In this article Jill Donovan shares her experiences as a parent in finding a healthy balance between protecting her sons and letting them take the risks necessary for growth. Like all parents, she often struggles with providing appropriate safety nets and trusting them (and the world) enough to let them try things and make mistakes. She describes the constant tug of war, between guarding what is most sacred to her, while allowing them to discover and develop what is most sacred in them. She writes in this article that one of the central tensions in many great schools is the same. We all want to provide safe learning environments for kids. As we know from our own life experiences and a decade of cutting-edge brain research, ideal learning happens when we feel physically and emotionally safe, however, often intelligent risk taking is necessary in order to grow. She argues that kids, teachers, all of us need to step outside our comfort zone, embrace challenges, and real risks in order to flourish and that we all need to strive to be the sort of students, teachers, parents, and schools that are brave enough to identify and tackle healthy risks in order to grow.