How Risky Play Fights Childhood Anxiety

Maybe you remember a time you scared yourself as a kid. You climbed higher than you expected, or went further into the forest, or agreed to a dare. Believe it or not, those experiences — not crazy risks, but mildly scary activities — were a shot in the arm against anxiety.

That’s the thinking now: Risky play can provide some protection against childhood  anxiety by accustoming kids to the bodily feelings of fear. The sweating. The flushing. The palpitating heart.

All those are natural responses to something scary or hard. But if you don’t get used to this “state of arousal,” as the scientists call it, you can misinterpret normal jitters as harbingers of catastrophe. And when you feel that way about everyday activities – say, going to a birthday party, or starting a new school year – anxiety can start constricting your life.

“Adventurous Play as a Mechanism for Reducing Risk for Childhood Anxiety: A Conceptual Model” is the mouthful title of a 2021 paper by Helen Dodd and Kathryn Lester in England. They propose that “when children play in an adventurous way, climbing trees, riding their bikes fast downhill and jumping from rocks, they experience feelings of fear and excitement, thrill and adrenaline.”

Because those feelings happen in a happy context, kids get used to dealing with the uneasiness of uncertainty. And because half of all anxiety disorders get their start before age 11, according to the authors, the sooner kids learn to cope with some “ambiguity” – the discomfort of not knowing how something will turn out,  which is at the heart of risk – the more chance of nipping anxiety in the bud.

The study’s authors are quick to add that anxiety has a lot of causes. Genes play a role, as do life circumstances, including poverty and violence. Parental fears probably do, too. Obviously, worried parents are going to hold their kids back more. That has its own impact.

Nonetheless, risky play is something that all mammals engage in. By doing so, the authors say, the animals not only learn to be nimble and quick, they also learn to ‘’avoid emotional overreaction during unexpected stressful situations.” They’re learning how not to freak out when faced with thunder, or fire – or a foe.

They’re doing this by instinct, which means human mammals may be doing something similar. The authors quote Let Grow Co-Founder Dr. Peter Gray, who says that when kids play without adults directing them, they “deliberately put themselves into fear-inducing, vulnerable positions in their play…testing their own fear as well as their physical prowess.”

I remember feeling that mixture of fun and fear pretty much anytime I played tag. It was scary to be hunted by “It.” And it was scary to be “It,” because the whole world was against you.

But if engagement with fear can work psychological magic, avoidance is its evil twin. When you avoid something you’re afraid of, you go from feeling aroused with fear at the thought of it – quaking, shaking, goosebumps — to bathed in relief because you’re avoiding it. Your body comes to associate avoidance with the dramatic change from terrified to terrific, even when the thing you’re avoiding – perhaps giving the waitress your order – is not actually dangerous. That “avoidance high” is addictive. It hardens into anxiety.

If, on the other hand, you take the risk, your body experiences “fear extinction.” The scary thing loses its power and fear dies off – or at least abates.

Parents and schools worry that risky play is too — wait for it! — risky. But the fact is, “medically treated injuries during children’s play are very rare,” according to the report. For kids ages 6-12, there are 0.15 to 0.17  injuries per 1000 hours of kid-led play, versus 0.2  to 0.61 injuries per 1000 hours of organized sports. Meantime, risky play is making kids mentally healthier.

The real health risk seems to be a no-risk childhood.