DIY childcare centre placing hardware tools in the hands of children
While many adults may think twice about putting a sharp saw, nails and a hammer in the hands of children as young as two, some childcare centres are calling on kids to take risks in a fight against fear.
Early Years
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Kinder kids are using sharp saws, nails and hammers to build woodwork and learn about risky play in the face of increasingly risk averse societies.
Childcare centres are peeling back the cotton wool and calling on kids to take risks in a fight against fear.
A space for risk-taking activities has been set up at Greenwood in Notting Hill where children can come and go, build their own creations with tools and make a lot of mess.
Darcy, 2, has been handed pliers and a hammer and nails along with Evie, 5, who has been working with a saw to build DIY projects.
Centre manager Melissa Syer said three or four saws may be used by a group of children under supervision, where they’re instructed on how to properly use them.
“Children just love thrilling and exciting activities — they’re curious,” she said.
“If you don’t let them do it, are you creating more harm of a risk-free life that's sedentary, with iPads and sitting around?”
Ms Syer said children “naturally seek risk”.
“But we’re not letting them explore that curiosity,” she said.
“And what’s the worst that can happen? And to flip that, what’s the best thing that can happen?
“We can teach them to be capable.”
Greenwood — a new G8 Education centre — is the first to launch a risk-taking space.
But the idea has been expanded to other Greenwood centres, including in Scoresby and Mulgrave, which have woodwork and engineering rooms.
Ms Syer said today’s children could miss out on learning from mistakes and having setbacks, as their parents did when they were little and got stuck up a tree or hit their thumb with a hammer.
“We don’t want a generation of children so worried about what might happen that they are too
frightened to try anything challenging or new,” she said.
“It’s a learning process; if something doesn’t work you learn how to do it better next time.”
G8 Education’s Pedagogy and Practice Manager Dr Melinda Miller said society had become “very risk averse” over the past nearly two decades.
She said that was “reflected in education and care centres, which are microcosms of broader society”.
“It’s about taking off the bubble wrap and allowing them to take measured risk and understand that not everything goes to plan,” Dr Miller said.
“Sometimes taking a risk will result in an unexpected outcome but children quickly learn about their own boundaries and that of the environments in which they play.”