You protect them from disappointment, and it arrives anyway

Come, sit with me, for this is one of love''s hardest lessons. You cannot keep disappointment out of a life; only choose when they meet it — no love can spare a child every failure, for disappointment is woven into being alive, so the protecting decides only whether they meet it small and often with you beside them, or large and alone, later, when you are not there; you are not choosing between disappointment and none, but when. The protection removes the very practice that would prepare them — each disappointment weathered teaches a child, in their body, that they survive it and it passes, and stepping in before the rejection takes that lesson, so they reach the large disappointments unpracticed, and the pain you delayed arrives anyway, bigger, and finds them undefended. And let them meet small disappointments now, with you beside them — the grandmother''s love is to let the small failures happen and not fix them, but to sit beside your child while they feel it, teaching that disappointment is survivable and they are not alone in it; that knowledge is armour no cushioning could give. What disappointment have you been stepping in to prevent?