Tolerance remains stable
The study ‘Exploring boundaries: Parents’ tolerance of risky play’ confirms that children engage in risky play more often when their parents are tolerant of it. Maintaining and, wherever possible, increasing this tolerance towards risky play is therefore essential. For some forms of risky play, such as rough-and-tumble play or play fighting, tolerance has declined somewhat. However, the vast majority of parents remain positive or neutral towards risky play.
Only a small group of parents (6.6 percent) are genuinely negative about risky play in childcare. When parents find it nerve-racking, this is mainly because they fear that something might happen to their child or because they are concerned about the supervision provided by childcare professionals.
“At a time when parents are increasingly inclined to protect their children, it is positive to see that their attitude towards risky play has not become more negative,” says Zeina Bassa, an expert in risky play at VeiligheidNL. “It is important that we continue to support parents in daring to let go. By playing with risks, children learn important skills that they will need throughout their lives.”
Take the Dare Guide
To help parents with this, the Dare Guide has been launched on kinderveiligheid.nl. It helps parents discover whether their child dares to take risks and how they themselves deal with this. After completing it, you receive three fun challenges featuring activities that help you learn to push boundaries together. Learning to assess risks and daring to take them is important for every child, even if it occasionally results in a bump or scrape.
About the study
The study was conducted among parents of children between 3 and 7 years old (2025, N=465). For the trend comparison, data from 2025 (parents of children aged 5 to 7, N=290) were compared with data from 2018 (N=148).