11/01/2026
In the natural world, a fledgling learning to fly is not hovered over every moment. It’s parents don’t shove it from the nest, nor do they strap wings to its back. Instead, they do something far subtler and far braver: they make space.
They stay nearby. They watch. They call. They intervene only when danger is real and imminent. The fledgling wobbles, misjudges, lands badly. It feels the consequence of gravity, of miscalculation, of inexperience. Those consequences are not punishments; they are information. They teach the body what balance feels like, what effort costs, what happens when timing is off. Through this, flight is learned.
Human children are not so different.
Natural consequences are the gravity of childhood. They are what happens when a choice meets the world as it is, not as an adult wishes it to be. A forgotten lunch means hunger for a while. A rushed job means having to redo it. A harsh word means a strained relationship that needs repair. These moments sting, but they also instruct. They build internal maps of cause and effect, responsibility and agency.
What often derails this process is fear. But not fear from the children. It’s adult fear of discomfort, failure, embarrassment, or distress.
In trying to protect children from every wobble, we can end up clipping their wings.
Over-correction, punishment, or rescuing too quickly risks sending a quiet message: you can’t learn this yourself. It replaces lived understanding with compliance or dependence.
Like the fledgling’s parents, holding space does not mean absence or neglect. It means presence without control. It means trusting that learning happens through experience, not just instruction. It means distinguishing between harm and discomfort, and allowing the latter so the child can grow stronger, wiser, more self-directed.
Nature does not demand perfection before flight. It allows clumsiness. It expects falling. And it knows that confidence is not taught, but emerges when a being discovers, again and again, I survived that. I learned something. I can try again.
That is the gift of space.
KF
