Children’s Perspectives

The perspectives of children are often overlooked, undervalued, and frequently paternalized by the adults in their lives and the society surrounding them. Children are repeatedly viewed and valued as human becomings rather than human beings, and the specific perspectives, experiences, and expertise of children are habitually dismissed. Following the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989 (specifically Articles 12 and 13), listening and honoring the perspectives of children has shifted from a social nicety to a legal obligation. Though children still find their voices ignored, suppressed, and/or silenced in many contexts within their everyday lives, children’s rights activists, politicians, policy makers, researchers, and practitioners use the existence of children’s perspectives as a symbol of the modern welfare state’s commitment to ...