Rachel Flottman
Australian National University, School of Medicine and Psychology
@optimistic.anarchist
I first encountered Childism in August 2024 and about 9 months into my PhD. It was one of those wonderful moments that you sometimes have in a PhD when you read something by someone else that says what you’ve been thinking only they say it a million times better and with more clarity, cohesion and experience. They also say it with much more grace: Childism frames children’s involvement as expansive (like ‘Feminism’) rather than signifying oppression (like ‘Racism’).
For a long time I’d been grappling with the question: Why is there such a gap between the policy and the practice of children’s participation in decision making? My research takes place within early childhood education and care and I was irritated by the false promises and tokenistic rhetoric of children’s capacity and citizenship that were made by well-meaning adults yet didn’t do all that much for children – most children at least - and certainly not children experiencing multiple intersectional disadvantages. In my years working in public policy and researching implementation I’d come to the view that if something isn’t happening its most likely because those with power don’t really want it to happen. Having studied features of successful policy reform I’d seen that the programs that were most successful at changing behaviour were those that shifted people’s behaviour in a direction that they already wanted to go. I came to see that despite what people say, it’s their hearts – not their heads – that propels them to change.
I wondered if part of our challenge to see more opportunities for children to participate in decisions that lead to real change would be better overcome by encouraging people to want to involve children more in decision making, rather than only through instigating further mandates and researching additional methods and models. I found Childism was already there as the philosophy that had started doing just that. It took away the threat of the Adult/Child binary perceived in earlier understandings of children’s participation and offered a way of showing – quite legitimately – that children’s participation in decisions was not a zero-sum game (at best). Rather, the expansive framing of Childism offers a way for everyone to benefit from children’s participation. Childism is a way of seeing that power, unlike a cake that needs to be divided up and shared and with each new dinner guest comes a smaller piece for everyone else, but that it grows exponentially like love and the universe.
I tried this expansive framing of children’s participation at my PhD Confirmation Oral Presentation in response to a colleague who was concerned about where children’s participation may end by inviting her to reflect on whether there is something particular to children - which is not there for adults - that means cars and guns pose a risk: That perhaps it isn’t only children’s age that renders them vulnerable to these particular harms. My Confirmation went through without any changes and I received a number of emails the following day acknowledging the strength of my study’s conceptual and philosophical framing. (Thank you Tanu and John).
I tried this expansive framing with a group of kindergarten teachers who were working with three and four year old children in an inner city Melbourne kindergarten who invited me to help involve ‘children’s voices’ into their practice more deeply a few weeks later. This team – like many I work with – only had a few years of teaching experience and also had limited play and creative experiences as children or adults themselves. Rather than my usual suggestion that they need to become ok with not being in control I posed the question: What do you want to get better at - or do more of - over the summer that children already do really well? How could you use the last month of the year to learn this particular skill from children? It opened up a whole new dialogue and even playfulness very quickly and the team’s engagement and shift in perspective across the 90 minute workshop was remarkable. The teachers told me they were tired and feeling stressed about heading into the end[1] of the year and wanted to learn from children things that would help make their summer break more fun and relaxing like:
· Saying 'no thanks, not today' if someone invites you to an event that you don't want to go
· Knowing it isn't because you aren't liked/not take it personally if a friend declines your invitation to catch up
· Knowing it's ok for someone to have a different opinion to you, but that you can still be friends
· Listening to your bodies: resting when you want to rest; eating when you want to eat; wearing the clothes that make you feel comfortable
· Sitting on the grass, on logs, on the sand – feeling grounded by the earth
· Being silly and laughing
· Doing something that's fun even if you are bad it
Through all of this, the most significant shift in my thinking was away from Childism being used to signify discrimination and to “tell-off bad adults”, but to one that signals the expansive potential when children’s perspectives and positionality are included as well as trans-generational relationships celebrated for broad social gain. Not only has this expansive understanding eased my irritation it’s also given me a way to think about, communicate and advocate for children’s participation in decisions and a way to – hopefully – create some change that uses the same approach that it asks: one of kindness, respect and valuing multiple and diverse perspectives for positive-sum game.
[1] December is the end of our school year in Australia and is also the time of year that family members travel to visit each other which is accompanied by significant expectations for social engagements and hosting as well as relaxing
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