Eight-year-old Finn Riley was flying his drone at a Denver park when the device got stuck halfway up a 50-foot ponderosa pine. Without hesitation, the boy climbed up the tree and shimmied his way onto a branch to retrieve the aircraft.

Then he got stuck. From the ground, Finn’s self-proclaimed “hands-off dad” discussed the best way to descend. “He started to hesitate, so I climbed up to him,” Chad Riley says. “We figured it out together.”

Even though an element of danger was involved, Riley wanted to give his son the space to make his own decisions. And he might be on to something. Play experts say that an element of risk during play is an important component of child development.

“As kids