No worries, Top Dog. I think you’re right in your beliefs and practice. But you are also kind to step back and to consider how your words might cause anxiety to someone who is stressed out about a strumming pattern.
I think it might be a generational issue. If you see the videos by most of the prominent ukulele vloggers (e.g. YouTube), strumming patterns are always discussed. My own students (usually by 8th Grade) get very concerned about strumming the right pattern. The answer to “just experiment and find what works” doesn’t solve the anxiety over the need for the “right” strum.
I make play along videos based on actual performances and I avoid talking about strum patterns most of the time, hoping that other teachers will discuss those issues with their students as they see fit.
Meanwhile, in the groups I play with (when I have the chance), 99% of the music is performed with a straight shuffle strum, which isn’t the right answer for every song, either.
So, I simply strum a pattern that I feel matches...it might be with a alternating thumb/strum pattern, a picking pattern, a rhythm with chunking/chucking, etc. Nobody hears it anyway. And most of the time I’m singing louder than the ukulele anyway (trained operatic tenor that has done opera and will do so again).
The only song that seems to require or desperately begs for a specific pattern is IZ’s Over the Rainbow, which I keep working on (I’m almost there, but when I go back and listen to the original, I still find things to fix).
So I think the experimenting is fun...but I see the anxiety strumming patterns bring to young players (generationally, not in terms of how long they have been playing), and I’m happy to try to help to relieve that anxiety, too.