Children Are Their Own People

Why it attracts me

Engineers design toward a goal. That habit is useful at work and risky at home. A child is not a system to tune toward my idea of a good outcome. This idea is a reminder to support the person who is actually here.

The idea

Respecting a child's independence does not mean stepping back from guidance. It means the aim of guidance changes. I can offer opportunities, set limits and share what I care about, while accepting that the choices that matter most will more and more be theirs. Acting With Purpose Without Full Control describes acting with purpose without full control. In parenting that runs both ways: I cannot control who a child becomes, and the child's own ability to choose is real and growing.

What I think (and don't know)

I think the test is in small moments, such as whether I answer the question a child actually asked or the one I wish they had asked. I do not know exactly where encouraging an interest turns into pushing it, and I suspect the line moves as children grow. Learning Through Play looks at the same question through play.

An example

Sprout, my early-learning side quest, carries one idea forward from an earlier app called Fixer: "I can figure out what to try." Wrong answers do not cost points, and some activities send the child away from the screen to find a shape in the room or help fix or tidy something. The design aims at a child's own sense of agency, not at a parent's checklist.

Questions I'm still exploring

• How do I tell guidance from steering when I am the one choosing what to offer?
• How much freedom fits each stage of growing up?
• What should I do when a child's interests pull away from the things I love most?

Sources and further reading

• Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016) — Argues that parents do better creating safe, rich conditions for growth than trying to shape a child to a planned outcome.
• Kahlil Gibran, "On Children", in The Prophet (1923) — A short, widely read poem about children as their own people rather than possessions of their parents.