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SUMMARY

Christy-Faith and Sarah Collins explore how engaging in risky play is crucial for a child’s development. They explore its benefits, such as building confidence, developing motor skills, and regulating the nervous system. They also address the concerns and fears parents have regarding risky play and provide insights on finding a balance between safety and allowing children to take risks. The conversation highlights the need for children to engage in physical activities and play to understand their bodies, develop strength, and improve cognitive and social skills.

TAKE-AWAYS

• Risky play involves thrilling and exciting activities that carry a risk of physical injury, such as climbing, exploring heights, and rough and tumble play.
  
• Engaging in risky play helps children regulate their nervous system, develop strength, and understand their bodies.
  
• Parents should find a balance between safety and allowing children to take risks, as avoiding all risks can hinder children’s development and self-awareness.
  
• Risky play should be age-appropriate and gradually increased to match a child’s capabilities and comfort level.
  
• Physical activities and play are essential for children’s cognitive, social, and motor skill development.

ABOUT TODAY’S GUEST

Sarah Collins, MSOT, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with a background in both pediatrics and home health, and a homeschooling parent. She currently serves families as an occupational therapist through HomeschoolOT. She focuses on helping parents make the match between the homeschool and their children’s current skill set all while working towards what their children specifically need and want to do to occupy their time (hello occupation!). She does this by consulting with parents around the world, teaching month long classes on specific topics, building community in an online membership, and communicating nationally at conferences. 

Find Sarah here: 

• www.homeschoolOT.com 
• www.instagram.com/homeschoolOT 
• www.facebook.com/thehomeschoolOT 

SHOW SPONSORS

TRANSCRIPT

Christy-Faith
I want to learn a lot and I want my mind changed on a couple of things. know, like for example, you hear these ER doctors, they always do these TikToks on the five things I will never let my kid do as a pediatric ER doctor. What's always on that list? The trampoline. The trampoline is always on that stinking list. Sarah, do you let your kids jump on a trampoline? Welcome to the Christy Faith Show, where we share game -changing ideas with intentional parents like you. I'm your host, Christy-Faith. Experienced educator, advisor and homeschool enthusiast. Together, we'll explore ways to enrich and transform both your life and the lives of your children.

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You guys, I am so excited about today's guest, Sarah Collins, my personal friend and your homeschool OT. She is a homeschool mother and she serves you with your educational needs, all parents across the nation with her consulting services.

Christy-Faith (01:59.67)
She has a background in both pediatrics and home health and is a homeschooling parent herself. She currently serves families as an occupational therapist through her company, Homeschool OT. She focuses on helping parents make the match between homeschool and their child's current skillset, all while working towards what their children specifically need and want to do to occupy their time. Hello, occupation.

She does this by consulting with parents all around the world, teaching month -long classes on specific topics, building community in an online membership, and communicating nationally as a speaker at conferences. I asked Sarah to come on the show today because a topic that is really important because we face this every day, especially as homeschooling parents where we want our children outside.

and playing. Charlotte Mason says they should have at least four hours or more a day of unsupervised gasp playtime with friends where they are just running amok, going wild, know, skinned knees and all of that. Well, that brings up a very modern question to today where we have kids with significant injuries. You hear these news headlines of stories of young athletes

getting injuries very early, getting head injuries, for example, with tackle football and all of these nightmare stories that are valid in people's lives have really been traumatized and damaged. What's the word I'm looking for that's even more, mean, people's lives have been heavily impacted by legitimate catastrophes and damages that impact them for their whole future. So, and we don't wanna minimize that because accidents do happen.

However, there is a benefit to letting go of the reins a little bit and not just a benefit like it makes our lives a little bit easier because we're not having to hover over our kids all day, but there's actually benefits to our children and their brains and how they are developing. And that's why I asked Sarah Collins on the show today who is an occupational therapist and knows a lot about risky play. Can you start out today? you know where I want you to start out?

Christy Faith (04:18.478)
I want to hear how you started on your homeschooling journey. First off, before we get into the topic. Well, sure, absolutely. So it's actually interesting because I come at this from like three different sides. My first, my first degree and what I did like immediately out of college was I was a recreation therapist. Right. So that really came about because I was a nursing major in school and then I passed out my first day that I was like there to do my.

I know. I didn't eat that morning. I was so nervous. It was awful. And I was like going into my first like clinical and then I was like, I clearly should not be a nurse. So I wanted to stay in the medical profession. The only other thing, the school that I was going to at the time had was recreation therapy. So I did that. And I actually loved it. I worked at a children's hospital in Richmond, Virginia for kids whose medical needs were so severe that they lived at the hospital. And my job was really to

help to get out into the community. I organized all the field trips. We went everywhere. In fact, super cool story. This summer, my daughter is going to DC as a intern for advocacy, for Children's Advocacy Day with one of my really best friends. And they are highlighting the Children's Hospital beach trip that I started 20 years ago. And she's gonna go and like get to see it highlighted. anyway, side note, super cool. So that's

That was the beginning. And then I became an occupational therapist, went back to school. I finished school in 2008 and worked full time for, I don't know, a long time, until 2017. And we were moving at that point and following my husband's career. And we moved in March and they started public school and then we're moving again in May.

to our current house and I was like, this is dumb. Why are we going to another school again and again? And we started homeschooling. I said, we'll just figure this out, see how that goes. And that was 2017, we have never looked back. that's kind of how that transition happened. But because of that, because of my background first in, as a recreation therapist in play, I really...

Christy Faith (06:39.016)
valued it so much within my treatment sessions when I was working full time and really trying to make sure that I was, like you said in the intro, helping parents to ensure that their kids are able to do what they specifically need to want to do. Because that's different for everybody. You what you do through your day, what I do through my day, it's very different. But the one universal is that kids all need to be able to play. So that was really

sessions then and throughout our homeschool day, know, prioritizing time for my children to be able to be outside. And I know you can't see it from here, but my office like fits a window and my boys are back playing with a ball right now. Like I can see them. And I just watched my speaking of risky play, just watched one son peg a ball at the other. you know, we got that going for us right now. That's a wonderful story. Can you explain what is risky play?

And why is it so important to child development? Absolutely. So, and yes, like every good, you know, classical educator, I think we need to start with a definition, right? And so it is written and I'm going to go through these six specific ways. So risky play is I I rewrote down. This was funny. Like I had to go back and look up to make sure that I was doing these, you know, making sure I'm pulling at it right. So I'm like, I don't want to miss anything. Yeah.

So, and this actually is coming from an article that was published in 2011 by Ellen Sandstetter in Evolutionary Psychology. So this is how it's defined there. So risky play is anything thrilling and exciting that involves some sort of risk of physical injury. So it can be handling dangerous toys, being near dangerous elements such as fire and water, exploring heights like climbing trees and rocks.

speed such as skiing that would be, you know, fast going down a hill, any rough and tumble play or playing on one's own individually without direct supervision. So like, am I saying, you know, we should go skiing downhill towards a fire with, know, like an open hand knife to a summer stop and land, you know, in the water? No, you know, that's, that's not the point to do all of the things, but it is to consider.

Christy Faith (09:01.87)
How much risk are we allowing our kids to have during the day? How much risk are they initiating on their own? And how is that helping them to build their own confidence and even their own ability to move? Now, you mentioned earlier some really severe injuries that have happened. And I think there's two things to say with that. Number one is,

Clearly we do not want to say that doesn't matter. But we also need to remember that because it happened to one person doesn't mean it's going to happen to us. know, so we don't, you know, it's kind of two sides of it. We don't want to completely avoid everything because there is a minimal risk. We all at the same time need to kind of encourage it because there is more risk involved when our kids don't know their bodies and don't know what they're capable of and are

taking inadvertent risks because they don't know, because they haven't tried things. So like there's a step -by -step of recognizing, all right, what is a risk now? And are we taking too much or too little? Before we continue, I wanna share with you a program that has been a game changer for our family. At our learning center, we instructed and helped kids through pretty much every program on the market. So we know firsthand,

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Christy Faith (11:20.204)
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See you inside. So that's fascinating to me because what's coming to mind when you're saying that is, is there, you can have a lot of play where you understand your body and all of these things, but it doesn't always have to have risk involved. Is there something about that risk that makes it different? What is the argument that these psychologists and occupational therapists or whoever's doing these studies, cause there are studies done on this.

What is that element that makes it healthy? Why is there this argument for it? I'm just so curious. Right. So it's kind of important to identify what a risk is for your child, right? Because just like you have different things that you need and want to do during your day, risk is different for everybody. And so, for example, a kiddo who's been very sedentary for quite some time, doing any rough and tumble play, doing any sport, doing climbing up a rock,

Christy Faith (13:41.696)
or walking on a sidewalk can be risky. So the advantage is one, that you're to know your body because we can't advocate for ourselves if we don't know ourselves, right? And that is a huge, huge piece that we are seeing, unfortunately, as OTs and even some of the research is saying like diagnosis wise and things like that of kids that literally don't know themselves because they haven't been moving.

Again, you can't advocate if you don't know. So we kind of need to start from there. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay. We need to back up and unpack that. That is so profound. Can you explain that? So if we're thinking about... All right. So let me back up. As an occupational therapist, when I am looking at an activity, right, I analyze what are your social needs within that activity.

What are your motor skill needs? What are the cognitive skills that you need? And we want to look to see one within that activity, how we can either adapt it to meet a person's needs or what that person's, the skill needs to be to be able to do it. So even things like, let's say, riding a bike. So you need, clearly, you need the core strength. You need your visual skills to be able to scan your environment, but also to know depth perception.

You need to be able to separate your right side and your left side. You need to be able to separate your head and your eyes, because if you turn your whole head to look behind you and your arms are turning and then you're falling over, we need to make sure we have enough balance. So the vestibular system that's working in there, kids who aren't moving aren't really going to be able to do that, right? And then we also have to think social skills -wise. So you need to be able to talk to people.

or to identify like, all right, here's a sign. Like, what do I need to do here? Can I turn right? We need to know the signals to keep yourself safe. You know, all of these social skills that come along with it. And then the cognitive skills oftentimes are involved with the executive functioning. So getting started, persevering if something is hard, you know, knowing what comes first, second and third, so our sequencing in there. So there's so many skills within one single activity. If,

Christy Faith (16:04.394)
You don't know, because either A, you haven't tried, so you don't know whether you have all of those skills, or B, you don't know which ones are lacking. How can you ask for help? You can't, right? And so now as occupational therapists, we're seeing so many, I mean, waiting lists and waiting lists and waiting lists, because parents are like, my kiddos can't do this and they can't do this and we're really struggling here and...

It's so long, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that we're not trying, we're not playing, we're not giving that time to get out and move. So if we're providing the opportunity for this risky play, and again, I'm not saying that we're going down it, you know, we're starting with this huge risk, but we're starting with, I like to say, good old Andrew Poudoir within the homeschooling world, right? He talks about easy plus one.

So what is easy for your children right now? And so maybe that's playing inside. Maybe that is playing with just your brother. Maybe that is that you go outside and you just kind of look around. Maybe that is that we are climbing a slide. Imagine that, climbing up the slide, Ooh, risk. You're allowed to do that anymore. Do you know that actually?

That kind of makes me laugh because that is one of the things that is so good for kids is to climb up the slide because it's at an angle and the core strength and the upper body skills that that's going. know, as homeschoolers, we have this unique ability to be able to go to playgrounds at times and not everybody's there. Climb up the slide, guys. It's okay. Climb up the slide. Yes, you can do it. Right? Like, where is your child now? And what...

can we do to encourage just one little step further towards independence? So that resonates with me very much because I am in Colorado and so most kids here starting at a very young age, because they actually have a state sponsored program here to try to get kids hooked on skiing. They offer free skiing for young kids. It's a whole program here. Anyway.

Christy Faith (18:19.406)
But you should see by the time these kids are in junior high, I mean, they are going down black diamonds and it's like, how can you possibly do this and not get killed? But that is an example of what you're saying where that is not as risky for them because they grew up on the slopes. They did this easy plus one for years until they reached that particular level. Why do you think, why do you think, I do believe that

This whole, you know, there's a book out, I think it was called Free Range Parenting. Actually, I think that's by the same publisher as me or Free Range Kids or something like that, where this kind of go outside and just let them be. I kind of grew up that way. It was like, just stay outside and don't come in until the streetlights come on and then come in for dinner. But it's not like that anymore. And I'm not quite sure why is it. Is it social media? Is it news? Because risks are just constantly put in front of our face with

child abductions and all of this stuff. I want to grow today on this episode and I want to learn a lot and I want my mind changed on a couple of things. know, like for example, you hear these ER doctors and they always do these TikToks on the five things I will never let my kid do as a pediatric ER doctor. What's always on that list? The trampoline. The trampoline is always on that stinking list.

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They're scrambling in my backyard. You know I got a trampoline. I believe it. Okay, so speak to our hearts. Do you see, what truth can you suss out here that we're not seeing here with the parents that are just really scared of a brain injury or all sorts of things, the risks that are out there that are put in front of our face every day? So I think you touched on a couple of things.

Christy Faith (22:57.878)
Number one is that you were saying, you know, we are bombarded with the dangers on a day to day basis, right? Let's just even take the playground, for example. Okay. So back in the 1980s, right? That's, that's when I grew up. Playgrounds looked completely, completely, completely different than, they do right now. So, I mean, I'm talking the metal slides where you burn like the backs of your legs and the merry -go -round were literally like, yeah.

They're spinning and the kids are flying off. The swings with really long legs so that you can spin your whole body around and then you're like unwinding, right? So in the eighties, there was a court case, right? Because of some injuries that had happened. And that kind of started with this, okay, now everything must be regulated and we wanna have, you know, literally nine inches of either nine inches of mulch or a padded, you know, bottom and things like that.

Okay, so, which is fantastic. And I'm not saying that there's, great, I love it that we are trying to make things safer, but here's what happened, is that it's not actually safer. The number of injuries on playgrounds in the 1980s, I actually re -looked up the number the other day, before this started, like all of this risky play. In the 1980s was 156 ,000, right? The number of injuries on a playground right now, 218 ,000 last year.

So you can say like, all right, why? Why is this increasing like that if we are so careful all the time? And we want to be so careful because we do, we hear all of these things that are happening. And again, I am not saying that those things don't happen to somebody, right? And for an ER doctor, when you see the worst of the worst of the worst, that's what you kind of use the norm. My son, actually my husband and I were talking, cause I worked at

Children's Hospital and a few different. worked at Children's Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. And then after that, I worked at Kennedy Krieger and Baltimore. And at that point, like I was working on, it's called the specialized transition program. So it's kids coming out of rehab, but transitioning back into school. And so I was seeing car accidents. I was seeing skateboarding injuries. was seeing kids struck by lightning and working through all of this. And so we said, like, if I have children, this was before we had kids,

Christy Faith (25:21.548)
Was I going to be a person that was like, no, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. Or a person that's like, eh, it's an arm. know, like you're gonna break an arm and it's gonna be okay and we're gonna move forward. And I found like for myself, I'm somewhere in the middle where there's necessary risks and unnecessary risks. should you ride your bike without a helmet? No, why, why? But, so put it on. Should you go in the car without a seatbelt? No.

Buckle the seatbelt, right? Take the safety precautions, but don't stop the activities because somebody else was hurt before. So just a trampoline, for example, right? So the jumping on a trampoline provides intense proprioceptive information. So that is information through your joints. It's something you might often hear it called heavy work, okay? This is what helps us to regulate the nervous system.

So frequently when you are becoming more heightened, so for example, like the lights are really bright or it's very loud and your clothes are itchy or whatever and you're starting to feel really, really overwhelmed, what helps to calm you down is proprioception. It really regulates that nervous system. Jumping is one of the primary ways to do that. So not only are we calming the nervous system, but they're also understanding their body. They're using

that's all of those joints and muscles. So we're getting stronger. We're regulating the nervous system. So we're getting calmer and they're recognizing what their capabilities are. So without that, one, it's harder to organize your body and understand it. Two, you're not as strong. And three, you don't know yourself. If you don't know yourself, not as strong and you're not as regulated, you're more likely to be injured. let's, yeah.

Well, and that's so true. was just thinking that like the stronger you are and the more you're doing things and activities. We know this as adults, the less prone we are to, to injury, right? You know, like at my Pilates class, I love it. I love doing it. You know that I do Pilates. You know that Pilates keeps me out of prison. I've told you this. If you're enjoying the show and you don't want to miss out on future episodes, hit that like and subscribe button and show us some love with your comments.

Christy Faith (27:45.548)
Those five star reviews really do make a difference. You would have loved today's class. We're so going to get on a tangent right now, but my goodness, she had us balancing on one of those long tubes. So we were on it with our back like this. We were having to do different things with our legs than we were with our arms and not fall off that fricking tube. And a lot of us ladies were like catching ourselves with our elbows. Can I tell you though?

I am so calm now. don't, it wasn't even the hardest workout, but it does something to my brain that I can walk into chaos after a 50 minute class and I'm calm. I'm not screaming at my kids. I'm not this. And I think that what, when I, when I get a little bit overwhelmed, like you said, clothes, itchy, overwhelmed with light. felt called out, right? But, but what it reminds me of is our kids need that too. Like when I realize how much

wow, I haven't been to Pilates for two days. Maybe that's why I'm feeling like I'm crawling out of my own skin and my mind is just, right? And even I get negative thoughts. It's just, there's something about, and I don't get it from running. There's something about Pilates, which I'm sure you could have the scientific explanation for. But my point is how much that has really made me realize how much my kids need that. So in the middle of your homeschool day, if they're getting frustrated, dysregulated,

What are some activities, let's do some tangibles real quick. What are some activities that will address that proprioception to help them regulate if they, know, a couple outside and then if weather's bad, what are a couple things inside that just a 15 minute break can make all the difference? Yeah. So you need to think through climbing, crawling, pushing and pulling. And those are anything that would have those things is going to give you that proprioceptive input. So.

talk about inside, can do things like chores. Imagine that we can care. Girl, can we record you? All the moms listening are like, honey. Yeah, that's right. All the moms listening are going to like put that on replay. Sarah Collins, the OT says you need to be doing chores right now. Thanks for joining us for part one. We hope you gained some valuable insights. Be sure to catch part two where we're going to continue this great conversation.