Bill Henson is in the news again, this time for his controversial thoughts on the risks associated with Arts, Sports and the Church. In a recent interview with the Australian, Henson stated that when searching for high risk areas to children that “The last place you would start with would be the arts.” and that the highest risk areas were the church and sports.

I am amazed that this is even a question. of course sports are higher risk! ask any teen where their injuries came from and they will proudly tell you which sport and what they were doing. I had my nose broken while playing hockey. and let us not forget that massive den of Injuries, women’s netball.

Of course an archbishop of the catholic church has officially gone on record saying that “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”, and naturally we are going to believe him.

Robert Nelson, Art Critic and Father of Olympia Nelson Has commented on this article.

He said risk should be calculated by the severity of the injury multiplied by the chance of it occurring.

”When your kid goes off onto the sports field, it’s a very competitive and actually kind of nasty situation where one kid is really trying to push the other out of the way,” he said.

”And it’s a pretty high chance that something nasty will happen sooner or later.”

Robert Nelson said there was a risk of paralysis associated with sport, and while there were also risks that needed to be considered with art, they were tiny in comparison.

”There is some risk always that the kid will not be happy with the image. You can’t really guarantee that the kid will be, but there’s a very high chance the kid will be proud of it,” he said.

”How we know that, we kind of just don’t see examples of kids or adults complaining about having been traumatised by their picture.

”With risk, you can never completely eliminate it, that’s for sure. But it’s a tiny, tiny risk. And the chances meanwhile of something wonderful happening are quite high.”

via Sports vs Arts: Which is more dangerous to our kids? | 3AW Neil Mitchell |.

As they say, there are risks to everything, and everything needs to be taken into account, but I would feel less concerned about my child experimenting with art than with priests or hockey sticks!

No doubt some bright spark is going to form the argument that Sports are very important for a child’s development. yes, they are fantastic for building coordination, fitness, team spirit and all that. I think everyone should have some sport in their lives. and everyone should have some art in their lives. art is critical for building creativity, free thought, cognitive thinking, hand eye coordination, lateral thinking and so much more. and it is something that keeps giving, long after you’ve blown your knee playing football.