Here’s a little secret most of us didn’t get told when we became parents, educators, or therapists:
You and your child are not wired the same way.
When you first hold your child, there’s an unspoken assumption that they are, in some fundamental way, an extension of you. They came from you, after all. You share genes, a home, and (on good days) the last piece of cake. In those early days, their needs feel instinctive: when they cry, you respond; when they’re hungry, you feed them. It’s easy to believe you are wired the same way, that you will always understand them as naturally as you did when they were tiny.
But for all the ways you’re connected, the way you experience the world—how loud is too loud, how much movement feels like too much, whether silence is bliss or torture—is entirely your own.
As they grow, so does the realisation that they are their own person, with their own preferences, sensitivities, and ways of experiencing the world. You might see yourself in how they scrunch their nose when they concentrate or in their love of a particular song, but suddenly, there are differences that don’t quite make sense. Sounds that barely register for you might feel like a sensory onslaught to them. The touch that feels comforting to you might be unbearable for them. One of you might crave motion to focus, while the other needs stillness to think. And when those differences aren’t acknowledged, it’s easy to assume the other person is being difficult rather than simply existing in a world that feels different to them than it does to you.
A child bouncing off the walls might not be “too much.” They might just need more input than you do to feel grounded. A therapist who lets a child move instead of sit still might not be “too soft”. They might understand that stillness is not always a prerequisite for learning.
Every human has a sensory profile, or, a unique mix of preferences for how much input we need or can tolerate across things like sound, touch, movement, light, and even social interaction. Some people crave sensory input. These are the kids who never stop moving, who hum while they draw, who run their hands along every wall they pass. Other people avoid sensory input. These are the kids who crave quiet, prefer predictability, and maybe find the feeling of a shirt tag enough to ruin a whole afternoon.
Now, imagine a sensory-seeking child living with a sensory-avoiding parent. Or a sensory-avoiding child being supported by a sensory-seeking therapist. Every interaction is filtered through two entirely different sensory realities.
That’s sensory mismatch: when two people are processing the same environment completely differently, but only one of them (usually the adult) gets to decide what’s “normal.”
The problem isn’t just the sensory mismatch itself, but how we interpret it. When we assume our way of experiencing the world is the default, we start labelling other ways as wrong. But what we need to do, as the adults, is stop seeing these differences as obstacles to control and start seeing them as perspectives to understand.
The sensory bias in parenting can be hard to spot. Most parents (and therapists) don’t realise they have sensory biases. We don’t walk around thinking, “I have a low tolerance for noise, so my child’s normal play feels chaotic to me.”
Instead, it’s:
“Why can’t they just play nicely?”
“They’re so dramatic about every tiny thing.”
“They’re out of control.”
“They’re too shy.”
Sensory mismatch turns into a story about your child’s behaviour, personality, and potential. And because your sensory preferences feel like the baseline for normal, anything that falls outside it feels wrong.
The truth is, it’s not wrong. It’s just different from your own.
The sensory bias doesn’t stop at the front door. It follows parents into therapy rooms, parent-teacher conferences, and even decisions about which educational approach feels “right.” Imagine: you’re a sensory-seeking parent with a sensory-avoiding child. You want your child to be louder, more engaged, to dive into messy sensory play. You find a gentle therapist, who’s low-energy and spends a lot of time quietly observing.
What do you see? Probably someone who’s too passive. Someone who “doesn’t engage enough.” Someone who “isn’t helping my child break out of their shell.”
But the therapist hasn’t actually done anything wrong in either case. They’ve simply matched their approach to your child’s sensory reality, instead of yours.
In mainstream schooling, sensory mismatch gets drowned out by structure. Everyone follows the same schedule, sits in the same chairs, and takes the same tests. Kids are expected to adapt.
But homeschooling—an umbrella term we’re using for all alternative learning approaches, including unschooling, gameschooling, and worldschooling—comes with a level of flexibility that makes sensory needs impossible to ignore.
A sensory-seeking unschooled child may thrive in a noisy, movement-rich day, bouncing from project to project. That same child in a sensory-avoiding schooling structure may leave their teachers utterly exhausted. A sensory-avoiding unschooled child may prefer long stretches of quiet, solitary play, and may need downtime after every social interaction. To a sensory-seeking system, this can look like withdrawal, avoidance, or even “laziness.”
In homeschooling, there’s no hiding from sensory mismatch. It becomes part of the daily negotiation between child, parent, and environment, and whether that negotiation feels like collaboration or conflict depends largely on how aware you are of your own sensory lens.
Schools are built on the expectation that children will sit still, listen quietly, and follow instructions without resistance. Compliance is often mistaken for learning, and a child’s ability to suppress their natural impulses is praised as discipline. Parents often inevitably absorb this message—especially if their own sensory preferences align with the structured, orderly environment that schools demand. When a sensory-mismatched child “complies” — when they force themselves to be quieter, calmer, and more focused than they naturally are — it can look like success to the sensory-avoiding parent and school.
But this is not success. It’s masking.
When a sensory-mismatched child pushes themselves to be louder, more social, or more outgoing than feels safe, it can look like bravery to a sensory-seeking parent.
But it’s not bravery. It’s exhaustion. Compliance isn’t thriving. It’s survival.
And homeschooling, at its core, is about moving beyond survival, into actual learning.
However, the goal isn’t to perfectly match every child and parent and therapist into tidy sensory-compatible pairs. That’s impossible (and honestly, not the point). The magic is in the middle, in building environments where everyone’s sensory needs are respected enough, even if they don’t always align perfectly. It’s in the sensory-avoiding parent learning to embrace a little more mess and movement, not because they love it, but because their child needs it. It’s in the sensory-seeking parent honouring their child’s need for downtime, not because it comes naturally, but because it’s essential. It’s in therapists holding firm boundaries and building playful connections.
And it’s in homeschooling spaces where sensory-seeking and sensory-avoiding kids can both find their rhythm, without being labelled “too much” or “too quiet.”
Sensory mismatch only becomes a battle when we assume there’s one “right” way to be. When we stop playing tug-of-war between our sensory biases and our child’s sensory reality, everything changes. That’s why homeschooling works — not because it’s a perfect system, but because it makes space for every child to be themselves.
The real work isn’t in fixing the child. There never really was anything to “fix.” It’s in seeing the mismatch for what it is and building a family and learning culture where no one has to fight for sensory survival.