Ten-year-old Jackie stood with a small pan in the flames of an open fire, chatting merrily, when her popcorn caught alight.
With no sign of panic, her mother put out the flames in a nearby ditch. Then Jackie and her eight-year-old brother, Michael, calmly cooked a second batch.
“This is much more fun than other playgrounds,” said Michael. “You can catch fish, you can go in the water and build huts. Sometimes, my mum is drawing and you can really run free!”
Their mother, Marlien Kulsdom, 44, an early-years teacher and artist, called the Woeste Westen (“Wild West”) play forest in Amsterdam-West heaven for them all.
“I’m a teacher at a school where they encourage risk-taking play,” she said. “It’s learning about boundaries.”
It is also the kind of risky play that local councillors want to spread across Amsterdam, replacing the rubber tiles and boring playgrounds they say have been built in recent years. A new policy from the D66 liberal democrats proposes giving all children in the Dutch capital access to outdoor play areas to climb, play with water and fire, sword-fight with sticks, build with hammers, rope or knives, wrestle and fall. “Rufty-tufty playing means that children might get a bump or a cut,” according to the policy – but it’s an acceptable risk, they say.
“The inspiration, and it really is a huge problem, is that children are hardly moving,” said Rob Hofland, head of the local D66 and proud uncle of tree-climbing children. “All kinds of problems stem from just sitting behind a screen. We see increasing numbers of burnouts and we are learning ever more about how unhealthy it is that the Dutch – the sitting champions of Europe – are so sedentary. Things need to change, and it starts young.”
Although the number of overweight children is relatively stable in the Netherlands, at 17%, the figure rises to a 25% for 18- to 24-year-olds. There has been an “alarming” increase in childhood diabetes, according to the Diabetes Fonds, while motor skills have declined so much that many children can no longer catch a ball.
A survey last year from Jantje Beton, which campaigns for outdoor play space, suggested the number of Dutch children playing alone outside without adult supervision plummeted from 25% in 2022 to 13% last year. Almost half play more indoors, compared with a third before the Covid pandemic.
Mascha van Werven, executive director, is concerned. “More and more kids are losing the ability to make social contact, to learn to deal with risks and also to be happy when the situation gets a little bit more stressful,” she said. “If they learn to still play in those [riskier] areas, they are starting at a very young age to deal with risks, to maybe ask someone for help … to take a step back and try again.”
after newsletter promotion
The Netherlands is one of the world’s happiest countries, according to the UN, and local studies find many children particularly value the opportunities they have for mood-boosting cycling, plus their supportive families. But it is far from alone in being concerned about the increase in helicopter parenting, stifling the ability of young people to anticipate, avoid and deal with potential hazards themselves. In an article in Nature in January, Canadian and Norwegian researchers pointed out the benefits of risky – but not outright dangerous – play, particularly outside, in helping children build transferable risk-management skills.
Challenging activity is vital for cognitive capacity, according to Erik Scherder, professor in clinical neuropsychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a member of the Netherlands Sports Council, which has called for more government focus on playing outside. “What you can do outside involves motor function but also cognitive functions: the interplay between the two is challenging – and challenge is exactly what you need when you have a developing brain,” he said. “Neurons should be stimulated each time in a different way, not just repeating the same thing.”
While nobody encourages putting children in danger, Martin Hup, a biology teacher and founder of the non-profit Woeste Westen, believes parents should step back more. “Every playground, council, parent and school has to weigh up risk versus benefit,” he said. “There is a risk, but my child learns from it mentally and physically. If you are always saying: ‘Don’t do that, be careful, watch out!’, you are taking away a lot of chances for development.”
Back at the play forest, Jackie recalled landing fully clothed in the water, to her brother’s delight. “A float flipped over and I went under it,” she said. “It doesn’t stop me, in any case!”
