My own experience of parenting is also full of these difficult questions. The world has sharp edges and the process of teaching your children about those edges is no fun.

The cliche is touching a hot stove. You can prevent them from touching the hot stove, but then they might not learn to avoid it and when confronted later with something bigger and hotter, with higher stakes, where touching may mean more than a little burn, having actually touched the hot stove becomes invaluable.

That analogy is probably not the best, but one of the most necessary and difficult parts of parenting is allowing your children to learn these kinds of lessons. Our instincts are to shield them from all badness, all unpleasantness, all unfairness. But probably, such shielding is not good.

The baby who frequently falls down probably learns to walk faster than the baby whose parents always catch her.

And yet, being able to provide a do-over to our children when they're heart is broken is such a wonderful thing -- I can only occasionally resist.