Early Childhood Ireland CEO Teresa Heeney says parents and guardians can affect the development of a child’s adventurous side if they are always trying to protect them.
This is particularly true when they are playing outdoors.
Ms. Heeney spoke to Newstalk Breakfast on the topic and said parents simply need to learn to trust their children.
She said: "When children are given time and trust and opportunity to play, a game can start with one thing but it'll become who-knows-what the next day," she said.
"Giving children opportunities to roam and trusting them to not have to be seen or observed all the time allows them to bring their play to places that they didn't even know it could go.
"It's so important to trust children because they become the masters of their own play".
The only way for little ones to learn how to take care of themselves is by leaving them to do things alone, she went on to say.
"They decide what's going to happen and they have something that they're in control of.
"That means that they learn [about] the uses for something, the purposes for something.
"They learn about the people that they're playing with [and] they learn about how different families operate, how different cultures operate.
"They learn about rules, they learn what kind of rules work in games with each other and they learn how important social relationships are.
"When children are doing that themselves, as opposed to being observed or directed all the time by adults, they become much more authoritative people in their own time".
Ms. Heeney said that part of learning to do this is to allow your children to take part in what is known as “risk-rich play”.
"We in Early Childhood Ireland like to call that 'risk-rich play'" she said.
"There's so much to be gained for children when they have thrilling play.
"If you've ever pushed a child on a swing they want to go higher because they want to feel that thrill."
While this is incredibly important, Ms Heeney said parents still need to set limits for their children to abide by.
"Obviously we're not saying, 'Let them out and you don't see them for 12 hours' but trust children," she said.
"Build in risk-rich opportunities so they can learn to judge risk for themselves - that's so important for their own resilience.”
Ms Heeney concluded by sending a message to parents that children "don't have to be observed all the time" when they're playing.
