Will My Child Be Okay? Why Parenting Can Never Come With Guarantees
The hardest part of parenting isn't making the right decision. It's learning to live without certainty.
There is a moment that seems to find almost every parent.
Sometimes it happens after a difficult day. Sometimes it arrives after a conversation with a teacher, a family member, or another parent whose confidence makes us question our own. For families choosing homeschooling, home education, or unschooling, it often comes when someone asks, "But what about their future?"
The question changes depending on our circumstances, but it usually points to the same quiet fear.
What if I'm getting this wrong?
Whether our children are in school, learning at home, or following a more self-directed path, most of us are looking for the same reassurance. We want to know that they'll be okay. That they'll grow into capable adults. That today's decisions won't become tomorrow's regrets.
It's a deeply human longing.
It's also one that parenting never completely satisfies.
In this episode we explore…
Why uncertainty is part of every parenting journey—not just homeschooling or unschooling.
Why trust is much harder than it sounds, especially when we've grown up in systems built on control.
The relationship between fear, certainty, and our children's natural development.
What observation, presence, and relationship have to do with trust.
Why letting go of control isn't the same as letting go of responsibility.
For a long time, we've been sold the idea that good parenting is about making the right choices. Choose the right school. Read the right books. Respond in the right way. Protect children from the wrong influences, the wrong experiences, the wrong mistakes. We may disagree about which choices are right, but the underlying promise stays the same: if we make enough good decisions, our children will be okay.
It's an understandable promise to believe because it gives us something to hold on to. Parenting asks us to love people we cannot protect from every disappointment, heartbreak, failure, or loss. The idea that certainty might be available if we simply work hard enough is incredibly comforting.
The problem is that certainty was never part of the deal.
“We don’t trust ourselves many times, so placing trust in someone much younger can feel like a big stretch.”
Perhaps that's why trust feels so elusive.
People often talk about trust as though it's a parenting skill we simply need to develop. Trust your child. Trust the process. Trust yourself. The advice sounds simple until we're lying awake at two in the morning wondering whether our child is learning enough, making friends, spending too much time gaming, or falling behind everyone else.
Those moments don't usually appear because we've suddenly become irrational. They appear because we care. Love naturally makes us imagine the future. The trouble begins when we start believing we can somehow control it.
Fear has a remarkable way of pulling us out of the present. A child who struggles with reading today becomes an adult who might never find meaningful work. A teenager who withdraws for a few weeks somehow becomes someone who will always be lonely. One difficult season starts feeling like a permanent destination.
Very little of that is happening in front of us.
Our minds have simply travelled ahead without us.
Children grow in the present, not in our predictions
One of the quiet shifts that many parents experience—whether they're raising children in school or through self-directed learning—is discovering that children rarely develop in straight lines.
They surge forward in one area while seeming to stand still in another. They become deeply absorbed by something that adults struggle to understand. They abandon interests, return to them months later, and often learn in ways that are almost impossible to measure while they're happening.
Looking back, those moments frequently make sense.
Living through them is another matter entirely.
Our culture doesn't encourage us to trust slow, uneven growth. We celebrate visible progress, measurable outcomes, and clear milestones. It's much harder to appreciate development that's unfolding beneath the surface, quietly preparing for something we can't yet see.
Perhaps this is why so many parents feel exhausted. We're trying to evaluate a process that can often only be understood in hindsight.
“Trust isn’t something that comes naturally to many.”
Not everything works out exactly as planned.
Very little does.
But life has a way of continuing to unfold, even when we can't yet see where it's leading.
Trust doesn't arrive because someone convinces us everything will be fine. It grows slowly through lived experience. We loosen our grip a little, our child surprises us, and something inside us softens. Then it happens again. Over time, those moments become their own kind of evidence—not proof that nothing difficult will ever happen, but evidence that growth doesn't depend on our ability to predict every step.
Control and trust cannot grow in the same place
One of the biggest misconceptions about trust is that it means stepping back and hoping for the best.
It doesn't.
Children need adults who notice them. They need boundaries, guidance, protection, encouragement, and relationships that help them make sense of the world. None of that disappears.
What changes is the role we believe we're supposed to play.
Instead of trying to manage every possible outcome, we become more interested in understanding the child standing in front of us. Observation begins replacing prediction. Curiosity begins replacing urgency. We stop asking, "How do I make sure this turns out well?" and become more interested in "What does my child need from me right now?"
They're very different questions.
Only one of them can actually be answered.
“You cannot control your kids and trust at the same time.”
That isn't an invitation to become passive.
It's an invitation to notice where our energy is going.
Are we responding to the child we know, or to the future we're afraid of?
Those aren't always the same thing.
The more attached we become to guaranteeing an outcome, the easier it is to lose sight of the relationship that's unfolding today. Ironically, it's often that relationship—not our predictions—that becomes the strongest foundation for whatever comes next.
Perhaps trust is less about believing everything will work out and more about remembering that children are active participants in their own lives. They aren't projects we're responsible for completing. They are human beings, continually growing into themselves in ways neither they nor we can fully anticipate.
That doesn't remove uncertainty.
It simply reminds us that uncertainty has always been part of parenting.
Maybe the question isn't whether we can eliminate it.
Maybe it's whether we can learn to accompany our children through it.
Listen to the full conversation
If this question feels familiar, we explore it much more deeply in Episode 96: How to Trust the Process of Unschooling. It's a conversation about uncertainty, fear, control, trust, and what it means to support children without trying to determine who they should become.
Continue the conversation
Have a question about parenting, homeschooling, unschooling, self-directed learning, or your child's education?
Every week, we answer real questions from parents in Dear Sari & Becka. If there's something you've been wrestling with, we'd love to hear from you.
And if you're ready to move beyond simply reading about these ideas and begin living them, we'd love to welcome you into Un-skool. Inside our membership, we explore these conversations in much greater depth through courses, live calls, and a community of parents learning alongside one another.
You're welcome, exactly where you are.
