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How to Support Your Child Without Pushing Them to Be Perfect

August 17, 2025 | Louise Edwards

Back‑to‑school pressure is real

Are they reading at grade level? Making friends? Sitting still? On a team? Turning in homework? It’s easy—especially at the start of a new school year—to focus on what they should be doing instead of tuning in to who they are.

When things slip, frustration and blame can creep in. If you catch yourself asking, “Why can’t we be more… or more like… or less?” it might be time for a reset.

Who is your child, really?

This year, what if you started not with test scores, behavior charts, or making the team—but with your child?

Who are they, really? What do they need? How can you support your child without pressure so they can truly thrive?

Start the year with connection, not pressure

I remember holding my newborn son for the first time, feeling him as a person—slightly separate from me, yet entirely unique. That insight should’ve stayed with me. But it got buried under milestones, growth charts, night feeds, then ABCs and 123s.

Looking back, I see how easy it was to lose sight of his uniqueness. From birth, he was measured against standards—what we should do, when, and how to define success. Some expectations came from my upbringing, others from school or society. They quietly shaped what I thought we were supposed to be doing.

The pressure to “build” the perfect child

Psychologist Alison Gopnik, in The Gardener and the Carpenter, offers a powerful metaphor:

• The carpenter works from a blueprint—shaping a child to fit a predetermined plan.
• The gardener creates growth conditions—nurturing, observing, and trusting development to unfold in its own time.

Carpenter parenting is fixed. The gardener is flexible, rooted in curiosity and trust—and backed by science.

As a recovering “carpenter” (my first child arrived as a stroppy, opinionated teenager), shifting to a gardener mindset how to support your child without pressure saved us tons of stress and conflict.

Why the gardener approach actually works

Modern parenting pushes us toward carpenter mode. Milestone charts, chore charts, and Instagram-perfect routines tell us that if our child isn’t doing XYZ by a certain age, something must be wrong.

Trying to mold your child into someone they’re not doesn’t lead to success—it leads to stress. Not just for them but for you, too.

For example: we enrolled our five-year-old daughter in soccer because “kids do sports,” ignoring that she actually disliked ball games. Every Sunday afternoon became conflict—until we quit (and I felt guilty).

When we fix their quirks or push them to fit our expectations, the underlying message is:
You’re not enough as you are.

Our kids hear these messages from many places. Let’s make home the one place they don’t have to earn love or belonging.

It’s not easy—but it’s worth it

Being a gardener isn’t stepping back entirely. It’s not permissive. It’s showing up with presence, curiosity, and compassion.

It means unpacking messages from your own childhood. Maybe you internalized that “tidy kids are good kids,” or “success equals achievement.” Those beliefs can seep into your parenting—even if you don’t consciously endorse them.

It also means letting go of “fixing” habits we think are helpful—like over‑explaining, micromanaging, or rescuing them from every challenge. (Ask me how I know…)

Let them grow—and watch yourself grow too

The goal isn’t to raise a perfect kid—spoiler: they don’t exist anymore than a perfect parent does. The goal is to nurture a thriving, real human—quirks and all.

If you’re open to it? You might just find you grow too.

What if your parents had been curious about you instead of focused on checking boxes or fixing flaws? That’s the invitation here.

Create space for your child to become who they actually are—not who you hoped or planned they’d be—and something amazing happens. You both start to bloom. There’s less stress, less conflict.

Yes, parenting is messy. There will be meltdowns (probably theirs—and yours). But when you show up with presence and gentle curiosity—leaning into the gardener mindset instead of grabbing the carpenter’s toolkit—you open the door to more peace, connection, and yes, even joy.

As Alison Gopnik writes:

“It’s about providing a rich, stable, safe environment that allows many different kinds of flowers to bloom… a robust, flexible ecosystem that lets children themselves create many varied, unpredictable kinds of adult futures.”

So drop the blueprint. Pick up the watering can. Let them grow—and see how you grow right along with them.

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