I don’t have kids, but the way I was raised is by letting me experiment with stuff. My parents would let me bump my head or get my fingers stuck into stuff, because then I would learn to not put my fingers into random stuff. Now of course they told me don’t do it but they didn’t prevent me from learning from my mistakes. And look at that: I’m not dead yet and I don’t run in places with things hanging off the ceiling!

And they also did that for fears, the kid needs to overcome their fears the same way they learn from their mistakes, by doing it themselves.

Kind of unrelated one thing my mom told me she did with me and my brother was for example when we fell off our bicycles, instead of running and crying and acting all shocked and scared, she would just say “Wow! That was a COOL fall! You were so badass with all the dust going everywhere!!” And that would prevent us from crying and making a whole case about it. She told me that kids will cry when they feel like it will bring them attention, especially if they are not badly/truly hurt