What Parents Notice Years Later About Their Child’s Education
When parents choose an education for their child, the questions that arise are often quite practical and sometimes based on anxiety.
Will they learn what they need to know?
Will they fall behind?
Will my child be ready for first grade?
Although these questions are understandable, the root of this focus is anxiety because we live in a culture that is constantly measuring academic success by what is visibly seen, and this causes parents to look for early signs of achievement. Does my child recognize letters? Can they recite the alphabet? How high can they count? Yet if asked years later, when their child is older, they have a different reflection, and their questions change as the focus shifts.
Instead of asking “what did my child learn today?”, parents begin to notice how their child approaches learning and if their child enjoys learning.
Often the question that emerges years later is something deeper and far more lasting, “Does my child love of learning.” This question seeks to understand the meaning of education and is not anxiety driven by pressure or praise. In looking back, parents might discover that there is a wondering about their child’s level of curiosity, confidence, resilience, and joy in learning. And it is often only years later that parents can truly see how this was cultivated.
One of the first things parents notice years later is that their children do not want to experience learning as something that’s done to them, instead they realize that a love of learning must be cultivated as an inner feeling. They notice that children want to engage in the process of learning and with joy! Parents notice that when left to experience learning with freedom, curiosity, and exploration, especially in the early years, children tend not to ask; "Am I doing this right?” even before they try. They are not frozen by their mistakes and they do not constantly compare themselves to others.
Instead, to them, learning feels relational and an experience they engage in with anticipation. Learning is an experience that makes them feel alive because they approach it with a sense of openness and when children approach learning the unfamiliar with a sense of openness instead of anxiety, they tend to ask thoughtful questions. They have lots of ideas and they are willing to wrestle with difficulty because learning was never framed as a performance or a race to win.
At Hundred Hills School, how each child experiences their education is at the foundation of how and what the teachers teach. Grades are not attached to curiosity. Rewards are not tied to a child’s sense of wonder, and learning arises from doing and experiencing.
Years later, when children have grown up, parents recognize how powerful education is, especially when it is a nourishing experience that is filled with joy. They come to see that children want to experience learning as something that enriches their life.
Another quality that parents often notice years later is if their child has a deep, unshakeable confidence in themselves. Not loud confidence that always needs to be first and not fragile confidence that collapses under challenges, but a quiet confidence.
Years later, parents notice that these are children who trust themselves. They trust that they can figure things out. They trust that effort matters more than instant success.
They notice that their child’s confidence is a quiet knowing that doesn’t come through praise or competition. That it grows naturally in environments where children are not rushed into abstract learning before they are ready. That it grows in environments where children, in their early childhood years are allowed to first, master their bodies before mastering abstract concepts, develop will and perseverance through play, and experience success through meaningful work with their hands and their imagination.
Parents notice that when children spend their early childhood building real competence in themselves by tying knots, climbing trees, helping prepare meals, learning to solve social conflicts through play, they internalize a deep sense of I can. This is confidence in the making. Years later, parents notice that when their child faces academic challenges, they do not crumble. They lean in. They may struggle but they do not crumble.
Many parents are often surprised and filled with gratitude when they realize their now older child still asks questions, not because they were assigned homework, but because they are genuinely interested. They ask, “Why does this work the way it does?” “What would happen if…?”
At Hundred Hills School, curiosity is alive even in the midst of the crushing pressure so many children have to endure as part of their educational experience. At Hundred Hills School, we honor the developmental phases of childhood.
This is no small thing!
In hurried educational environments, curiosity can quietly fade. When answers are valued more than questions, when speed is rewarded over depth, children may learn to stop wondering, and we all know how important wondering is to the human experience. Years later, parents notice that if their child’s educational experience valued wonder as an important part of the curriculum, their child still carries a hopeful feeling for the world because learning still feels expansive, not confining. This is because their education allowed them to be interested not only in what they were learning, but also why.
Another long-term gift parents often observe in their child is the ability to focus deeply with a sustained attention that arises from inner engagement.
These are children who can lose themselves in a project. Who can read for long stretches of time. Who can steadily work without reward or entertainment.
Parents notice that this capacity was not trained through drills or digital stimulation. That it was cultivated through long periods of uninterrupted play in the early years, repetitive, meaningful work, and daily rhythms that allowed the nervous system to settle.
When children are given time to imagine and reimagine, time to finish something because it mattered to them, not because a timer rang, years later, parents notice how rare and valuable this is. They come to value that in a distracted world, their child knows how to be present.
Perhaps one of the most meaningful reflections parents notice years later is this: “My child doesn’t give up easily.”
When learning has been experienced as a joyful process rather than one filled with pressure and a series of evaluations, difficulty is not perceived as failure, it is simply part of learning.
At Hundred Hills School, children are not shielded from challenges, but they are protected from the unnecessary gripping pressure so many children face in education today. Instead, they learn that effort often leads to success. That mistakes are part of growing and learning and they learn that their teachers trust their capacity to persevere.
Years later, parents notice how this shows up in profound ways.
Parents notice that when things are hard, academically, socially, or emotionally, their child does not collapse, they keep going!
They notice that their children respect their teachers, not out of fear, but trust. That when authority is experienced as kind and steady, and teachers lead by example rather than control, their children carry this experience forward in these ways; They can receive guidance without defensiveness. They can question with respect and they can collaborate with adults rather than resist them.
Perhaps the most touching realization parents have years later is this:
“My child still feels like themselves while learning.”
They have not learned to split their intellect from their emotions.
They have not learned to override their intuition.
They have not learned that learning requires self-abandonment.
Instead, learning remains human.
It involves head, heart, and hands.
It includes feeling, creativity, and meaning.
It is connected to life and not isolated from it.
Parents notice that their child’s learning is integrated. They bring who they are into what they study. This makes learning not only effective, but alive.
The benefits of cultivating a love of learning are not always immediately visible. They do not show up neatly on assessments. They cannot be rushed or quantified, and they unfold over time.
Years later, when parents look back, they often realize that what once felt “slow” was actually deep. What seemed “gentle” was profoundly strong. What looked like play was the foundation of everything that followed.
A love of learning is not taught, instead it is the child’s innate curiosity and desire to learn that has been protected and allowed to grow and when learning happens in this way, it becomes one of the greatest gifts a child carries into adulthood; the capacity to keep learning, keep growing, and keep meeting the world with curiosity, wonder, and confidence.
To learn more about what your child’s educational experience looks like at Hundred Hills School, register here to attend our Open House on February 28th!
By Chinyelu Kunz
Joint Head of School