how quickly they’re expected to grow up and what we can do about it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how quickly Black children are expected to grow up.

How early their curiosity is read as defiance. How playfulness is mistaken for disruption. How confidence is interpreted as threat.

Sometimes it happens so quietly that we barely notice. A look that lingers too long. A tone that assumes maturity where there is still innocence. An expectation of composure that would never be placed on other children.

And for Black girls, there is often an added layer. They are described as “fast” or “grown” when they are simply expressive. They are expected to carry themselves with a seriousness that no child should have to perform.

I’ve been thinking about how heavy that must feel. For parents. For children.

Confidence cannot grow in a child who is constantly bracing. It cannot stretch in spaces where innocence is shortened. Childhood is not a weakness to outgrow. It is a stage meant to be lived fully.

When children are given room to wonder, laugh, question, and even stumble, they learn something powerful: I am safe enough to grow.

That safety doesn’t require perfection. It requires permission.

This builds on the reminder shared in Nothing Is Wrong With Your Child , where development is affirmed without correction.

It also connects to the importance of imaginative space discussed in Why Imaginative Stories Give Kids Room to Think , where children are allowed to explore without being scrutinized.

Black children deserve environments where their energy isn’t policed, their curiosity isn’t questioned, and their softness isn’t mistaken for something else. It's why I write my stories. To give them a safe space, the world is trying to take from them the moment they are old enough to walk.

They deserve childhood.

And inside your home — the way you protect their laughter, correct without crushing, and remind them who they are — that protection is already happening.

Nothing is wrong with them. They are growing exactly as children should.

Dream Big, Dream Often — TL