The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds
Letting children take manageable physical risks in play may help them practice the kind of judgment they need in risky situations, a new virtual reality study suggests. A study of 424 children from Norway and Canada found that kids who were bolder on a virtual playground, climbing higher, moving faster, and venturing onto narrow platforms, made faster decisions when navigating simulated traffic, without racking up more collisions or near-misses. Low-stakes wobbles and slips during childhood play may be part of how kids learn to read risk.
Children with higher risk willingness scores moved through the street-crossing decisions significantly faster, but they did not have more collisions or dangerous close calls than children who were more cautious on the playground.
Researchers suggest this reflects something important about how children may build judgment over time. When kids repeatedly engage with physical risk in play, falling, recovering, recalibrating, and trying again, they may be training their brains to read environmental information faster and more accurately. The cross-sectional design means the study cannot prove that risky play directly caused the faster traffic decisions, but the association is notable.
Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.com/children-playground-risk-quicker-decisions-traffic/