Why Dirt and Risk Are Good

Within a single generation, our attitude towards children has gone from “go out and don’t come back until it’s dark” to gated children’s playgrounds, chauffeur driven play-dates and a list of officially decreed ‘dangers’ facing children. We have shifted from slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails to iPods, mobile phones and playstations in less than fifty years.

You think I’m kidding? There is a DVD compilation of the best of Sesame Street (1969-1974) featuring a warning stating that the DVD is “For adult viewing only”. Why? Because it contains scenes now considered inappropriate for children. We are living in what is undoubtedly the safest time for children in recorded history, yet we protect our kids from germs, grazed knees and broken bones like never before.  But what about ‘stranger danger’? Warwick Cairns, a researcher in the UK has calculated that one would have to leave a young child on a pavement for 600,000 years before it became statistically probable that the child would be abducted by a stranger.

Why are adults so afraid? Why, for instance, did the number of children walking to school in Australia drop from 37% in 1985 to 26% in 2001? And why does a UK company, Thudguard, produce protective foam helmets for children learning to walk? Another company sells ‘Comfy Crawlers’, a product designed to protect the knees of crawling infants. The reason for this anxiety is a sensation-seeking media plus a growing culture of litigation, in which non-parental educators and caregivers are fearful of liability for any accident or injury, no matter how tiny.

But what if removing risk were making life more dangerous? For example, could removing ‘dangerous’ playground equipment from public areas be doing children more harm that good? What if our zero-tolerance of risk is making life riskier in the longer-term by shifting risk into early adulthood?  David Eager, a Professor of Engineering at Sydney University, makes this claim. For example, if you make playground equipment too safe, kids get bored and start using the equipment in unintended ways so more serious accidents occur.

Moreover, children learn through discovery, much of it physical. It is through trial and especially error that kids find out what works and what doesn’t, and appreciate the limits and risks.  If risks are removed at an early stage, then individuals do not grow up with an appreciation of risky behaviour. They become so protected, they only learn the important lessons much later in adult life when the world around them is less forgiving. They become brittle young adults who lack confidence to do anything on their own and lack resilience also.

Here is another problem: if parents attempt to ignore risk they are increasingly accused of being bad parents. They could even be reported to childcare authorities. But perhaps things are starting to change. The publication of The Dangerous Book for Boys a few years ago was, in my opinion, a reaction to this over-protective urge. Similarly, the tide is turning on attitudes to dirt. We are starting to realise that being too clean is unhealthy and detergent manufacturers are tapping into this sentiment by shifting slogans from “whiter than white” to "dirt is good”.

 From - What’s Next is published by Richard Watson, a futurist writer, speaker and consultant who advises organisations on the future, focusing particularly on scenario planning and the impact of trends on long-term strategy.