[closewith]

> Kids have a natural fear of heights and falling

A learned fear, like the rest. There's no innate fear of falling.

[sampullman]

Are you sure? From what I've read, and personally experienced there's some innate fear of heights. Similar to snakes and spiders, it's baked in.

[noahjk]

Babies will happily crawl off of the edge of whatever they're on. I'm not sure if it's because they aren't afraid, or if it's because they're so used to being carried that they don't grasp the concept of gravity, or both.

My toddler recently went out on our roof to retrieve a football. I expected her to be a bit nervous, but she walked right up to the edge, no fear apparent at all. I had to desperately shove my instinct to yell for her down so I didn't scare her and distract her.

[yencabulator]

Here's an experiment showing 27 of 36 crawling-age infants had no apparent fear of heights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_cliff

[bobthepanda]

IIRC very small kids are also developing depth perception, they aren't born with it.

[closewith]

100% sure. It's completely uncontroversial scientifically, so I'm not sure what you read, but it's also obvious to any parent.

[sampullman]

I can't find the article I was thinking of, it was a while ago. I'm pretty sure it was about the visual cliff experiment though: https://www.simplypsychology.org/visual-cliff-experiment.htm...

It looks like there have been a number of studies over the years, so not completely uncontroversial, unless there's something definitive you've read?

The point isn't that babies never fall off stuff, just that at least a part of the fear is built in.

[closewith]

The link you shared doesn't relate to fear at all.

[sampullman]

An aversion or wariness, but I think it's clear that a fear of heights is not entirely learned behavior.

[closewith]

It's not at all clear. I think you're just reaching now to avoid admitting you were initially (and very obviously) mistaken.