A child can be loved and still have very little say in the life being arranged around them. Adults make decisions about home, school, care and discipline, often with good intentions. Yet good intentions can make it surprisingly difficult to hear an objection. Once we are certain we are helping, disagreement begins to sound like ingratitude.
The African Union has reported the 48th Ordinary Session of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The supplied notice gives no detail about its discussions or decisions, so it would be wrong to claim any particular achievement. Its subject, though, brings a difficult responsibility into view: how much room do adults leave for children’s rights when exercising their own authority?
Most of us would readily agree that children deserve protection. Listening becomes harder when what a child says disrupts an arrangement that suits everyone else. A complaint may mean another conversation with a school, reconsidering a household rule, or admitting that an adult’s judgement was mistaken. Being heard has consequences, or it is merely an opportunity to speak while the decision remains untouched.
There is a complication here. Children cannot carry every responsibility for their own welfare, and adults sometimes have to make unwelcome decisions. Taking a child seriously does not oblige a parent to agree with everything they ask for. It does oblige the parent to consider whether the explanation offered is an explanation at all. “Because I said so” may end an argument. It tells us very little about whether the decision was sound.
Formal scrutiny of children’s rights matters, but responsibility also sits in ordinary rooms, with people who would never describe themselves as exercising power.
A useful place to begin is the next disagreement. Before dismissing it, find out what the child believes is happening. Explain what can change and what cannot, and why. Allow the possibility that their account contains something the adults have missed.
That can take longer than issuing an instruction. The extra time belongs in the responsibility we accepted when we took charge.