ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a complexity-informed framework to support practitioners’ understanding of young children’s movement. Movements are not simply repeated in exactly the same way, time after time, in the linear, closed-loop manner of the complicated system: they tend to develop in ways that are messy and non-linear through a mix of successes, surprises, repetitions, mistakes and possibly the occasional disaster. Boundaries either act to help or hinder children’s movement efforts and come in three main forms: personal boundaries, boundaries in the immediate environment and boundaries that are part of the tasks the children are attempting. “Playing safe” inside the boundaries is an important part of children’s movement development because it helps children to consolidate movement behaviours. Self-organising outside boundaries is also an important part of the movement development process because it offers children the opportunity to be creative in their movement behaviours.
