Canadian researchers — led from UBC and endorsed by a national coalition — concluded that access to active outdoor play, including its risks, is essential for healthy child development. The evidence links outdoor and risky play to more physical activity, better social skills and resilience, while serious injuries in supervised early-childhood settings remain rare. The guiding principle the field landed on: keep children “as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible.” The position was first published in 2015 and renewed by an updated national statement in 2025.
Few topics divide a parent meeting faster than a child on top of the climber. Over the last decade, Canadian researchers have produced an unusually clear answer — clear enough that it became a national position statement, renewed in 2025. This review summarizes what that evidence says and what it means on a Tuesday morning in the play yard.
Where the evidence comes from
In 2015, a cross-Canada group of researchers and health organizations published the Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, built on systematic reviews of the research on outdoor and risky play. Its central conclusion: “Access to active play in nature and outdoors — with its risks — is essential for healthy child development.” The statement explicitly recommends increasing self-directed outdoor play at home, at school, in child care, and in the community. A decade later, the field returned to the evidence and published an updated national position statement (2025), keeping the core conclusion intact.
Much of this research program is led from British Columbia — UBC's School of Population and Public Health summarized the systematic-review evidence that risky outdoor play positively impacts children's health, from physical activity to social behaviour.
What counts as “risky” play
In this literature, risky play is challenge a child can see and choose: height (climbing), speed (running, sliding, biking), play near natural elements, rough-and-tumble play, and increasing independence. The crucial distinction is risk vs hazard: a high branch is a risk a child evaluates; a rotten branch is a hazard an adult removes. The research consensus is to preserve risks and eliminate hazards — summarized in the statement's phrase, keep children “as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible.”
What the evidence links it to
- More movement: children are simply more active outdoors, and outdoor time is one of the most reliable levers on daily physical activity.
- Social development: reviews link unstructured and rough-and-tumble outdoor play with social skills, negotiation and confidence.
- Risk literacy: children given graduated challenges practice assessing risk — the skill that actually prevents injuries as independence grows.
- Perspective on injury: the statement weighs developmental benefit against injury data and concludes the benefits dominate in supervised settings, where serious injuries are rare.
The honest caveats
This is a literature about supervised, age-appropriate challenge — not the absence of judgment. The position statements concern children roughly 3–12; toddler programs apply the same principles with tighter envelopes. And “outdoor play is essential” does not mean every yard is automatically developmental: quality of the space and the adults' approach to risk both matter, which is why the 2025 update focuses on implementation.
What to do with this
A scraped knee is part of the curriculum, not a failure of supervision. Ask your program how children get outdoor time daily (rain or shine is a good sign), not just whether the yard is padded. At home, let your child climb, balance and take small supervised chances — the research links this to confidence and risk-assessment skills, not recklessness.
Frame risk as something children learn to read, not something adults eliminate. Use risk-benefit thinking: name what a child gains from an activity alongside its hazards, and remove hazards (broken glass, faulty equipment) rather than risks (height, speed, weather). Document outdoor learning the way you document literacy — it is developmental work.
Daily outdoor time, year-round, is defensible policy backed by a national position statement — useful language for parent handbooks and licensing conversations. Pair an outdoor-play policy with clear hazard checklists and incident documentation so the “as safe as necessary” line is auditable, not aspirational.
Sources
- Tremblay et al., Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 12(6), 2015 — www.mdpi.com
- 2025 Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play: process and methodology, Int. J. Behav. Nutr. Phys. Act. — ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com
- UBC School of Population & Public Health — Risky outdoor play positively impacts children's health — spph.ubc.ca
- Pan-Canadian Public Health Network — Active Outdoor Play Statement — www.phn-rsp.ca
- Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play (PubMed record) — pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Every claim above is drawn from the linked sources. This article is general information, not medical or legal advice — for concerns about an individual child, talk to your paediatrician or family doctor.
Run your daycare on Mitten — free to start
Mitten does everything in this guide — daily reports, photos, messaging, billing, even payroll prep — free for your first 5 children, then just $20/mo + $2 per child.
Start free — no card needed → See the live demoFrequently asked questions
- Is risky play the same as dangerous play?
- No. The research distinguishes risks (challenges a child can perceive and choose, like climbing higher) from hazards (dangers a child cannot see, like a broken rung). The evidence supports giving children risks while adults remove hazards.
- Does more outdoor play mean more injuries?
- Serious injuries in supervised early-childhood settings are rare, and the 2015 Canadian position statement concluded the developmental benefits of outdoor play with risk outweigh the small injury risk in typical programs.
- What does "as safe as necessary" mean?
- It is the principle adopted by the Canadian position statement: instead of maximizing safety at the cost of development ("as safe as possible"), programs manage real hazards while preserving the challenges children grow from.