What Happens When We Treat Children Like Projects?
From parenting to schooling, many of our ideas about children are rooted in outcomes, achievement, and who we think they should become. But what if the most important thing we can do is learn to see them for who they already are?
As parents, it's almost impossible not to imagine our children's futures. We wonder what kind of people they'll become, what path they'll take through life, and what challenges they'll face along the way. We notice their strengths and gifts. We see possibilities in them that they may not yet see in themselves. We hope they'll find meaningful work, healthy relationships, and a sense of purpose. Most of us do this out of love.
Yet there is a subtle line between hoping for our children and becoming attached to a particular vision of who they should be. When that happens, our hopes can quietly become expectations. Instead of being curious about who our children are, we begin focusing on who we think they should become. Without realizing it, we can start relating more to a future version of our child than to the person standing right in front of us.
This question has been sitting with us lately because it touches something much bigger than parenting. It touches how we think about education, success, achievement, and even childhood itself. In a culture that constantly asks children what they want to be when they grow up, it can be surprisingly difficult to simply let them be who they are.
This article is inspired by Episode 98 of Radical Learning Talks, where we explore parental expectations, youth rights, fear about the future, and the difference between supporting children and shaping them.
In This Episode We Explore
Why adults often project hopes and fears onto children
The connection between schooling and outcome-based thinking
The difference between guiding, modeling, and molding
How expectations can interfere with truly seeing young people
Why relationships matter more than achievement
How we can support children without controlling who they become
Prefer listening? You can listen to the full conversation here:
The Weight of Our Expectations
Many expectations begin with good intentions. We want our children to thrive. We want them to contribute something meaningful to the world. We want them to be kind, thoughtful, and capable. Sometimes those hopes are influenced by our own experiences. We may want our children to avoid struggles we've lived through or seize opportunities we never had. Sometimes they're influenced by the state of the world itself. Looking around at climate change, political division, inequality, and uncertainty, it's understandable that many parents feel a sense of urgency about preparing the next generation.
But even well-intentioned expectations can become heavy. Children did not ask to carry our dreams, our fears, or our unfinished business. They did not come into the world with the responsibility of fixing what previous generations got wrong.
“Before I got pregnant, I was thinking that maybe my kid was going to come here to save the world. And whoa. What an expectation to put on a kid.”
Most of us probably wouldn't phrase it quite so dramatically. Yet many of us can recognize some version of the same dynamic. We imagine a future for our children before they've had the chance to imagine one for themselves. We become attached to a story about who they are supposed to be, and that story can sometimes make it harder to see who they actually are.
The Schooling Lens We Carry With Us
One reason this dynamic is so common is that most of us grew up in systems that taught us to think this way. Conventional schooling is built around outcomes. Children are measured, evaluated, ranked, compared, and assessed from an early age. Success is often defined by performance, achievement, and productivity. The focus is rarely on who a child is and frequently on what they can produce.
Even when we reject parts of that system, many of those assumptions remain. We leave school, but school doesn't always leave us. The habit of looking at young people through the lens of future outcomes is deeply ingrained in our culture.
That doesn't mean schools are solely responsible. It simply means that many of us have inherited a way of thinking about childhood that sees children primarily as future adults. Their present experience becomes secondary to their future success. Their worth becomes entangled with their performance.
“We end up recreating the thing that we’re trying to change.”
This observation feels particularly relevant for parents who are actively trying to do things differently. Sometimes we abandon conventional schooling but still carry the same outcome-oriented mindset into our homes. The goals change, but the dynamic remains. Instead of wanting our children to become successful students, we want them to become activists, entrepreneurs, changemakers, or highly self-directed learners. The labels may be different, but we're still imagining an outcome.
What Happens When Children Feel Seen?
One of the most beautiful parts of the conversation explored something many parents recognize immediately: the experience of watching another adult truly see your child.
Not evaluate them.
Not compare them.
Not judge them.
Just see them.
Children spend much of their lives being observed through various filters. They are measured against developmental norms, academic standards, behavioral expectations, and social milestones. Adults often approach them with assumptions about what they should be doing, learning, or accomplishing. It can be surprisingly rare for a child to encounter someone who meets them with genuine curiosity instead.
“There are two kinds of adults that I see interact with my son. The adults that see him and think he’s a pain in the ass... and the adults that actually see who he is.”
That distinction feels profound because it points to something many children experience every day. When people approach them with fixed ideas about how they should behave, it's difficult to feel fully seen. When those expectations fall away, something else becomes possible. A child can relax. They can show up more authentically. They can be known for who they are rather than who they're supposed to be.
Relationships or Results?
At the heart of this conversation is a question about where we place our attention. Are we primarily focused on outcomes, or are we focused on relationships?
Most parental anxiety is future-oriented. We worry about whether our children will succeed, whether they'll be resilient enough, responsible enough, motivated enough, prepared enough. Those concerns are understandable. Every loving parent worries about the future.
The challenge is that when our attention is pulled too far into the future, we can lose sight of what's happening right now. We can become so focused on producing a particular outcome that we miss opportunities for connection, trust, and understanding.
Strong relationships don't guarantee specific outcomes. They don't promise that our children will follow a particular path. What they do create is a foundation from which young people can develop a deeper sense of themselves. They create the conditions for growth rather than attempting to control the direction of that growth.
“If I have expectations on who my kid should be or could be, then there is some kind of outcome attached to it.”
That simple observation raises a powerful question: what changes when we become less attached to outcomes?
A Different Way Forward
None of this means abandoning our values or becoming passive observers in our children's lives. Children need support. They need encouragement. They need caring adults who believe in them and remind them of their strengths when they lose sight of them. They need guidance, conversation, and connection.
The difference lies in whether that support is rooted in trust or in control.
Trust says, "I believe in you."
Control says, "I need you to become something."
Trust leaves room for surprise. It leaves room for children to discover their own interests, values, and ways of being in the world. It acknowledges that every young person arrives with their own personality, their own path, and their own relationship with life.
Perhaps the greatest gift we can offer children is not a carefully designed blueprint for who they should become, but the freedom to become more fully themselves.
“Can I see who he is and not think about what he’s doing or not doing or producing in the world?”
In a culture obsessed with outcomes, that may be one of the most radical questions we can ask.
Want to Hear the Full Conversation?
This article explores some of the key themes from the episode, but the conversation goes much deeper.
In the full episode, we explore parental fears about the future, discuss the fine line between values and expectations, and share personal stories about learning to trust our children's unique paths.
Listen to Episode 98: Raising Humans, Not Blueprints
Got a Question for Dear Sari & Becka?
Every week we answer real questions from parents navigating learning, school, homeschooling, unschooling, relationships, and life with young people. Ask your question here.
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