The Problem with Behaviour Charts and Gold Stars.

We believed success meant having the right certificate. You take your kids out of school. You watch them shine. You know you made the right call. But somehow you still feel like you're doing it wrong.

That nagging doubt is hard to shake. This is about why it sticks around, and how you can keep their spark alive while you're still learning to trust yourself.

Every year when school goes back, the doubt creeps in. Even now, even after everything I know. I see our kids learning, growing, becoming more themselves every day. Curious, autonomous, questioning, creative. Exactly what we fought for.

And still, I feel like I'm doing it wrong.

They're learning beautifully. They're thriving in ways I never imagined. Yet somewhere deep inside, it's never enough. For so long, nothing was ever enough—not the good grades, not the neat handwriting, not the gold stars or awards or glowing reports.

The voice trained into me doesn't say, "Look how far you've come." It says, "You're still behind. You're still not doing it properly. You're still not enough."

Standing outside the world I thought I had left, some part of me still thinks I need proof that we're doing it right.

I Know They're Thriving.

So Why Do I Still Feel Wrong?

Somewhere in me still believes that learning only counts if it looks like school. If it's structured. If it's planned by someone else. If it's led by an expert, validated by authority, signed off as "real."

I catch myself writing schedules no one asked for. Planning subjects I know will be rejected. Trying to manufacture milestones, not because my kids need them, but because I still do.

The story is drilled into us from an early age: that real learning has to be measured, that trust has to be earned, that success has to be visible. That voice in my head still wants someone to tell me I'm doing a good job. Still wants gold stars, good girl points, permission. It's hard to admit how much I've relied on external validation, and how lost I feel without it.

While I'm still carrying that weight, my kids are asking questions I never learned to ask. Not just what to learn, but why they should. They don't trust a rule just because it's there. They need to understand, to feel it makes sense.

And you know what? I think they're right.

The Kids Who Ask "Why"

Kids who ask "why" too much get labeled defiant. Not because they're wrong, but because they don't accept "because I said so" as enough. They don't believe authority makes you right. They don't understand why being older, louder, or holding a clipboard should automatically make your voice matter more.

They ask "why" because they want to understand, because fairness matters to them. Because trust, for them, must be real—not assumed. They aren't trying to break the world; they're trying to make sense of it.

When they refuse to shrink themselves to fit inside someone else's expectations? That's not a problem to fix. That's humanity worth protecting.

We Stayed Too Long Because We Were Terrified Not To

We didn't leave school because we gave up on learning. We left because staying was costing more than we could pay. But even now, the old fear bubbles up because we were raised to believe: no school equals no future, no structure equals chaos, no compliance equals failure.

When school doesn't fit, the focus almost always lands on fixing the child, rarely on questioning the expectations around them. The interventions start—the charts, the plans, the specialists.

Even when we step away from a system that didn't fit, it's hard to step away from the feeling that leaving it makes us wrong.

Maybe It Was Never About Being Good Enough

I know, in my bones, that my kids are growing into exactly who they are meant to be. Curious, strong, kind, fierce. They are learning in bursts of passion, movement, mess, and questions. They are building lives that don't need to be graded to matter.

And still, some days, I feel like I'm failing.

But maybe that's not because something is wrong with me. Maybe it's because I'm still carrying the old stories—the ones that said success was obedience, that learning was performance, that worth was something you earned.

Maybe the real work isn't just teaching my kids differently. Maybe it's learning to see myself differently too. Maybe it's remembering that curiosity is enough, that questions are enough, that joy is enough. That being fully human is enough.

If I can't fully reclaim that spark for myself yet, maybe protecting theirs is how I start to find mine again. Maybe that's the real education happening here. Not just for them, but for me too.