People who work with young children often pay attention when Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson talks. She has had a big impact on how people in the Nordic countries think about preschool learning, play, and child development for many years, and not just in Scandinavia. It wasn’t just another interview when she went on a podcast to talk about the role of nature and risk in early education. For many practitioners, it was more like finally getting something straight.
A question that researchers and teachers have been debating for years came up in the conversation: how far should adults stand back when kids play outside? According to the research that Pramling Samuelsson has helped to build and promote, the answer is more than most Western school systems allow right now.
Her position isn’t dangerous. It comes from decades of careful observation and the kind of thinking that gets squishy when policymakers get involved with education. She has long said that nature-based settings give kids something that structured classrooms can’t: the chance to deal with uncertainty, fall and get back up, and test their limits without a teacher rushing in to make things right away. It seems like she really believes this, not just because it’s a good idea, but because she has seen it happen over and over again in years of fieldwork and research collaboration.
There wasn’t a single controversial quote that made the podcast appearance stand out. It was the way she talked about teachers—not as adults watching over the kids while they play, but as adults who are present, thoughtful, and responsive and know when to join in and when to stay out of the way. That difference is more important than it might seem at first. Norwegian nature kindergarten research backs this up: teachers who can read the moment and move between engaging and restraint in a way that feels almost instinctual tend to make the environment where kids play more deeply and with more confidence.
It’s still not clear if most ECEC systems are set up to make that kind of teacher. There is a push in the opposite direction from the training, the rules, and the worries about liability. If a teacher stands back while a child negotiates a sloping, muddy path in the woods, they are often taking a professional risk. It looks like Pramling Samuelsson is very aware of this tension. She doesn’t brush it off. But she doesn’t use that as an excuse to put too much caution on the kids either.
Nature’s role as a co-teacher is one of the most interesting ideas that runs through her mind. The uneven ground, the loose materials, and the fact that the weather and terrain are hard to predict are not things that get in the way of learning. They are a part of it. When kids are outside, they’re not just playing. They’re constantly making small choices, negotiating with their friends, and learning what their bodies can do. Researchers have found over and over that spending time in nature-rich outdoor spaces can help people improve their ability to control their emotions, be creative, and feel confident in their social skills. For a long time, Pramling Samuelsson has been pointing to this proof.
The podcast made it clear that her views aren’t changing over time. She is even more worried now that she has seen how early childhood education is shifting toward more screen time, more structured programming, and less real outdoor time. Underneath the calm academic tone is a sense of urgency—a sense that something truly important is being lost when kids are kept too safe, too supervised, and too far away from the kind of play that actually makes them stronger.
It’s a whole different question whether policymakers are ready to act on that belief. But talks like this one, where researchers talk freely without the rules of academic writing, are an important part of how things change over time.
