Why Kids Hold Back On School Writing: What I Found In My Old Secondary English Workbook
I was clearing out the back of my childhood closet last weekend, hauling old cardboard boxes up to the attic to make room for my 13-year-old’s new hockey equipment, when my elbow knocked a beat-up blue binder loose. It fell open on the floor, and out slid my old secondary school English workbook, cover peeling at the corners, my name scribbled in blue biro that smudged the day I dropped it in a puddle walking home from school. I kicked the box aside and sat on the floor to flip through it, not expecting anything more than a laugh at bad 90s handwriting.
Most of it was exactly what you’d expect: red-pen corrections for comma splices, B grades with little notes like “solid analysis” in the margins, a half-finished essay on Of Mice and Men that I definitely crammed out on the bus the morning it was due. I got to the end, past all the assigned pages, and that’s when I stopped. The back dozen blank pages, the ones workbooks always leave that no teacher ever uses, were full of my writing. None of it was for class. There was a half-finished story about a girl who snuck out to work at a seaside bookshop, a messy poem about fighting with my best friend over a boy, a list of terrible band names I wanted to start if I ever learned to play guitar, and a sharp little rant about how my English teacher never called on me even when I had my hand up for 10 minutes straight.
I remembered immediately why it was back there. I’d hidden it. I’d never have let my teacher see that messy, unpolished stuff, and I’d have died if my mom had stumbled on it when she checked my bag for homework. All those thoughts felt too sharp, too mine, to be graded or commented on or questioned. When we had free writing assignments in class, I’d turn in a safe, boring paragraph about walking my dog or our family trip to the lake to get a decent mark, and save all the real stuff for the back of the book where no one would look. I wasn’t bad at writing. I just didn’t want to share my real writing with anyone.
That’s when I thought of my daughter. Three weeks earlier, I’d gotten an email from her English teacher saying she consistently turns in half-page free writing assignments, says she “has nothing to write about” and never volunteers to share in class. I’d been worrying about it ever since. I’d asked her what was wrong, offered to sit with her and brainstorm ideas, even bought her a fancy new notebook to encourage her to write more. She’d just shrugged, told me everything was fine, and shut her bedroom door when I pushed. I’d assumed she was struggling with writing, or too anxious to speak up. Holding my old workbook, I realized I’d gotten it completely wrong.
I was 13 when I filled out those back pages, same age she is now. I remembered how it felt when my mom found my hidden diary under my mattress a year later, sat me down and asked me about all the “sad lines” I’d written, and how I’d been so humiliated I threw the whole thing in the bin and didn’t write anything personal for almost 10 years. I’d spent the past three weeks pushing my daughter to open up, to share her writing with me and her teacher, without stopping to think that maybe she just needed a space to write that was hers alone, no grades, no comments, no questions.
The next night, she was doing homework at the kitchen table, and I left the open workbook on the edge, where she’d see it when she took a break for lemonade. She glanced over a few times, then leaned over and flipped through it when she finished her math sheet. When she got to the back pages, she looked up at me and said, “You hid all this here?” I nodded, and told her I hated writing messy personal stuff for a grade back then. All the good stuff felt too weird to share with anyone.
She didn’t pour her heart out right then, like they do in the movies. She just shrugged and said the free writing prompts are all stupid. They make you write about “your happiest memory” or whatever, and that’s boring, she doesn’t want to write that for class. She told me she has a locked notes folder on her phone where she writes all the stuff she actually wants to write. No one knows the password.
I didn’t ask to see it. I didn’t tell her she should share it with her teacher, or that it’s good to be open. I just said that makes total sense. I told her it’s okay to have two kinds of writing: the one you turn in for class, and the one that’s just for you. You don’t have to share the second one with anyone if you don’t want to.
That conversation changed how I think about holding back in school, both as a parent and a part-time tutor I do a few nights a week. When a kid turns in short, boring work, our first instinct is to assume they’re not trying, or can’t do the work, or need help opening up. But most of the time, they’re just protecting themselves. Teens need space to practice thinking and creating without anyone judging it first.
For parents and teachers, the easiest thing you can do is stop pushing to see every thought. If your kid says they don’t want to share their writing, just say “that’s okay, it’s yours” instead of pressing. If you’re a teacher, add five minutes of ungraded private writing at the start of class that no one ever has to turn in. If you’re a parent, don’t ask to read their journal or look through their phone notes. Just let them know it’s normal to want things to be private. You don’t have to fix their reluctance to share, just validate that it makes sense.
Last week, I got another update from my daughter’s English teacher. She said during last week’s free writing, my daughter turned in a full page, all about why most free writing prompts are boring and what she’d actually rather write about. The teacher thought it was great. My daughter hasn’t given me the password to her notes folder, and I don’t expect her to. Some things are meant to stay hidden in the back of a workbook, or locked away behind a password, and that’s not a problem to fix. That’s just how growing up works.
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