What if I'm not good enough to teach my child?

I want to talk about that quiet, nagging voice that so often shows up in the quiet moments. When you're lying in bed at night thinking. When you see posts about other families doing seemingly amazing educational things. When someone asks how you'll handle high school math, or writing, or...pick any subject that makes your stomach tighten.

"I'm not sure I'm good enough to teach my child."

This fear feels paralysing because it seems so logical. Teachers study for years to do what they do. They have training, qualifications, experience. They know how to break down complex topics, how to explain difficult concepts, how to keep everything moving forward on a tight schedule.

And now here you are, taking full responsibility for your child's education. No wonder that voice gets so loud sometimes.

I want to look this fear directly in the eyes with you. Not to dismiss it with reassurances about how you shouldn't worry because eventually you'll figure it out, or how there are lots of resources available to help so just tap into those and you'll be fine. Those things are (mostly) true, but they don't address what's really going on here.

This fear comes from a model of education that's so deeply embedded in our culture we rarely even question it. It's the image of learning we all grew up with: the expert teacher, standing at the front of the room, dispensing knowledge into waiting minds. The person who needs to have all the answers, who crafts the perfect explanations, who knows exactly what needs to be learned and when.

That model has shaped how we think about teaching so completely that when we step away from school, we unconsciously try to recreate it. We think we need to become that all-knowing figure. That expert guide. That perfect explainer of everything.

It's an impossible standard, one that would make almost anyone feel inadequate.

Which is why it feels so freeing when you realise your role is not to be your child's teacher. You don't need to be - when they're young, when they're teenagers, when they're all grown up. Never.

Think about how your child learned to walk. To talk. To use a spoon. To ride a bike. To use a tablet, or phone, or smart TV. To build intricate worlds in Minecraft. To remember hundreds of Pokémon stats. To master the rules and strategies of games they love. To explain complicated storylines to anyone who'll listen. To figure out how much money they need to save for something they want.

Did they need an expert to break these complex skills down into perfectly sequenced lessons? Did they need someone with years of training to guide them through each step?

Or did they learn because they were surrounded by walking, talking people? Because they saw others using spoons and wanted to do it too? Because bikes and devices were part of their world, and they were driven to figure them out? Because they were obsessed with Pokémon, and any time there's an obsession there's an appetite and drive and propensity to learn like never before? Because they desperately wanted to share the plot of that book or show or game with everyone they met? Because they really, really wanted that new toy or book and needed to work out exactly how their pocket money would get them there?

You didn't teach them these things. You supported them in learning them.

And that's the fundamental shift that changes everything: moving from seeing yourself as the source and deliverer of knowledge to being the ultimate supporter of your child's natural drive to learn and understand.

You don't need to know everything. You need to know how to find answers when questions arise.

You don't need to be the perfect explainer. You need to be someone who can say "I'm not sure - let's figure it out together", and then reliably follow through on doing that.

You don't need to design and craft and deliver lesson plans. You need to stay deeply tuned to your child's curiosity, their interests, their drive to understand the world around them, and help them open that path up as they walk along it.

This shift is not about lowering standards or taking education less seriously. If anything, it's about raising our understanding of how profound learning can be when we stop getting in its way with our preconceived notions of teaching.

The most powerful thing you can do isn't to know everything. It's to show your child how to find anything. To model what it looks like to be curious, to ask questions, to make mistakes, and to try again. Because that's what learning is.

Your child doesn't need a teacher. They need you.