CYP Now - Opinion - Soapbox - From children's services to children's spaces

Childhood is not just a state of biological immaturity. It is also socially constructed, so that what it is to be a child differs between societies. Thinking about children and their social position helps us to address such crucial questions as what we want for children and whether we are satisfied with the institutions provided for them.

Children are increasingly segregated from wider society, in schools,nurseries and out-of-school clubs. They are the objects of an adulteducational and social agenda that controls how children spend theirdays, and to what purpose. It is an agenda that focuses on children asfuture adults, rather than the importance of childhood in itself.

So what makes the term children's spaces preferable to children'sservices?

The answer lies in a wish to include children in a more democratic andequal society. This requires us to see children as active fellowcitizens, rather than as passive recipients of services. The frameworkCurriculum Plan for Kindergartens, issued by the Ministry of Childrenand Families in Norway, has special resonance. It says: "Childhood as alife-phase has a high intrinsic value, and children's own free time, ownculture and play are fundamentally important."

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