‘Be careful!’ Using our words as a discursive exploration of early childhood educators regulating children’s play

What early childhood educators say to children on playgrounds shapes children’s behaviour. ‘Be careful!’ may be the most common phrase uttered on playgrounds across Ontario, as early childhood educators manage children’s play and work to maintain their safety. These utterances, and the disciplinary practices that accompany them, shape what is acceptable and unacceptable for children to do and, ultimately, what kind of children they can be. Making use of analytic strategies derived from Foucault, I take some first steps to show that injunctions to ‘be careful’ and other similar utterances regulate children’s behaviour to produce a particular child-subject, while in the same moment revealing much about some of the discourses at work in the playgrounds of many early learning settings. I propose that these discourses – the discourses of safety, socialization and purposeful play, all embedded within an overarching developmental discursive framework – connect early childhood educators’ utterances and practices on playgrounds to concepts of discipline and governmentality. I also explore in this article how a Foucauldian perspective may provide educators a space to question established ideas regarding children and their play and explore new approaches for ensuring children’s safety without controlling them.

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