The Balancing act between Control and Chaos
The other day, it was raining and cold, so we were all inside. The children had big energy and wanted to cut loose, so we began a game where they could hang from a low bar and run or jump around the room. At first, only one child was getting a little too wild, so we quietly reminded that child how we keep each other safe. But soon, we could tell everyone was edging toward unsafe play. Our bodies felt it; the energy was shifting.
Instead of shutting the game down, we reset the system. We created a circular pathway using cushions and furniture and invited the children to move clockwise around it. At first, we had to guide them—“this way,” “around the circle,” “keep moving”—but eventually they fell into the rhythm on their own. The structure held them long enough for autonomy to take over. They regulated together. They found their own flow.
We are searching for the balance between freedom and safety, expression and boundaries, chaos and control.
How do we create a space where children feel safe, respected, and free—and also understand that being part of a group comes with shared responsibility?
We want an environment where children play freely and confidently, where their personalities—big, quiet, curious, bold, sensitive—have room to expand rather than shrink. We want adults who guide with connection instead of command, who help children co-regulate instead of simply demanding compliance, who build trust instead of enforcing fear. And we want a community where everyone, adults and children, feels seen.
At the same time, most of us have experienced environments where direct orders and rigid control were the norm. Rooms where the priority was silence, stillness, and obedience. Places where adults felt responsible for controlling outcomes and ensuring safety at all costs. We know the environments on the opposite end of the spectrum too—spaces where freedom is unrestricted, where boundaries are unclear, where children are left to sort things out without structure or guidance. Neither extreme feels good. Both leave something essential out.
What we are working toward sits somewhere in the middle.
We are trying to understand what it looks and feels like to give children the room to explore, take risks, make friends, and feel genuinely powerful—while also ensuring the group stays safe. We are trying to figure out how to keep everyone protected even when children are not yet aware of the consequences of their choices.
We are asking real questions that show up every single day:
How do we quickly reset when play turns into chaos?
How do we teach children that safety is something we co-create?
How do we help them understand that the ability to play freely is made possible by following our community guidelines?
How do we practice fairness when consequences often affect the group, including children who never break a guideline?
How do we keep the dignity of every child while protecting the whole?
These are big important questions. They are also real, lived moments.
Like when a group walk becomes unsafe because one or two children repeatedly disregard clear guidelines. Do you cancel the walk for everyone? Do you continue on and correct only the child who is struggling? Do you pause, reset, and try again? And how do you ensure that whatever choice is made teaches—not punishes, not shames, not divides—but teaches understanding?
Or when big-energy play suddenly tips into chaos and you can feel it in your body. You can literally sense the shift before anything goes wrong. You feel that invisible turning point between “everyone is fine” and “someone is about to get hurt.” You feel your intuition say, We need to pause. We need to reset.
I come from a big family. I can flow with a lot of noise and movement, I can move with the flow of children’s energy. But occassionally, my body, my intuition, says stop. And when that moment arrives, as a leader, I need the group to respond to my cue immediately and consistently. That requires a shared language—simple phrases like “Hocus pocus,” with everyone responding *“Everybody focus”—*or “Bottoms on the ground!” and everyone sitting at once. These cues help us restore safety quickly.
But reactive systems only work when something much deeper is already in place. They depend on proactive relationship-building, community trust, and shared understanding. They depend on adults who children believe—not because they fear them, but because they trust them. They depend on children believing that they are part of something bigger than themselves.
This is where the research becomes especially meaningful.
A growing body of research helps us understand why balancing autonomy and structure in a group setting matters so much. Basilio & Rodríguez (2017) found that children became more self-regulated when adults supported their independence during shared play. Ogan (2008) showed that children in unstructured free-play groups made even greater self-regulation gains than those in guided interventions. A study of 2,222 teachers found the strongest self-regulation growth when children had real choices within group play (Kangas, Ojala, & Venninen, 2015). And research comparing different classroom activities found the highest self-regulation in small-group and play experiences, where children had autonomy and social interaction (Timmons, Pelletier, & Corter, 2016). Together, these studies suggest that autonomy supports self-regulation most powerfully when practiced in community.
The message is consistent: children learn to regulate themselves not by being controlled, but by being supported in making choices within a safe, responsive environment. Structure provides safety, but autonomy builds the internal skills they carry for life.
In a shared space, our freedoms are connected to how well we listen to and consider one another. We’re teaching them to listen to us, to listen to each other—and they’re teaching us to listen right back.
This is the balance we’re learning: providing just enough structure to keep everyone safe, and just enough freedom for children to practice being their fullest selves.
