitioners’ childhood physical environments on the risky play they engaged in as children and prohibit as adult caregivers.

Implications for Practice

There are two main implications for future practice based on this discussion. First, regarding memories and perspectives, respondents mentioned dangers that are easy to notice from the players’ perspectives (e.g., playing at great heights) in both memories and present practices, whereas they only mentioned dangers that are noticed mainly from the supervising adults’ perspectives (e.g., playing at high speed or stacking things) in their current practices. We can conclude that when practitioners support children’s risky play experiences, some dangers are easy for children to recognize but others are not, and some children might consider play risky that others do not. The perception of danger depends on perspective.

In risky play with danger that players can easily realize, both children and adults can revel in the thrills that sometimes mix with fear; adults because seeing children experience these thrills may remind them of their youthful feelings of excitement. In contrast, adults might stop children from engaging in certain types of risky play such as playing at high speeds or stacking things. Although children may consider these to be fun or enjoyable experiences, the activities may ultimately be considered to be too dangerous. These points can be introduced to educate student practitioners because they sometimes worry too much about the possibility of injury and stop children’s play too often. Daily discussions among practitioners are also important because people have widely varying experiences with childhood play, and some practitioners do not remember their own risky play experience.

Second, there is a need for ECEC centers to provide children with rich experiences for risky play. As mentioned above, some centers do not provide children with high places to climb on or jump from, and park managers have removed playground equipment for safety without replacing it with similarly exciting equipment. Meanwhile, the areas outside of parks, such as roads, are dangerous spaces for children. Although guidelines exist for safety in the ECEC environment, more are needed related to the context of providing children with the risky play they need for rich experiences and growth, particularly in urban areas where there can be opportunities for free play.

Implications for Research

There were some limitations to this research. First, the responses were possibly influenced by the order of the questions; for instance, we listed the category of great heights first in the question on restrictive play, which might have brought memories of risky play related to heights more immediately to mind for the respondents. Moreover, the lack of demographic details such as gender and age was because the purpose was to reveal practices and thoughts about ECEC rules and not gender or personality differences in attitudes toward risky play, but these are ultimately essential for better insights into differences in approaches to risky play for children and can be addressed in future research.

For further analysis of practitioners’ past experiences of risky play, research might be needed that examines their views and practices related to children’s risky play based on their (practitioners) ages to address the broad generational gap among practitioners and their varied experiences with actual play, including play with obsolete playground equipment that has since been removed. Interviews with practitioners could help elucidate the relationships between individual childhood experiences and practice inclinations. Additionally, some parks in urban areas of Tokyo are small and have limited natural environments, and the effects were noticeable of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the closures of facilities that provide children with park environments (Miyata et al., 2021); however, we did not encounter such problems during this research because we conducted it earlier in 2019. Future researchers might want to explore the impacts of restrictions beyond center guidelines on how children are allowed to play.