[link to audio, below] A little shout-out to @Rachel Willoughby for throwing this topic my way, because the minute she mentioned motherhood, boys, and letting them be wild enough to break a bone or two, I laughed and thought… yep. Been there. 😂 One thing I learned pretty quickly as a mom is that boys can be a whole different experience. When mine were little, a lot of my friends had girls, and I remember feeling like we were some kind of traveling circus. 😂 I’m sure there were moments when people were thinking, That child needs discipline, Does he have ADD? or Somebody needs to get control of that kid. Meanwhile, I was thinking, Nope. He’s just a boy. Climbing. Jumping. Wrestling. Testing limits. Doing the exact thing you just told him not to do because apparently verbal warnings are merely suggestions. And somewhere along the way, one of the best parenting lessons I ever got came from our pediatrician [St. Dr Kelly Stephens] when Bella was little. He told me: “If it’s not illegal, immoral, or dangerous…good luck.“ Over the years, he added expensive to the list. 😂 And I still think about that all the time. You want another ice cream cone even though I told you your stomach is going to hurt? Good luck. You want to stand on that little ladder after I’ve told you six times to get down? Good luck. You want to make a choice that I already know probably isn’t going to work out exactly the way you think it will? Sometimes…good luck. Because not every bad decision needs to be prevented. Sometimes the consequence is small enough, safe enough, and age-appropriate enough that the lesson is worth more than another warning. As parents, I think we spend so much time trying to protect our kids from discomfort that we can accidentally protect them from learning too. There’s a difference between something being dangerous and something simply making us nervous to watch. And that line moves as they grow. First it’s climbing too high.