Children have an important influence in the process of purchasing touristic products for families. Children can be an important factor in choosing a business or a destination. Therefore, perceptions of students receiving tourism education about children are also important. Students will have to interact with children with their work in the industry, and this process may affect service quality. In this context, the main purpose of the research is to examine the perceptions of the students of the recreation department about the concept of “child” through metaphors. The study group of the research consists of 150 students studying in the recreation department and voluntarily participating. A data collection tool has been created to obtain qualitative data. In data collection tool created, ‘‘child is like ........, because............’’statement has been request. The collected data were analyzed using content analysis. A phenomenology pattern was used as a qualitative research method in the research. The metaphors obtained were analyzed in terms of their common characteristics and collected under 20 categories. According to the findings of the research, the categories where the most metaphors are created are “being influenced by education, being in need, being able to be directed and processed”. The most created metaphors were flowers, trees/wet trees and saplings.