Letter to School Kid Parent
So often I meet families where one parent is drawn to unschooling, sensing the freedom and wholeness it can bring, while the other parent resists — still trusting in the school system, still believing it is the safest or only way.
Every time I witness this tension, something in me aches for the child caught in between. I feel a deep pull to reach out, to gently open the eyes of the parent who hasn’t yet questioned what school really does to children, to their dreams, to their sense of self.
This letter is born from that place — from love, from truth, and from the hope that maybe, just maybe, it will plant a seed in the heart of a parent still holding on to the system. Please share if you feel the same:
Letter to School Kid Parent
Dear school kid parent,
I know you want the best for your child. I know you love them more than anything in this world. That’s why I am writing to you — not with judgment, but from a place deep in my heart, with love, understanding, and a longing for truth.
I hope you will read this with openness and pause for a moment, because what I am about to share is not often spoken out loud, though many of us feel it in our bones:
School changes your child.
Before you send them away from your loving arms and the warmth of home, their unique character shines, their innocence is intact, their sense of wonder is alive, their curiosity knows no limits. They look at you with trust, with a bond that is natural and unshakable. They want to be with you, learn with you, laugh with you, and grow in your presence. This is what makes them whole.
But school reshapes this.
It teaches them to sit still when their body longs to move.
It teaches them to raise their hand for permission to speak, when their voice deserves to be heard freely.
It teaches them to compete, compare, and measure their worth against others, when in truth their worth is immeasurable.
It teaches them to obey strangers over listening to their own heart and their own family.
It teaches them that learning is a chore, a duty, something done for grades and approval, instead of the joyful, self-driven exploration it naturally is.
Slowly, the spark in their eyes dims. Slowly, they begin to believe that fitting in matters more than being true to themselves. Slowly, they forget that they were once explorers, creators, dreamers.
I know this is painful to hear, but it is the truth many of us have witnessed.
And yet, there is another way.
Children don’t need to be molded — they need to be unfolded. They don’t need to be taught what to think, they need the freedom to think. They don’t need to be standardized; they need to be cherished in their uniqueness.
When a child grows up surrounded by love, family, and a community of caring people, something extraordinary happens. Learning flows naturally — through projects, play, passions, and peers. They learn not because they are forced to, but because life itself is fascinating. They learn responsibility by being included in real life. They learn compassion by being treated with compassion. They learn creativity not by filling out worksheets, but by living in a world that values their ideas and imagination.
And this isn’t just about childhood joy — it’s about preparing them for the future.
We live in times of enormous change. Artificial Intelligence and automation are already replacing traditional jobs. The skills that once mattered most in the school system — memorization, repetition, standardized answers — are now the very skills machines can do better than humans.
The future belongs to those who can do what machines cannot:
- to imagine,
- to empathize,
- to create,
- to collaborate,
- to question,
- to dream.
And those are the very qualities that schools suppress but that natural, free, family-centered learning nurtures.
Your child doesn’t need to be trained for a shrinking job market. They need to be empowered for life — for creating, innovating, building communities, solving problems, loving deeply, and living fully.
And here is something else that is often overlooked: when children grow up whole and unbroken, they don’t just bring joy to their own lives, but to the entire world. A child who learns in freedom becomes an adult who lives in freedom. A child who grows in love brings more love into humanity. A child who is trusted becomes trustworthy.
Dear parent, I know this is not the path most people take. I know it feels safer to do what everyone else does, to send your child to school and hope it will all turn out fine. But the truth is: we cannot outsource childhood. We cannot outsource love. We cannot outsource the one thing our children need most — our presence.
Your child’s time is precious. Their wonder, their laughter, their ideas, their hugs — these years are fleeting, and they will not return. Do not let a system that was never designed for human flourishing steal them away.
You are enough. Your family is enough. Your love is enough. And in choosing to honor childhood, you are not only giving your child the best chance in life — you are also giving the world a gift it so desperately needs: a whole, joyful, capable human being.
