Years — almost two decades — ago, 4-year-old Gracie was running on the gravel walkway behind the bleachers during her brother’s Little League game. She was the child of a friend; her brother and our son were on the same team that season.

Gracie tripped on a big rock and fell hard. Her mom didn’t see it happen, and my wife, Sara, was the first to get there. Gracie was oozing blood from both dirtied knees and crying elephant tears as Sara scooped her up and hugged her. “It’s O.K., sweetie, it’ll be O.K. Let’s go find your mommy. Do you know what we say in our house when something like this happens?”

Gracie nodded her head slowly, and sobbed, “I know, I know … suck it up, just suck it up.”

That’s not exactly what my wife (she of the “Mommy will kiss the booboo and make it better” school) was going for.

Gracie has two older brothers, both jocks. Her dad is a college basketball coach, and her mom is a lawyer. Theirs was (and is) a no-nonsense home. The kind of family that refused “participation” trophies – if you won, you won. If you didn’t win, you lost. And you shouldn’t get a trophy for losing. Ours was a house that gladly accepted participation trophies, which still adorn our kids’ bedrooms at home even though they are in college and beyond. Our parenthood styles differed in booboos, and beyond.

So how should you handle this with your kids? Kiss it and make it better, or teach them to grin and bear it?

I’m not going to answer that question. As one of Gracie’s knees might have said to the other, “This is bigger and bloodier than the both of us.”

In my three decades as a pediatrician, I’ve seen a lot of philosophies on being a parent come and go. From baby doctors to baby whisperers, child psychologists to first ladies, tiger moms to moms bringing up bébé to moms forcing their 7-year-old daughters onto Weight Watchers. Even more telling are the controversies each new approach generates. Every time, skeptics and critics declare war on adherents and advocates. The 17th-century nobleman and poet John Wilmot said: “Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children. Now I have six children and no theories.” After more than 30 years in practice, I feel the same way.

Gracie grew into a fine young adult, as did her brothers. They sucked it up all the way through high school and college. Kissing away our kids’ booboos also worked out well, and also produced fine young adults. As far as I can tell, the kids in both families still love their parents.

So, are all philosophies on raising children equal? Do “attachment,” “nurturant,” “authoritarian,” “authoritative,” “indulgent,” “free-range” and all the other styles du jour end up the same for kids? There are no answers; all we have are anecdotes and testimonials from believers. That’s all we will ever have: how could you isolate a single factor like a parent’s style into some definitive research study?

But even theory-less after all these years, I know one thing. The parents who read books about raising children are not the ones I’m worried about. Whichever approach they pick, their kids have a good chance of turning out fine — just by virtue of having parents concerned enough to read a book on the subject. It’s the parents who aren’t worried that I’m worried about, the ones who don’t consider the impact their actions or inactions will have on their kids. I’m worried about the parents who don’t have the time, or don’t take the time, to parent.

I believe the real reason that Gracie, her brothers and our kids all turned out O.K. is that it never really mattered whether they sucked it up or were coddled. What mattered was that their parents were all sitting on the bleachers that day. And on many, many (although certainly not all), other days as well. Whichever expert’s philosophy you feel most comfortable with, or whether you choose to make up your own, the single truth that applies to them all is that your kids need you to be on the metaphorical bleachers, cheering them on.

In other words, there’s no book that’s going to make all your doubts go away. Gracie’s parents hold sway over this one: you just have to suck it up and parent.