How to Respect Your Child’s Rights

I’m hoping this post will empower you as a parent. I’m hoping it will help you advocate for your child.

I’m hoping it’s not just thought-provoking; I hope it’s change-provoking. I hope it makes you think twice when living with the children you love. 

 

I want you to think back to yourself as a child.

Think of how you were spoken to by adults – parents, relatives, teachers, salespeople, or strangers.

Try to remember of how free you felt – to voice your opinion, to move, to play, to make choices about what you ate, when you slept, how you spent your time.

Think of instances where you made a mistake as a child. What did you feel? Fear? Fear of punishment? Shame?

 Remember how important and valued you felt when around adults.

 

Now I hope that you reflecting on your experiences and feelings as a child wasn’t an upsetting thought, but for many of us, it quite simply is.

That’s not to dismiss all the adults who are not perpetrating childism. I’m sure we all also had instances of incredibly compassionate and helpful adults. But that’s what this is about! We need the negative to be the exception – not the other way around!

Respecting children and their rights isn’t built into the genes of our society, is it? Do you think children are treated as equals? I certainly don’t see examples of that as frequently as I do the opposite!

When you hear of rights like freedom of speech or freedom of thought, you generally think of adults and most would agree that people are entitled to them. But parenting, schooling, media, and society as a whole really fail to protect these rights regarding children!

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – children seemingly require permission to be human by so many adults. This is clear to me when discussing children’s rights (which I often do). “But they’re just children” is said to dismiss all kinds of rights of children.

Even in the little exercise above, I can envision some having cognitive dissonance about their experiences. Some may believe that the treatment of children is justified – that they need it and/or deserve it. They can’t fathom children with their rights respected. They haven’t lived it, they haven’t seen it and they often are conditioned by the common myths, assumptions and narrative.

This is how systemic oppression of groups of people (and children are people) occurs. Children are indoctrinated to believe they require force and that they don’t have the ability to make the right choices – that they need others making all choices for them.

With regards to rights, commonly human rights are seen as privileges to children – things to earn, things to be trained to be ‘good enough’ to have and things that are inconvenient for adults.

When children practice or demand human rights, they are so frequently punished, shamed, belittled, threatened or judged. 

I have already shared my thoughts about how children are dehumanised in our society and the concept of childism. But today I wanted to share what I think is a key part of empowering us as adults in advocating for children. Quite simply recognising and raising awareness for the rights of children.

Childism – When the rights of adults are seen as privileges to children. – Racheous

When it comes to children’s rights there are generally two types – those advocating for children as autonomous people and those placing a responsibility on our society to protect children from the dangers they face due to their dependency. Both are necessary and important.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely accepted human rights treaty – of all the United Nations member states, only the United States and Somalia have not certified it. This child-friendly version is a great simplified page for reference.

I really want to discuss the human rights that are questioned as soon as the human is a child.

Autonomy

Autonomy is SUCH an important and big topic regarding children. It’s one of the single most significant things that is robbed from children in so many ways. Children have the right to freedom of speech, thought, choice and ownership over their bodies. Unless these freedoms remove the freedom of someone else, they should be able to exercise these rights.

Freedom of speech

“Article 12: Children have the right to say what they think should happen when adults are making decisions that affect them and to have their opinions taken into account.”

Children have a right to speak and express themselves without fear of repercussions. Children have a right to an opinion!

I love this look. Question me sweet child of mine!

Children deserve to have a voice in things that affect them. It’s common in mainstream parenting for parents to punish, shame, belittle or threaten children for sharing their opinion or preferences.

It’s not uncommon to hear parents say “just do as I say”. Children are allowed to disagree with adults. Mind blowing, right? It’s sad how much this is a radical notion to many. Children don’t have to agree with us just because we think we know best for them.

How we can respect and protect this right:

• Show your children you value their voice. Truly listen to them and work on making sure your actions reflect how important you feel their words are.
• Whenever possible, invite your children to voice their preferences and work together to find solutions that work for everyone. Respect their right to be upset about their preferences not being able to be fulfilled when they can’t.
• Reframe ‘talking back’ as a child expressing their opinion. Almost always children aren’t out to be rude or defy you, they are simply sharing their wants and needs. They’re entitled to that.
• Protect your children’s right to say “no”.
• Support them in their expression of their emotions. Don’t tell them to ‘stop crying’ or similar.

Freedom of thought

“Article 14: Children have the right to think and believe what they want and to practise their religion, as long as they are not stopping other people from enjoying their rights. Parents should guide children on these matters.”

Children deserve to hold or consider a view or thought, independent of others’ thoughts or views and to be able to make up their own minds. They have a right to think and learn what they want.

Again, we have influence over this but it’s important that a child isn’t made to feel that what they think is inferior or less valuable. We can share our thoughts free from our expectations and with mindfulness of our own conditioning.

This very much ties into unschooling as freedom of thought is paramount in autonomous learning.

One of my favourite quotes by John Holt, who coined the term unschooling, is “A person’s freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take away from someone his right to decide what he will be curious about, we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must think not about what interests and concerns you, but about what interests and concerns us.”

This is closely related to children’s right to access information. “Article 13: Children have the right to get and to share information, as long as the information is not damaging to them or to others.”

How we can respect and protect this right:

• Practice honesty in answering their questions.
• Encourage respectful conversation about thoughts, information and beliefs.
• Try not to restrict or control your child’s access to safe information on their interests.
• Protect and advocate for your children’s ability to choose what, when and why they learn.
• Protect children from the bias and expectations of schooled culture.

Ownership over one’s body and self

Bodily autonomy is SO important. I have an entire post about it so please read that if you haven’t. Consent is everything. Helping children learn about consent and their rights regarding their bodies is paramount.

“Children have a right to make any and all choices about their bodies. This is not only important with regards to consent and safety and knowing no one else can touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable. But it should also include who they kiss or hug, if they cut their hair, when and how much they eat and sleep, and appropriate clothing choices.

Giving kids control of their bodies at a young age builds a foundation that will help them create healthy personal boundaries later in life.”  – Racheous

This includes the freedom of movement and their physical expression. Unless it encroaches on the rights of others or affects genuine hygiene or safety, children should be able to move freely and express themselves. This doesn’t mean we can’t voice concerns and help them with these choices, but they still deserve to govern their own body and self.

How we can respect and protect this right:

• Protect children’s autonomy regarding sleep. I’ve shared a master post of the best reads regarding children and sleep!
• Protect children’s autonomy regarding eating. No more “just two more bites!” or shaming/punishing when a child doesn’t eat what/when/how you want.
• Prepare and include them in the decisions regarding where they are going. Don’t just hurry them from place to place without informing and involving them!
• Protect their right to freedom of movement. Children should be free to play and move however they want unless it affects the rights of another.
• Practice radical acceptance of your children’s individuality and expression. Banish the goldilocks mentality!

Protection

Freedom from neglect

Children deserve to be cared for and kept safe. They deserve to have clothing, food, water and shelter.

They also deserve to have access to experiences to play and interact with other people.

Children have the right to a supportive parent who does their best to meet their needs and works with them to help them be healthy and safe.

How we can respect and protect this right:

• Recognise that you can’t force independence.
• Challenge your preconceived ideas about control.
• Respectfully navigate genuine boundaries (not arbitrary ones).
• Remember your power in modelling healthy care for self and others.
• Educate yourself about what caring and comfort feels like to individuals.

Freedom from abuse and fear

Children deserve to live free from both emotional and physical abuse. All forms of violence are abusive including any hitting (whatever form people want to call it, it’s all physical violence), yelling, shaming, manipulation, blaming and gas lighting. This also includes threatening said violence.

Children are entitled exist without conditional safety and love. This includes arbitrary consequences and punishment. Children should never be required to earn their humanity. They don’t have to obey in order to be treated with respect; they deserve that regardless.

Children deserve to live free from fear! Freedom from fear is listed as a fundamental human right according to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Children are such vulnerable members of our society and yet many routinely are victims of violence. The parenting paradigm really must change to respect children and their right to protection from abuse and neglect.

How we can respect and protect this right:

• Parent without punishment, violence, shame, and belittlement.
• Work through our own triggers as a parent.
• Recognise that obedience is not the goal if you want to raise healthy, respected, self-motivated humans.
• Educate yourself on misbehaviour.
• Re-humanise children.

Privacy

“Article 16: Children have the right to privacy. The law should protect them from attacks against their way of life, their good name, their family and their home.”

Children have a right to privacy. This includes consent over what and how photos and information about them is shared online.

How we can respect and protect this right:

• Ask for permission to share photos or information about your children online.
• Unless absolutely necessary, do not share information about something they’re struggling with without their consent.
• Give them choices and space to be alone when they want to when it’s safe and possible.
• Protect them from unwanted questions.
• Discuss privacy and consent with your children. Equip them with the language and knowledge of their rights.

Now it’s up to YOU

With this knowledge of the what, why and how; now is the time for action – share this with your partner if you have one and the adults in your children’s lives. Knowledge is power and advocacy and respect begins with learning what children’s rights are and how we can protect them!

Talk to your children about their rights!

I’d love to hear how you are helping protect and respect children’s rights.

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Thank you for reading!

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