Children as Teachers: Lessons We Forget to See

How the youngest among us can guide, heal, and inspire even the oldest hearts and souls.

Children don’t ask to be born.

Well… yes, but no.

Spiritually, many of us believe that before we arrive here, we choose our parents and sign a kind of soul contract. Similar to how you hear people discuss soul contracts with lovers and friends. After birth, we lose our memory of making that choice, yet it continues to shape everything we ever experience.

This is what we call our Akashic Record.

It’s why some tarot readers or psychics can pick up on how many children you might have or what energy they’ll carry. The agreement can be made months to years before birth. Sometimes, even before the parents we choose ever meet.

I’ve always felt connected to this idea because of my own story. My father memorialized a dream he had of receiving me as his daughter in a poem… and he had that dream months before I was even conceived.

You whispered, “Daddy,” and all my macho fled.
I pushed tears in heaps out from my eyes
gathered untapped Love from my heart bed.
I knew it certain, like no other certain before,
I had a baby girl, a daughter and she was coming
to me, a spirit flying through the canyons of the
spirit world, and she wanted me, she wanted Daddy,
a place to nest, and rest and become her rest.

An excerpt of Oshun by Jaiya John

I remember when I was younger, going to our favorite breakfast spot, Eggspectation, in Silver Spring, Maryland. This one time, one of the servers came up to say hi because he had been a past graduate student of my father’s at Howard University. But this catch-up felt different because he got to meet me: the girl from the poem all those years ago.

And it’s wild to see how much I resonate with Oshun now that I’m older. When I was younger, I didn’t know anything about her—or even about myself, I guess you could say. But over the past year, I’ve been diving more into ancestral work and learning about deity connections, and the more I study, the more I feel drawn to her energy.

Oshun is an orisha from the Yoruba tradition, a river goddess often depicted in yellow and gold. She’s associated with fresh water, love, fertility, beauty, destiny, divination, purity, and abundance. Known for her sweetness, generosity, and fierce protection of her people, I feel as if Oshun has always called to me through many symbols.

I’ve always been drawn to water, have always lived by it, swam in it, and when I need to ground myself, I either walk to the local pond in our backyard or retreat to the shower. I know that wherever my soul comes from, it’s tied to water. Some other fun connections: my favorite color is yellow (just like my father’s💛), and I’ve been told that my aura is a sparkly gold. Looking back, I can see that this connection was always there, guiding me in ways I just couldn’t see.

So, as I’ve grown in age and wisdom, I’ve realized that not only do we sign specific contracts with specific people to learn specific lessons, BUT we also come here to teach.

This post, in particular, was inspired by a video from my mutual and favorite tarot reader, Oh.Nati—or Natija, as she’s known personally:

@justnatija @justnatija ♬ original sound - Natija

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In the video, she talks about how when people have children, it’s because those children are also meant to teach and show their parents certain lessons through the ways in which they experience life while growing up. Sometimes it’s watching them discover their dreams and authentic identities. Other times, it’s watching them chase the same dreams and identities you didn’t dare to pursue—and through that, parents are meant to heal, learn, and grow. Whether the dreams align or not, children show us what we need to face within ourselves, often forcing us to become more courageous, compassionate, and aware.

Isn’t this why we say we become like our moms and dads? Not just because we pick up their habits, but because they literally brought a version of themselves into the world.

This also makes sense when I think about my parents’ astrological charts. I have a Scorpio father and a Virgo mother with a Leo rising. Me being a Leo sun and Virgo rising already makes me feel like an inside-out version of my mother. We share so many qualities, but when I was younger, this mirroring created friction.

I internalized a lot because we struggled to understand how our energies intersected, even though we’re naturally aligned in so many ways. My father, on the other hand, seems to intuitively get the depth of my emotional landscape in a way that no one else has. Looking at my chart, it all makes sense: my Scorpio placements, including my Chiron and Part of Fortune, amplify my emotional depth and intensity, which is why I often felt closest to him during intense emotional moments.

This is why it can be so hard for parents to teach kids lessons if they themselves haven’t fully learned and embodied them. Sometimes parents end up projecting old wounds, insecurities, or fears onto the very children they’re supposed to guide. It’s also why some kids experience their parents as their first bullies, their first encounter with jealousy or envy, or even their first lessons in narcissism and emotional complexity.

It’s important to clarify what is meant by “children teaching parents.” A child should never be parentified or expected to carry the responsibility of guiding their parents. The adult still needs to be the parent. But when old wounds or triggers surface, many parents don’t—or don’t know how to—return to themselves, do the inner work, and heal. Instead, they unintentionally project these issues onto their kids.

This is why the cycle breakers in families often become the black sheep and distant: they are navigating, consciously or unconsciously, the healing work that no one before them was willing or able to face.

They often grow up attempting to guide their parents and other family members in a direction toward understanding, compassion, or emotional growth, but when their efforts are resisted, dismissed, or misunderstood, they are pushed to the margins. The family’s inability or unwillingness to face these reflections can isolate the child, turning them into the black sheep. Not because they’re wrong, but because they are the first to hold up the mirror no one else is ready to look into.

I’ve always felt this firsthand. Even as a child, I could sense so much more than adults often assume children can.

Kids feel deeply, intuitively, and spiritually—they physically feel the energy in rooms, or the subtleties of relationships, even when adults think they’re “too young to understand.” Many children can remember their past lives or see spirits, and some of these experiences are dismissed as shadows or “imaginary friends,” but I believe they’re actually glimpses of a deeper consciousness that most adults lose touch with as we become molded by societal expectations.

Our purity, our spiritual awareness, and our unfiltered perceptions of reality get dimmed as we age. Children inherently remind us of what we’ve lost or what we never fully acknowledge within ourselves.

Photo by Selma DA SILVA on Unsplash

They give us a reason to be better and to do better, because they mirror back the energy we put into the world, often without filters. This reflection forces us to practice patience, emotional regulation, and clarity in ways we might never have needed to otherwise.

Children teach us consistency and presence. We set examples for them not just through lessons in right and wrong, but through the way we move through the world, process our emotions, and show up for ourselves. Many parents do not realize this, which is why frustration, yelling, or physical harm as punishment can so easily become the default. Those reactions teach fear rather than understanding.

Slowing down, connecting with yourself, and meeting your child at their level to guide them requires strength and awareness. They will not always get it the first time, or sometimes even the fifth…but why expect a child to act as anything other than who they are? Or grow at a pace that isn’t realistic?

With consistent modeling and explanation, children do learn. I know that can sound repetitive and annoying, but hey, that’s parenting. It’s not their fault.

And beyond lessons in responsibility or emotional regulation, children remind us how to reconnect with our own inner child. They teach curiosity, playfulness, wonder, and fearlessness. They show us how to indulge, savor, and enjoy the sweet moments in life, whether it is the joy of dessert, the thrill of discovery, or the passion of expressing ourselves freely.

Children believe they can be anything, not limited by perceived flaws or societal rules, and in doing so, they remind adults that we can too. They embody freedom and courage in a way that makes life richer and more vibrant, even for grown-ups.

Seeing this, I understand that children don’t just teach through words or lessons—they teach by being. By showing up as themselves, they push us to show up fully, to heal, and to grow alongside them. They remind us that inside all of us, no matter our age, our inner child still exists, still longs, still feels, and still learns.

Old dogs really can learn new tricks; it just requires the willingness to notice, reflect, and act.