Children

What do adults owe children, and how should children have a voice?

Children are born with rights and dignity. Adults carry responsibility for care, protection and opportunities to participate according to a child's developing capacities. Listening to children helps us understand their experience, while guidance and decisions still need appropriate adult responsibility. Children can gradually learn to consider others, make choices and reflect on what happens. They do not need to earn their rights through obedience or carry adult emotions and conflicts. Parents, carers, institutions and public authorities each carry distinct responsibilities.

A child need not explain a feeling neatly before an adult pays attention. We can make time, use language they understand and avoid turning every feeling into a lesson about behaviour.

A question to sit with (optional): Have we heard the child's perspective, and are we asking them to carry something that belongs to adults?