Resources: Know how - Giving children the right to a say in their lives

1. Public discussion often veers between adults' desire to control children, to educate them and to protect them from harm. So even well-meaning people get confused about what they are trying to do and why. It is useful to stop thinking about society versus children, and start to regard children as fully part of society with rights of their own. For instance, the debate about smacking children or the recent furore about a 14-year-old's response to a pregnancy are missing a vital dimension if the children's rights perspective is ignored. With it, everything becomes much clearer.

2. You can't have rights without responsibilities, people say. They want to link rights to some other action, whether paying taxes or just generally being well behaved. This is unhelpful and, in some senses, simply wrong. It suggests that rights somehow have to be earned. Yet a tiny baby or highly dependent elderly person might be incapable of any active exercise of responsibility. But they still have rights. It is crucial, though, to stress our responsibility to maintain the rights of others.