Rethinking Writing: Nurturing Joy and Expression Without Pressure
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“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” - Albert Einstein*
This quote popped up in my Instagram feed this morning and the timing really couldn’t have been more perfect, especially since the topic I planned to write about today was how to make your kids better writers without forcing them to write.
You see I posted this post on my Instagram yesterday:
And while this message is a sigh of relief for those parents of preschoolers and kindergarteners who don’t even have the manual dexterity to hold a pencil yet, that last little sentence kind of freaked some parents out.
What do you mean I shouldn’t make my older kids write?! How will they ever get into college if they can’t write an essay? How will they write emails or communicate in the future if I don’t force them to do it? If I don’t force my child, they’ll never do it - they HATE writing. Is it ever ok to force them to write?
And you might be thinking the same thing. So I want to break this down a little bit. Because a lot of you are focusing on the word “write” and not the word “force,” which is the key factor here.
Of course I don’t advocate for never encouraging your child to use and practice their skills. That’s ridiculous. But our minds are sometimes so binary - either force it or inhibit it - that we can’t see anything in between. What does it look like to develop writing skills in an Unschooling-friendly way? How do we ensure we are raising successful communicators and children with all of the skills they may someday need if we aren’t forcing it?
Just like everything else! We encourage the development through real life experiences and opportunities to practice those skills, and through modeling of how we use these skills as adults.
Sounds easy enough, but when the average kid in public school is writing regular 5-paragraph essays by 5th grade, it’s easy to feel like we’re “falling behind.” But sometimes… it’s better that way.
Forcing Writing Only Creates Resistance
Did you know that by fourth grade, nearly 90% of kids (boys especially) have decided that they hate writing? 90%! This isn’t because they lack the ability or the creativity to actually WRITE, but because of the pressure to perform in ways that aren’t developmentally appropriate. The constant push to master mechanics (more on this in a minute) before they are ready strips away the natural curiosity and passion children have for storytelling.
We have to reframe how we approach writing with our children. We do this by focusing less on the “how” and more on the “why.” But before we can even model this to our children, we have to understand it for ourselves.
And we have to start with this DeSchooling and reframing at the very foundation of what writing really is…
The Holistic Nature of Literacy
I’ll never forget going to an interview for a lead Reading Specialist position in a local school district nearly 15 years ago now, and getting into an argument with the administration about the fact that reading and writing needed to be integrated together. Needless to say, I didn’t get that job. 🤣
Writing is not an isolated skill, and literacy is not a series of disconnected tasks. We’ve been conditioned to see reading and writing and spelling as these individual skills to assess in our children (you even see them this way on report cards and curriculum!). But that’s not how literacy actually functions in the brain.
Literacy is an holistic process that integrates reading, writing, speaking, and listening. These skills develop together, feeding and strengthening each other. When children are immersed in stories and storytelling, whether through being read to or engaging in meaningful conversations about every day life, they naturally begin to develop the tools they need to express themselves in writing.
Reading to your child nurtures their understanding of narrative structure, enriches their vocabulary, and shows them the beauty of language in action. When we tell stories and listen to their stories, and when we let them play, they are developing their ability to express their opinions, share their ideas, and communicate with others effectively. More importantly, engaging this way with your child fosters a deep connection to the purpose of writing—to share ideas, emotions, and experiences.
Mechanics vs Purpose
Too often, traditional education places overwhelming emphasis on the mechanics of writing: the perfect pencil grip, handwriting, paragraph structure, capitalization, and flawless spelling. But think about your favorite book, song, or poem. Was your first thought about the author's grammar or penmanship in their first draft? Of course not. What drew you in was the expression—the way the writer shared a story, an emotion, or a message that resonated with you.
Writing is about sharing one’s unique voice. That’s the purpose of writing - to share your voice with a reader. Focusing solely on mechanics at an early stage risks extinguishing the joy and creativity that writing naturally brings for people. For children, this joy should be nurtured, not stifled by unrealistic expectations or premature demands for performance. In short: Don’t red pen your kids.
Protect Their Writing Journey
Your child’s writing/literacy journey is precious. It should be filled with stories that inspire them, conversations that challenge them, and opportunities to express themselves freely. Reading to your child—and alongside them (don’t ever underestimate the power of modeling)—creates an environment where literacy is woven into the fabric of their life, not imposed as a task. Creating opportunities for your child to write freely, without the pressure of it being perfect, encourages their natural development and preserves their creativity.
If this perspective resonates with you and you’re ready to dive deeper into nurturing your child’s relationship with writing, I invite you to explore my Literacy Workshop Series. It’s designed to help parents like you understand how to encourage joyful, purposeful writing without the unnecessary weight of performance pressures. It will help you understand how writing actually develops and help you take the first step in protecting your child’s passion for writing, even before they can pick up a crayon.
Let’s embrace writing as it was meant to be: a journey of self-expression, connection, and joy.
🫶🏽 Leah
*This quote often circles the internet in various memes and comments, but it’s important to me to only share things that are true, so I looked up the origin of this before writing this article. It seems to be more of an oral sharing vs a written quote, though the context of the story is even more compelling than the quote: Versions of the story go back to January 1958, when Elizabeth Margulis wrote an article called “Fairy Tales and More Fairy Tales” in the New Mexico Library Bulletin. She quotes the story thus:
In Denver I heard a story about a woman who was friendly with the late Dr. Einstein, surely acknowledged as an outstanding ‘pure’ scientist. She wanted her child to become a scientist, too, and asked Dr. Einstein for his suggestions for the kind of reading the child might do in his school years to prepare him for this career. To her surprise Dr. Einstein recommended ‘fairy tales and more fairy tales.’ The mother protested this frivolity and asked for a serious answer, but Dr. Einstein persisted, adding that creative imagination is the essential element in the intellectual equipment of the true scientist, and that fairy tales are the childhood stimulus of this quality! (p.3)