The Sovereign Child

The last two months have revolutionized the way I think about parenting and our growing family.

It has reshaped our daily rhythm and sharpened our family goals. It has forced us to confront every assumption we have been making about what good parenting is. It’s been uncomfortable and chaotic at times.

And, it’s brought our family together in a more authentic and loving way.

“The Sovereign Child” is a book and approach articulated by Dr. Aaron Stupple. It’s an evolution of “Taking Children Seriously”. When I first heard the philosophy, I remember thinking, “Yep, that makes perfect sense. And, I think it’s too extreme for our family.”

All that has changed.

I’d like to walk you through the series of insights we’ve arrived at, all of which have culminated in decisions that, on the surface, might seem to contradict our values, but have actually brought us into deeper alignment, attunement, and rhythm as a family.

Let’s start where every breakthrough began: watching Simon in everyday moments.

Phase 1 - Understanding children

As I have observed my sons at home and in novel social situations, I’ve begun to contextualize their actions through a simple frame:

Children are constantly looking for social cues to better understand what is expected of them. Most of their actions are an attempt to answer a simple question: What is expected of me?

Simon is an extremely social little boy who is fascinated by interactions with other children, but he often keeps his distance, even from kids who he knows well. He watches everyone, and will often watch others for extended periods of time before deciding to join the fun, if he does.

Culturally, we might describe him as “shy”, but that word is often a cognitive shortcut for a more complex dynamic: Simon is trying to place and orient himself within what he sees. He’s innately curious of these dynamics, and when he recognizes a pattern, he is far from shy.

Take what we call “the rope park”, for example. In our family, this refers to any park that has one of those kids zip-line style rope swings. The social expectation at the rope is simple: everyone gets a turn. Because the rule is clear, Simon’s question - What’s expected of me? - is answered upfront.

While the rope is definitely fun, Simon relaxes knowing what the social expectation is more than anything else. Often, he’ll wander around the park asking other kids if they want a turn, or he’ll wonder why they are not coming over for their turn. Simon gains social confidence when he knows what the norms and expectations are.

When the social norms are blurry, Simon hesitates, or is “shy”. When they’re clear, Simon is outgoing and even initiates.

It’s not that he’s shy. He doesn’t know how to engage or if or how the other children want him to engage. A tender invitation or an adult who can grease the social wheels is sometimes enough.

Sometimes, though, his curious and distant observing is so comfortable, he prefers to just watch the others play.

“Misbehavior” as experimentation

I hear parents often accuse their children of “pushing their buttons” and “testing limits” as they assign adult level agency to toddlers in a way that positions them as opponents to be kept in check.

When I am wise, I see this as an attempt to calibrate to me and the environment. Simon is trying to understand how he - and his impulses - fit into the world around him. He is not calculating, he is calibrating.

Often, when a child feels the emotional effect of not meeting an expectation, the child feels shame and confusion because they can’t discern how to please their parents. Mixed signals stimulate the nervous system - we as parents get it wrong a lot. Kids might believe that something is wrong with them. Young children’s identities are shaped by how their parents - and other authority figures - respond to them.

When expectations align with who the children actually are, their identity becomes more integrated and confident. When we can summon the patience and mindfulness to help Simon calibrate himself to our rhythm and, importantly, calibrate our rhythm to Simon, it helps me trust him more and helps him learn to trust himself better.

We have to stop taking our children’s behavior and decision-making personally in order to raise truly sovereign children. Taking children seriously means trusting that they know what’s right for them. Anytime we coerce a child to do something (or not do something) because “we know what’s best for them”, we are walking on painfully thin ice.

The more pressing need

Making matters more complicated, children often receive one set of expectations at home and a different set at daycare, preschool, or grandma’s house. The conflicting environments and expectations create internal conflict and many children respond by fragmenting and code-switching so fast they never have an opportunity to feel what authentic expression is for them.

Because kids prioritize belonging over authenticity (see Maslow’s hierarchy where belonging sits one rung below esteem and self-actualization), they’ll always adapt and figure things out. They’ll be whoever they need to be to survive while maximizing what they want. Kids can get used to almost anything, and they may even grow to appreciate some of the things forced upon them. None of those dynamics are based in real trust though.

When we say “no” or we insist that we know what’s best, we are telling them, “You can’t trust yourself.” We insist on being a child’s compass early on and we sacrifice their own attunement to their inner compass.

Your child might bounce back, they’ll get along, and they’ll smile about it even. They’ll “get over it”.

But they won’t know who they are, what drives them, what they care about, or how to think about what it is they want. We think that as parents we’re playing some game of 3D chess where we think long term or that we know better, but most of us are more captured by our desires than our children are.

By thinking we know what is best for our children’s development, we actually ensure that children become stuck seeking acceptance and belonging, never allowing themselves to imagine a life built around who they are.

So the question becomes: What does it mean to be clear without being coercive?

Raising children vs. Designing children

In Education in a Time Between Worlds, Zak Stein argues that there is a tendency in modern society to design children, not raise them. There is a moral gulf between working with a living, emerging autonomy and working on them to achieve preset goals.

Stein points to standardized testing combined with the medicalization of aptitude (if you’re not testing well, it’s a biological issue, to be treated pharmacologically) as proof that we’re less concerned with how kids want to grow than we are with getting them to fit into society.

I’ve noticed a tendency to prune Simon as though he were my little bonsai tree. In reality, Simon is a wild meadow who will thrive if I can steward him, not steer him. Every time I nudged Simon toward my preferred outcome I was slipping into design mode. And design mode is precisely what trains a child to scan for approval instead of listening inward.

If we truly want sovereign kids, we have to trade in our vision boards for garden gloves. Which brings us to the hardest part: letting him do what he wants as much as possible.

Phase 2 - Let him do what he wants

Most modern parents parent by subtraction - subtract screens, sugar, discomfort. We think it’s wise to control screen time, limit sweets, or even worse, use these things as leverage to “incentivize” (code for coerce) preferred behaviors.

“You can have ice cream if you finish your sandwich”

“If you don’t clean up I’m taking away your TV”

We as parents believe that we have the right to take things away from our children. We might even believe we have the responsibility to do so. That we should force them to do things they don’t want to do.

Andrea and I have developed a very simple question when we notice ourselves trying to control a situation:

Does this really matter?

It’s a question she can ask me at anytime, and I can ask her when we see a struggle emerging.

But some lines are important and worth preserving.

I’ll be honest. Since we have begun to allow Simon to do what he wants as much as possible, he’s wanted to watch TV and eat snacks pretty much all day. And, we’re letting him.

He needs the freedom to engage with screens, we believe, because the world he will grow up in will continue to have more, bigger, and higher definition screens - not less (just walk through Costco).

He will be offered candy and sweets for the rest of his life. If he abstains because we don’t allow him to have it or because we limit his exposure to them, what happens when we’re not there? If he likes these things but he knows that we don’t approve or don’t allow it, he will learn to hide from us.

Unless…

We don’t want the TV on all day though. And, we do want him to eat some real food because otherwise he asks us for snacks all day, and I have better things to do than get snacks for a 3 year old watching Paw Patrol.

So, we have a couple meaningful lines for our family. No TV until 8:30am or after 7pm. This is mostly to protect his sleep rhythm and to give us time to settle into our minds each morning without chatter. None of us have screens during this time, importantly. If we’re scrolling our phone but we’re telling him he can’t watch TV…well.

We also turn the TV off for meals. And we wait until everyone is finished before turning it back on. A lot of times, he’ll still throw a mini-fit about it, and there is a tendency we see to exert leverage that must be resisted.

Even if he screams the entire time while we eat - which has happened - we do not take away his TV. I’ve observed that when I make these types of threats I’m seeking some sort of satisfaction. We’ve had to forfeit that satisfaction. No punishment, no leverage, no caving - just holding a line with love.

Expectation in our family is being refocused through mutual clarity. It’s useful to know what each of us wants. Andrea and I have desires too, after all, and it wouldn’t be very “sovereign” of us to subdue them. The mission we are in the process of accepting: to co-create an ecosystem we can all belong to without abandoning ourselves. The guiding mantra is basic improv: “Let’s find a way to play along, together.”

When a desire surfaces we have two choices:

1. Mirror back: You’re wrong to want what you want
2. Mirror back: I trust you, and I’ll help you find your place in the world

We are choosing to trust his desires and build relationships anchored in connection, not threats. It’s been really hard at times. Most of the struggles though, are caused by our own desire for control. Every blow up we have can be traced back to one of us not letting him do what he wants.

“No”

A story I hear from parents and caregivers often is something like, “They need to learn that you don’t always get what you want”. That part of being a parent is enforcing boundaries and saying “no” because we are obliged to teach kids that “no” exists.

As though children will not be met with “no” just by living life. As though the universe doesn’t deliver limits on a constant loop. It’s, frankly, narcissistic of me to think that this lesson is somehow mine to teach. Friends will be cruel. Life teaches lessons. Branches snap. Falls happen.

Children meet “no” everywhere they go; what they rarely meet is a calm interpreter of that “no” - one who doesn’t twist the knife by pointing out they were right.

“From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen” — Cat Stevens, Father & Son

Our job isn’t to manufacture extra boundaries - it’s to translate the inevitable ones lovingly. Guardrails for genuine safety - life jacket on the boat, no running into the streets, no being home alone yet - and a living model of how we honor our limits lovingly.

When we over‑no, we teach that power equals prohibition. When we interpret the natural no— “Looks like that branch couldn’t hold you; your body wanted to climb, the branch had a different limit” —we teach that limits and dignity can coexist.

Granting autonomy at home exposed how inflexible the outside world feels—school hours, work meetings, social clocks. That tension is where our next set of decisions emerged.

Phase 3 - Cultural expectations & the daycare question

It’s one thing to say “trust your child’s inner compass,” but what happens when your life doesn’t leave space for that compass to be followed? Here we met the tension between values and logistics. Our culture requires compliance; coercion is the grease that keeps the system from grinding to a halt.

It isn’t a luxury to refuse that system; it’s an act of integrity. Opting out isn’t indulgence, it is refusing to outsource our morals to convenience.

If I want my child to live in sovereignty, I have to build a life where mine isn’t constantly compromised.

The tragedy we are coming face to face with is that our culture doesn’t care if we have the flexibility to respond sovereignly.

When we lose touch with our sovereignty, we stop asking: What’s actually best for this moment? and default to: What will keep the machine running?

Sovereignty goes beyond giving a child choices. It is about creating a life that includes and embraces those choices without collapsing.

The Daycare Dilemma

We were never really sure about daycare for Simon. He’s a special little boy who is never going to thrive within a lifetime of institutional education. There was really ever only one choice: A Montessori daycare inspired by the Swedish approach to early education, around the corner from where we live.

They operate out of a house but it isn’t a home (no one lives there). Rather than being shepherded into a center in a random strip mall, children just walk into the front door of a house, and they go into the backyard to play.

Simon has been there for over a year now, going two days per week. It was just enough to take the edge off things after Casper was born. Simon has thrived there - learning to count, recognize letters, and how to engage socially with friends. His communication exploded. He is able to recount what happened at school to us over the dinner table.

Before we began letting Simon do what he wants, I would likely have told you that full time day care there might be in Simon’s future, and that Casper would likely attend when he was of age.

Sure enough, when we made more space for what Simon really wants, he told us: he doesn’t want to go to daycare. And he likes it there! He has great friends there and he has forged really strong bonds.

He would probably get over it if we held the line. He has fun there once he settles in. But he doesn’t want to be there. He wants to be home with us and his baby brother, and we don’t actually need daycare anymore.

He went peacefully to daycare last time, but the moment he got in the car, he said, “I miss mama”. Excitement has been replaced with longing and stress. For what exactly?

The “Why”

So, Simon doesn’t want to go, we don’t need him to go to support our lifestyle. So why should we send him?

Well for starters, it would allow us to work more, and if the money math works out, do it, right?

The problem is that there is a strong temptation to build a lifestyle that depends on daycare and schools. Both parents feel pressure to advance their careers and work full-time. Fixed costs rise to reflect the increase in income. We become embedded in a lifestyle. It becomes more challenging to reverse course. And when the logistics of lifestyle conflict with embodying our values, what usually happens?

If growing my business and income means that I would have to sacrifice the sovereignty of my child, the choice is clear. I haven’t onboarded a new client in over a year and I just reduced my weekly workload by a day to allow Andrea more space to pursue her own passions and prioritize her own self-care - without needing daycare.

The other argument people make all the time for daycare is something like “early childhood socialization”.

The more I thought about this one, the more I scratched my head about it. Is this real? Do I really need to “socialize” my child? What do people mean when they say this, really?

Because the research paints a different picture:

1. Individual temperament: Some kids bloom in groups; others need parallel play and slow acclimation.
2. Attachment research: Secure attachment with primary caregivers is the strongest predictor of later social competence—stronger than group exposure at two or three.
3. Quality over quantity: Small ratios, emotionally attuned adults, and mixed-age play matter more than a headcount of peers.
4. Volition: Social learning is richest when the child chooses engagement, not when it’s scheduled on their behalf.

Much of the “early socialization” drumbeat makes sense if children are projects to be optimized. But if they’re sovereign humans we are raising, then peer interaction must be invited, not imposed.

We sent our email to withdraw Simon from his daycare last week. We have agreed to 8 weeks notice with them. That means we’ve agreed to pay for it. Because we’re paying for it, there’s a tendency to feel like we “have to take advantage of it”.

Funny how our culturally conditioned mind says that because we are spending money on something we don’t want, we should force our son to do something he doesn’t want to do and betray the trust we are building with him.

We’re saying no to ease in the short term, in service of a deeper coherence. One that says:

• My child’s “no” matters
• Our rhythm matters
• Connection isn’t just nice to have - it’s what our life is built upon

We’ll be paying money to our daycare provider for another 8 weeks for zero days of daycare. We hate it, but we hate the idea of betraying our parenting ideals more.

Phase 4 - What does this mean for us?

The implications of this approach began to reveal themselves immediately. We became frustrated as Simon declined to participate in activities, in favor of watching TV. Declining meals in favor of trail mix and popsicles. Andrea and I have had some tense moments as we wrestle with our tendency to curate and control his life.

Andrea touched on a very real nerve one night when she noted that now we have to compete with TV for his attention.

You see, one consequence of extending sovereignty to Simon: we can no longer take his attention, affection, or engagement for granted anymore. We have to meet him where he is, and we have to earn it. We’re so used to positional authority as parents. Once we remove coercion and command, all that is left is connection and relationship.

We have recognized the ways that we believe we are entitled to our children’s attention, and it has forced us into the question:

Are we still being the kind of people he chooses to be in relationship with?

Are we bringing wonder? Presence? Play? Are we earning his trust today, not just relying on the fact that he’s our child?

Introducing sovereignty brings more truth and integrity to our relationship. When he engages, he is choosing us now, he’s not stuck with us. This is what sovereignty does - it reveals the real terms of the relationships.

• He’s not stuck with us
• We’re not stuck with him
• We’re choosing each other, moment by moment

It doesn’t mean there’s no authority, no guidance, no limits. But it means those things are no longer enforced by default - they’re enacted through integrity. And if we stay with it - if we stay in connected relationship rather than revert to control - he starts to feel the difference between junk attention and nourishing connection.

And we’re learning this lesson now, not when he’s a teenager.

We’re not entitled to our children’s presence. The quality of our own presence invites theirs, over and over.

On the surface and from the outside, it may seem like an easy way out. It has felt like anything but easy. It demands more of us as parents than ever before to let him do what he wants while staying in attentive connection and embodying our own values. We have to adapt our creative problem solving to find win-win situations. Our preferences matter, too.

False vs Real Sovereignty

It’s one thing to use phrases like “the Montessori approach” and “child-led”. It’s another to actually invite exposure to the choices the world has to offer. If children aren’t aware of their other options, that’s not real sovereignty. And whatever inner authority they do cultivate hasn’t been tested against what’s really out there in the world.

There’s a classic Vedantic parable told of a student who believes they have achieved enlightenment because they can anchor themselves in bliss indefinitely while in the Ashram. The teacher challenges them to go into the busiest part of a bustling city to see whether they can truly maintain loving awareness. Of course, when surrounded by the chaos of the world, they lose their focus and struggle to remain loving.

The same ought to be applied when we consider calibrating the inner compasses of our children. Sure, they can be sweet, loving, and sure of themselves when we shelter them from the world. But what happens when they go to a friend’s house? What happens when they move away? What happens when they no longer listen to us?

Simon is allowed to watch as much TV as he wants. He has an iPad now, with YouTube. It has challenged the clarity of our family values, and has clarified what matters most. Three core principles have emerged to guide us:

1. We do not take things away from him
2. We do not try to control him
3. What we want still matters

We are banking on and building a relationship where he trusts us with his desires. When we enter the room and he’s on his iPad, we want him to get excited and wave us over to show us what he’s watching.

The other night, I asked Simon what he was watching on his iPad. He turned the screen to me. I barely even remember what he was watching, but the size of the smile on his face when he showed me will be in my mind until the day I die.

That grin is all the proof I need: sovereignty invites transparency.

When I was younger, I loved TV. (Still do!) If I was watching TV and my dad came downstairs, my first instinct was to turn it off and hide the fact that I was watching TV.

If I want my boys to trust me, I have to let them do what they want. I have to show them that my love, my attention, and our family’s resources are not dependent upon them doing what we ask.

If I want them to be sovereign but I also want to limit or curate their choice landscape, then what I really want is for them to fulfill my vision for them.

That would be bonsai-trimming, not meadow-stewarding.

If you let them do what they want, they’ll let you do what you want

Since we relaxed the guardrails, the house feels lighter—air sweet with possibility.

Bedtime? His call. “Let’s go to bed, Mama.”

Saturday Mornings? Casper naps, Simon wanders YouTube, I read, Andrea studies. Four sovereign journeys, one room, sun reflecting through the windows.

And he’s not hoarding the screen. Last week, just after dinner, Simon sat down with the remote in both hands.

“Let’s find something we can all watch,” he said. “What do you want to watch, Daddy?”

No prompt, no bargaining—just a three-year-old independently inviting shared delight. We landed on The Wild Robot, as he snuggled up to me on the floor.

That single sentence—“What do you want, Daddy?”—was sovereignty in bloom: his desires intact, yet spacious enough to include ours.

We all do what we want.

Talk to most parents with small children about nap time. They’ll tell you it’s their oasis. They need their kids to go to sleep if they want to do what they want. It frames kids as an interruption to your preferred life. Think about how that relationship dynamic leans towards control and coercion.

When freedom only begins after the kids are unconscious, coercion becomes a bedtime routine.

Now, we all get to do what we want.

I’ve realized what I want from fatherhood, too.

I want a front-row seat to the show—an all-access pass to the Simon & Casper shows

I want to hear about every wild idea, every dream, every heartbreak, every little detail

I want to be invited, not imposed.

And invitations vanish the moment a child senses interference.

I know; I turned off the TV whenever my dad walked in—hiding myself along with the screen.

Losing their trust is the real danger, worse than sugar, screens, or strangers, because it teaches a child to be counterfeit—to perform safety instead of living authenticity.

So we hold the line with love, resist the lure of threats, and keep our backstage passes.

That’s the garden we’re choosing to tend: two growing souls who wave us over, grinning, eager to share what they’ve found—because they know we won’t turn their show into ours.

Sovereignty isn’t the absence of limits; it’s the presence of trust—earned, offered, and renewed every ordinary day.