Don’t panic yet, we’re best at being risk averse with our kids. Ok now start to panic because it’s going to cause huge problems if we don’t do something about it. In fact it’s already started.

We’re already starting to see impacts of this risk aversion, it isn’t a recent thing. This has been creeping up on us for decades, sidling up to us through our cognitive dissonance that we’re providing a better life for young people by making them happy and comfortable, and that we’re not risk averse, or that even if we are, what’s the real harm in having a happy kid?

It’s a problem though, and we need to act. We’re just starting to scratch the surface in understanding just how far it’s gone, and we’re still just looking at schools.

Recent research into the impact and nature of risk aversion in parents and schools has recently been propelled by Jerebine et. al. through the insightful and forward thinking research conducted in their papers, “Playing it safe” and “Children Are Precious Cargo”.

This research shows us that parents are enormously risk averse in Australia, the most in the world. Contrarily we’re very positive about risk however that didn’t translate into affordances to take risks. Over 78% had low tolerance to the negative outcomes of risk (such as injuries) and constrained young people’s risk taking. They fear what other families will think of them as parents, or that it’s better to play it safe than risk discomfort or “negative” emotions, for themselves or their kids.

In another paper, it’s shown that schools are burdened with enormously risk averse socio-cultural factors which again has us leading the world in risk aversion. Their hands are tied not just by onerous regulation, but also by the fears and trepidation of parents. Schools increasingly try to enhance educational environments safety and comfort, and have to fill in all the cracks and pave over any rough spots to make sure this is the case. Children are being banned from running in the fear that they injure themselves and the school is to blame. But who’s to blame for a generation of children who can no longer run, let alone ride bikes? It’s common that we have young people enrol who don’t know what burning muscles or sweating feels like at ages as old as 8 or 9.

It’s crucial to understand that nobody debates that parents and educators want the best for young people. This is often what drives these decisions, but what we often forget is that sometimes to achieve what’s best in the long run, it takes adversity, discomfort and even unhappiness. Without it, we’re consigning ourselves to increasing lifelong harm.

Risk taking is something which impacts a culture. When a society is averse to risk taking, it’s averse to the things which make innovation, creativity and resilience foundations of it’s way of life. Being pro-risk doesn’t mean being pro harm or pro recklessness, but it does mean being for growth and for exploration and adventure, and accepting and embracing the discomfort that will be a part of that.

Australia is a land which is resplendent with opportunity for these foundations. From our research, medical and sciences sectors to the splendour of our natural world, and our larrikin heritage we should be leading the world in healthy risk taking, but instead we’re going backwards.

Innovation is in decline, mental and physical illness are rife among adults and children, we spend more time indoors than we do out in the world, we’re contentious and short and this is being driven by an overly constraining government. Examples are everywhere of how through misguided attempts to keep people safe we’re causing lasting harm. The outdoor sector is constantly misaligned, the caretakers of adventure for our young people. Recent bans on horse riding (or even just handling), caving and even disability placement as public school activities in Tasmania is one of a laundry list of backward steps we’ve taken in recent years.

Increasing restrictions on businesses and operations in the name of protecting employees and participants from harm infantilizes both the owners who drive change, and their employees who look to advocate for themselves less and less. This doesn’t mean not protecting the vulnerable, having common sense protections, or letting people do whatever they want, but allowing for our communities to grow through adversity. There must be a better balance.

We’re already seeing it. Workplaces are safer than ever, but workplace injury claims are higher than ever. Skyrocketing mental harm and illness claims are one example. The sharp increase in frequency of each generation of workers changing employers and industries shows deficiencies in persistence and resilience. This skill loss means industries will begin to founder with diminishing expertise, requiring more automation, again diminishing even the necessity for expertise.

When things do go wrong, we wail and gnash our teeth because we were told things were safe and everything would be ok. There’s mandatory insurance, mandatory WorkCover, manual handling policies, hazard tape, quarterly egress reports, guard rails and a multitude of protective policies in place and yet we inevitably have misadventures. This drives us to look for someone to blame, because we’re unskilled at having to take into account our own decisions, or that accidents are uncontrollable. Once we start looking for someone to blame, we start assigning fault. It’s a short step to seeing litigious behaviour increase. This pacifies organisations, fearful of the pain and ardour of facing legal action we cling to making everything as safe as possible, rather than as safe as necessary. That quickly becomes a race to the bottom, because you can always add more bubble wrap.

We’ve seen it in individuals, and organisations before. The more we’re constrained by layers of rules, red tape and guardrails, the less capable we become. The less capable we become the worse off we are and the more constraints are put in place. We end up with an intractable number of interconnected defences, and when something goes wrong (because accidents do happen) we can’t clearly see what needs to be improved. First we need to ascertain what failed in each of our layers of Swiss cheese, and our reaction is to add another.

As communities, we also have collective thinking which can and does mature if we let it. Stronger, more resilient communities face adversity together and develop their thinking. Increasing compassion, understanding and capacity by facing challenges rather than insulating themselves from them. The more mature the thinking, the more resilient and intuitive a community becomes.

If we don’t start thinking about risk intelligence and capacity as something we need, as crucial as social and emotional skills, we’ll continue to manage it, mitigate it and drive it from our workplaces, communities and society. It starts with our schools but it will pervade every part of our lives. We’ll be worse off as a culture with more impacts than the few we’ve explored here.

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Tim Gill about this, a proponent for positive and healthy risk taking and leading the charge in the UK. We agreed that the answer isn’t to turn back the clock. There wasn’t a golden age of risk taking, because there was no approach to it. We didn’t understand it well enough until we felt its absence, which has driven deeper understanding, motivating skilled researchers such as Jerebine et. al., and the team we work with at La Trobe led by Dr. Bennetts, to look deeper.

Powered by this research and understanding we have to first re-prioritise risk. For example, the State of Queensland recently advocated for increased adventurous play in education settings. This is a moderate start, we need more and also greater courage. As an example, they still had to use synonymous language. Instead of being clear and focusing on risk they chose the safer, less confronting “adventurous”. We could have told them, parents and communities don’t have a problem with the word “risk”. Just ask the hundreds of schools we’ve worked with or tens of thousands of families. Don’t ask the kids, they’ll tell you they love it.

Governments and organisations need to begin to re-approach their understanding of risk. Putting into effect Benefit-Risk assessments such as those practised in the UK. Looking first at the importance and benefit of any action, before deciding what steps, if any, should be taken and if they’ll diminish that benefit.

Communities, including parents, families and educators, must also practise greater resilience. Face the discomfort of their child without leaping to solve their problems. Allowing them to be bored, anxious or frustrated without removing them from the challenge, but guiding them through it. Families have to support their educators in this process as well, without feeling that every emotional or physical bump and bruise needs action or litigation or an external solution. Instead teach young people to look within, and even if there is an opportunity to make the world around them better, it has to start from within and the resilience to achieve that change.

Finally, we have to open our eyes. This is happening all around us and we’ve become numb to it. We’re the frog in hot water, except instead of hot water it’s cooling. There’s less agitation, less adversity and we’re losing our sense of what real harm can be and we’re starting to become immobile and incapable of taking a risk. We’re locked in downward spirals, doom loops, of self perpetuating, reinforcing fear based avoidance. We have to break out, and we have to do it soon.