The suffocating pressure that hums in the background of modern parenting can be felt everywhere.
In the worried way people ask, “So what curriculum are you using?” or “What grade is your kid in now?” It’s in the awkward silence that follows when you say your child is “just playing” today. It shows up in conversations with relatives who ask—politely, but insistently—if your child is “on track.” It’s in the well-meaning neighbour who sends you articles about accelerated programmes, coding camps, etc., “just in case.” It’s the look people give you when you say your child isn’t in formal school yet, or that you’re not sure what curriculum you’re using, or that you’re just… figuring it out.
It’s the pressure to do things by the book—even if no one can quite tell you who wrote the book, what chapter we’re supposed to be on, or why you should trust the author with your child’s actual life.
There’s this unspoken expectation that there’s one right way. That childhood is a staircase, and if you skip a step, your kid will somehow fall behind forever. That deviation is dangerous. That if you’re not carefully, visibly following a known path, you’re being irresponsible.
And so, we start to measure our parenting by how well we’re replicating the system—even if that system doesn’t feel right. Even if our kids are burnt out, bored, disengaged, or quietly slipping into anxiety.
We do it because we don’t want to be the ones who got it wrong. Because we’re afraid of what people will think. And because we’ve been conditioned to believe that someone else always knows better.
The truth is, no standardised path can account for the complexity, creativity, and inner compass of your actual child. And deep down, most of us know this.
We just don’t feel like we’re allowed to act on it. Or at least, not until someone else gives us permission.
Parenting and education somehow became less about knowing your child and more about performing for a jury that doesn’t actually exist. We’ve outsourced trust and discernment. Most importantly, we’ve internalised an entire system that tells us to ask for permission: whether that’s before trying something different, before stepping off the comfortable, well-paved road, and before listening to our instincts.
But the future isn’t going to be built by people who wait for permission.
And the education of tomorrow is already being shaped by those who’ve stopped asking for it.
Look closely, and you’ll find them. Parents quietly opting out of the noise. Educators designing learning environments in borrowed spaces. Teens cobbling together passion projects instead of prepping for standardised exams. People rebuilding something more honest to them from the ground up.
Because asking for permission means playing by the rules of a system that’s already failed the test. If you’ve ever sat in a PTA meeting where someone spends an hour arguing over whether a topic belongs in Term 2 or Term 3…you know what we mean.
It begs to be repeated, but we know that it isn’t about scrapping structure altogether. But we want to be clear: the next era of education isn’t going to be scheduled neatly into forty-minute slots that somehow speak to every single child. It won’t be dreamed up in committees or signed off by a policy council.
For children, this means learning that’s rooted in purpose, not performance. It looks like kids tinkering, prototyping, trying, failing, revising. Not because they’re chasing gold stars and straight A’s, but because they care about what they’re building. It looks like kids who know how to navigate uncertainty, manage their own energy, and keep going without needing applause. It’s learning to lead without needing a podium. To think without being told what to think.
As necessary as it is to validate kids and help build up their self-confidence, it’s just as necessary for us at Imagine If to teach kids how to cut through the noise of external validation and approval—to build quality, lasting self-confidence. Even though we’re humans wired for connection, it’s still crucial to practice discernment for what kind of connections and communities will serve us. Not everyone will get it, and that’s okay. But there will be those who do.
We can’t expect children to take risks, trust themselves, and chart new paths—if the adults raising and educating them haven’t made peace with those things themselves.
Most of us were raised on permission. Raised to sit still, follow rules, and colour inside the lines. Ask before you speak. Ask before you try. Wait to be told it’s safe. So when you start to homeschool, or when you decide to unschool, or simply to do things differently, you’ll question it:
“Can I really do this?”
“Is this allowed?”
“Should I be checking in with someone about this?”
That voice doesn’t mean you’re unprepared. It just means you’ve been well-trained.
But the truth is, no one is going to give you that permission. No one is going to hand you a permission slip and say, “You’re now officially allowed to build something beautiful for your child.”
That’s your job.
That can absolutely be hard, yes. But it’s also liberating. Because it means you can stop waiting. You can start now, with what you have, where you are.
So here’s our (ironic) permission slip to you to stop asking for permission. You’re allowed to start observing and making judgments based on your knowledge of your child. You’re allowed to stop second-guessing and start noticing what actually works for them. You’re allowed to stop trying to win at a system that’s seldom designed with your child in mind.
In doing so, you begin to build something bigger than an education plan for them. You build trust, autonomy, and nervous system regulation—for both of you.
Which is why we need a new nervous system.
One that doesn’t spike with guilt every time our child “falls behind” a fictional timeline. One that isn’t addicted to productivity for productivity’s sake. One that knows how to sit with discomfort, with boredom, with failure, and keeps going.
This is what education needs to teach our children. And it starts with how we, as adults, model those things ourselves. Because no worksheet will teach a child how to manage comparison, navigate rejection, or ask for help when they’re lost. Or teach them how to be curious without an agenda for achievement. No test score will teach them how to do the slow, often invisible work of becoming.
So, if this resonates—if something in your chest lights up when you read this—then maybe you’re someone who knows you’re not waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay anymore. And that your child doesn’t need a top-tier school or an elite curriculum.
Maybe you’re starting to realise that they need you to be present, attuned, and brave enough to say: We’re allowed to want something better, and we no longer need permission to raise free people. Because freedom comes from those who quietly start walking, even if no one claps when they do.