Rights of the child – What they mean in Early Years

Professor Cathy Nutbrown discusses how putting children’s rights into practice often lies in the hands of Early Years practitioners…

More and more people are talking about what we refer to as ‘children’s rights’ these days. However, the term dates back more than 50 years, to 1959 and the Declaration of Rights of the Child by the general assembly of the United Nations.

More recently, in 1989, governments that signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child agreed that children have a right to the following:

• prevention (of illness and neglect)
• provision (of education with specific references to children who are disabled)
• protection (from abuse and exploitation)
• participation (in decisions which affect them)

Such rights are only as useful as the actions they lead to, of course. For children to have any rights, adults need to take on the necessary responsibilities to bring those rights into practical and meaningful fruition.

Around the world, work on children’s rights has included moves to:

• ban corporal punishment
• end child poverty
• consider children and the law
• address issues of child labour
• enhance child health (including immunisation, food and the environment)

Rights in practice

There is a tendency, sometimes, to think that such issues apply only to situations in developing countries. However, there is work to do on children’s rights in the UK too.

In a Save the Children study, Priscilla Alderson examined children’s involvement in decisions which affected them.

The study showed that adults around the UK often did not recognise children’s contributions. Many adults, due largely to their desire to protect children from danger, denied children basic freedoms to play with their friends.

Good early years practice

There are, however, examples of early years practice where children’s rights are a fundamental and guiding principle of curriculum and pedagogy.

We can find such an example in the infant-toddler centres and pre-schools in Reggio Emilia in northern Italy. Here, as identified by Loris Malaguzzi, practitioners’ central concerns include the rights of:

• children
• teachers
• parents

In Malaguzzi’s assessment, recognising the rights of children as the rights of all children is a sign of a more accomplished humanity.

A second example is found in the argument of daily practice. That is to say, that although it is governments that have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, thus declaring their commitment to working within their countries to realise and protect children’s rights as enshrined in the Convention, much of the reality of putting children’s rights into practice lies in the hands of individual practitioners working in services and settings for children and their families.

To put it simply, securing, upholding and protecting children’s rights is the obligation of governments, and of every adult citizen. This is especially true of those who work with and for young children.

Questions to ask about rights of the child

The need to safeguard children’s rights requires those adults responsible for children’s services (and housing, health and social services) to ask deep and searching questions.

Similarly, early years practitioners, health workers, teachers, social workers and parents can ask the following questions:

• Is every child in this setting seen as equal? Do we treat all children equally and according to their needs whatever their race, colour, religion, sex or nationality?
• Does every child have what he or she needs in order to promote their healthy mental, emotional and physical development?
• Is every child respected here? Do I say and spell their name correctly? Do I make efforts to know and understand their background and nationality?
• Do all children have sufficient nutritious food?
• Are all children living in a home that is safe and secure and promotes their wellbeing?
• Do all children have the medical treatment and care they need?
• Are children’s diverse learning and development needs provided for?
• Are all children loved, understood and cared for in ways which meet their needs?
• Do all children have access to the play, learning, and recreation time and space they need?
• Are all children given protection from cruelty, neglect and exploitation?
• Do all children know what it feels like to grow up in a calm and peaceful community?

Further reading

• Alderson, P Young children’s rights: exploring beliefs, principles (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2000)
• Malaguzzi, L ‘The right to environment’ in Filippini, T and Vecchi, V The Hundred Languages of Children: the exhibit (Reggio Children, 1996)
• Jones, P and Welch, S Rethinking Children’s Rights: Attitudes in Contemporary Society (Continuum)
• Lane, J Young Children and Racial Justice: Taking action for racial equality in the early years – understanding the past, thinking about the present, planning for the future (NCB, 2008)
• UNICEF: Pocket Book of Children’s Rights

Cathy Nutbrown is head of the School of Education at the University of Sheffield. Read more about inclusion in her book Key Concepts in Early Childhood Education and Care (2nd edn).