“In school, the child is doing great.” A sentence often meant as a compliment. It describes a child who meets expectations: calm, focused, compliant, ready to perform. What it does not describe is the cost of this adaptation. Increasingly, a pattern is emerging that is rarely discussed in educational contexts: children who appear stable in school collapse outside that framework, at home, in the afternoon, or on weekends.

Imagine being unable to create images in your mind – no faces, no places, no visual memories. For people with aphantasia, this is everyday life. How does this affect learning processes, creative tasks, or personal relationships? What can you do to support those affected – and could it be that your child is affected as well?

How we talk about children shapes how they see themselves. Why “not wrong” still sounds wrong – and what a language can look like that strengthens children instead of judging them.