Until my children became teens, I never realized the amazing parallels between birds and humans. Baby birds and baby humans spend a lot of time hollering for food. As they grow, young birds and young humans still holler for nourishment and they flap their newly feathered wings for emphasis. Before their tail and wing feathers are fully developed for accurate flight, young birds begin fanning their wings in the nest to gain strength. So do teens. This is often the stage where mistakes happen. Sometimes an over exuberant flapper leaves the nest early and hurtles out into the world.
Each spring I have several fledglings hit the ground too soon in my backyard. The parent birds have lost the edge on rearing their child but they don't give up. They first encourage their errant child to flutter hop into a low tree or bush. This alone can take days in bird time, and could easily equal months or years in human time. To encourage the desired behavior in their young, parent birds fly back and forth between the target limb and their child on the ground and they repeat this behavior tirelessly.
Why? Because this is all the parent bird can do at this point. They cannot pick up their fledgling and throw him into the air. They cannot carry him safely into the trees. All they can do is teach by example, repeating the desired behavior until their child finally stops squawking and flapping and "gets it". Human parenting lessons and advice can be found everywhere in the natural world.
Keep your hand outstretched and be as repetitive and redundant as today's bad music. Your troubled child may not grasp reality next week or even next year, but one day you'll find your hand being clenched by a grateful child who finally understands that the world is bigger than they are.
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