Advocating for and with children

This approach does not fit comfortably within a framework that must respect children. It still removes the voices of children and doesn’t give them enough capacity to advocate for their own rights, or equip them with the skills and networks to speak out about the abuse they suffer.

A world where we respected children would deliver a message to children telling them adults are here to listen to their concerns and issues. Instead, children see the adult world as simultaneously protecting them and abusing them, while they remain silent.

Our society still regards children as vulnerable. Anne Manne calls it the “myth of the resilient child”. And, many of us prefer to believe it is a myth and we don’t recognise that beyond extreme examples of abuse and trauma, the average child is capable of supporting its own development and dealing with certain amounts of stress, especially with adequate supports. If children couldn’t do this, we’d be seeing far greater numbers of dysfunctional adults than we already do.

On the whole, our communities are still pretty well-functioning places. We may fall for ideas of children as innocent and precious, but we do so urged on by hundreds of parenting books telling us how to raise our children, because of the indelible fear that we will make some kind of mistake. The real mistake is that we don’t trust ourselves to raise our children, and that our society chooses to idolise rather than respect childhood.