Othering: Our Bias in viewing Children and Young People as Less Than

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of sharing a stage with Sue Giles, at the time CEO of Polyglot Theatre, an innovative children’s theatre company. During her presentation, she said something that captured a strongly held belief of mine in just a few words:

“Children are not human becomings, they are human beings.”

I have carried those words with me ever since. I have echoed them whenever I have had the opportunity to speak to an audience about children, young people and the way we understand their place in the world.

Across my careers in education and health, I have often observed how easily our default position can become one of seeing children as less than — less capable, less knowledgeable, less entitled to have a voice, and somehow not quite fully formed.

There is, of course, inherent complexity here. Babies, children and young people absolutely need the support, protection and guidance of adults. Their brains and nervous systems are developing. They rely on us to create safety, boundaries and environments in which they can learn and grow.

But do we have a tendency to unconsciously turn much of our relationships with children and young people into one-way transactions?

What happens when being the adult is synonymous with knowing better?

And what do we miss when we forget that the child or young person in front of us is not simply someone who is becoming a person, but someone who is already a whole person — with thoughts, preferences, emotions, ideas, agency and an internal experience of the world?

The power imbalance

Adults hold enormous systemic and physical power over children and young people.

We decide where they go. What they eat. When they sleep. What they wear. When they leave the house. Whether they attend school. Which healthcare professionals they see. When they need to be quiet. When they have to move home, school or even country.

For very young children, almost every aspect of their lives is determined by someone else.

Much of this is necessary. Children need adults to hold boundaries and keep them safe.

But I wonder how often we pause and have compassion for what that actually feels like.

Yesterday, while scrolling through Instagram, I came across a reel suggesting that as much as 80% of the communication adults direct towards young children can take the form of commands:

“Sit here.”

“Time to go.”

“Eat your vegetables.”

“Put your shoes on.”

“Stop that.”

“Don’t touch that.”

Of course, none of these statements are inherently problematic. Children need direction. There are many moments when being clear and direct is what is required, particularly when safety is involved.

But the significances of the 80% propotion jolted me.

When a significant proportion of a child’s experience of adults is being told what to do, what does that communicate about how we, as a society, see them?

And more importantly, what does it communicate about their place within the relationship?

What does control feel like from the other side?

In sitting down to write this I reflected on my own experiences of relationships that have felt unbalanced, at times involving micromanagement or control.

I know what it feels like when someone else holds more power in a relationship and there is little room for your perspective, your needs or your experience.

And I know how my nervous system responds.

There is something about being repeatedly directed, corrected, dismissed or controlled that gradually shifts us out of a sense of safety and into a state of vigilance.

We begin to monitor.

What do they want from me?

What am I allowed to say?

What will happen if I disagree?

How do I avoid getting it wrong?

How do I keep the peace?

As adults, we have language and cognitive capacity to make sense of these experiences. We can leave relationships. We can set boundaries. We can seek support. We can name what is happening.

Children and young people often cannot.

They may not have the language to articulate what is happening internally. They may not have the power to change the circumstances. And their entire dependence on the very adults who hold power often leads them to internalise that they are a problem.

This is where I think the concept of othering becomes particularly important.

Othering

Othering is the process by which we unconsciously position another group as different from, separate from, or somehow less than ourselves.

We can other people because of their race, gender, disability, culture, socioeconomic status or age.

And I wonder whether we have, to some extent, normalised age-based othering.

We call children “little people”.

We talk about them as our future.

We describe them as developing, immature, irrational or incapable.

And while some of these descriptions may contain developmental truth, they can also become a lens through which we see children primarily in terms of what they lack — their deficits, their immaturity, their limitations — rather than what they have and who they are.

“Because I said so”

I think about how deeply sentiments like this are embedded in our culture.

“I’m the adult.”

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“Don’t talk back.”

These phrases aren't simply about behaviour. They communicate something about whose voice carries authority.

They can teach children that age itself creates a hierarchy of worth.

When we communicate primarily through directions or commands, it is easy to see how children and young people’s distress can be interpreted as non-compliance rather than communication.

A child who refuses to cooperate becomes difficult.

A child who asks endless questions becomes challenging.

A child who cries becomes irrational or overly anxious.

A teenager who disagrees becomes oppositional.

But what if we became curious about what their reactions are trying to tell us rather than simply trying to stop them?

What are they communicating?

What do they need to feel safe?

What choice is possible here?

What can we explain?

What can we negotiate?

What can we relinquish?

Often the most powerful intervention we can offer a child is not another instruction.

It is a little bit of agency.

The privilege of caring for children

The privilege we have in caring for children and young people should imbue us with an enormous sense of responsibility. Yet we live in a time of strange contradiction. We expect children and young people to do what we say — often without question - while simultaneously acknowledging that the world we are handing to them is deeply broken and divided, and hoping that they will somehow fix it.

We admire how young people to care about climate change, inequality, social justice, mental health, war, political division and the future of our planet (sometimes patronisingly).

We tell them they are the leaders of tomorrow.

But how often do we give them meaningful opportunities to have influence today?

How often do we invite their thoughts, perspectives and ideas?

How often do we tell them that their voice matters, but only when it agrees with ours?

On the weekend, I went to the incredible Festival of Dangerous Ideas. In the powerful panel The Cure, Jess Hill offered a poignant challenge to all of us: rather than relying on children and young people to “unf&%k the future”, we need to take responsibility for doing the healing work required to change the world now.

That stayed with me.

Because perhaps empowering the next generation is not simply about preparing them to inherit the world.

Perhaps it is about recognising that they already live in it.

And so my challenge is a simple one:

How do we reimagine relationships centred on supporting growth and flourishing rather than control?

And then I catch myself

This isn't something I have mastered.

Far from it.

As a mum, I have frequent moments when I have to swallow my own reactions, my own certainty, my own wisdom — and, more often than not, the internalised patriarchal scripts that tell me what a “successful” child of a "successful" mother looks like.

When my teenager spoke about Palestine three years ago, I told her it was complicated.

I was, in effect, inferring that she didn't understand.

How wrong I was.

She understood something that I was perhaps too uncomfortable, or too conditioned, to sit with.

When she started receiving fewer awards at school, because she was no longer people-pleasing in the way she once had, I noticed a small flicker of disappointment in myself.

I had to work to replace that disappointment with pride.

Not because she was achieving less.

But because she was becoming more herself.

That has been an incredibly important but often uncomfortable lesson for me.

Because sometimes what we call good behaviour in children is actually behaviour that makes us comfortable.

Compliance.

Quietness.

Achievement.

Agreeableness.

People-pleasing.

And sometimes the work of parenting, educating and caring for children is learning to tolerate our own discomfort when a child begins to develop a voice that is different from ours.

Perhaps that is part of what it means to genuinely empower the next generation.

Not simply to prepare them for adulthood.

Not simply to teach them how to follow instructions.

But to genuinely empower them to participate in the world they already inhabit.

Because creating safety does not require the absence of agency.

In fact, I would argue that true safety creates the conditions for agency to flourish.

Seeing children as people

Seeing children as human beings does not mean treating them as though they are adults.

It doesn’t mean removing boundaries.

It doesn’t mean expecting children to regulate themselves when their developing nervous systems are unable to do so.

It doesn’t mean giving a four-year-old responsibility for decisions that belong with adults.

Rather, it means recognising that developmental dependence is not the same thing as diminished humanity.

A child can need us desperately and still have autonomy.

A teenager can make mistakes and still deserve respect.

A baby cannot tell us what they need with words, but they are still communicating.

A child can lack the capacity to make a particular decision without lacking the capacity to have a preference.

And perhaps this is the shift I keep coming back to:

Children don’t need us to give them a voice. They already have one.

Our responsibility is to create environments where that voice can be heard.

Sometimes they will be loud.

Sometimes it will be expressed through play.

Sometimes through tears.

Sometimes through silence.

Sometimes through resistance.

Sometimes through a very clear:

“No.”

Our job is not to silence that voice.

Our job is to become curious about what sits underneath it.

The invitation

Perhaps the challenge is not simply to ask whether children are behaving appropriately.

Perhaps we need to ask whether we are relating to them appropriately.

Are we speaking with children or primarily at them?

Are we offering choices where choices are possible?

Are we explaining rather than assuming they won’t understand?

Are we listening even when we ultimately have to make a different decision?

Are we willing to apologise when we get it wrong?

Are we curious about their experience?

And perhaps most importantly:

Do we believe that their experience matters?

Because children and young people are not waiting to become human.

They are not unfinished versions of adults.

They are not simply future citizens, future workers, future parents or future leaders.

They are people.

Right now.

And perhaps if we truly believed that, we might begin to think differently about the way we speak to them, listen to them, care for them, educate them and hold power alongside them.

Maybe the goal isn't to give children more power than adults.

Maybe it is to use the power we inevitably hold with greater humility.

To remember that being the adult in the room doesn't mean being the only person in the room who matters.

Perhaps the measure of our power is not how effectively we can make children do what we want.

Perhaps it is how safely we can help them become who they are.

And perhaps, in doing so, we might create relationships in which children don’t have to spend their childhood proving that they deserve to be heard.

They already do.

I want to acknowledge the many inspiring colleagues and parents I have worked with and met who have reminded me how important reflecting on the place of children and young people in our systems of power is. More importantly perhaps enormous gratitude to the many children and young people I have had the priviliedge to work with who've contstantly reminded me how their wisdom is often greater than ours.

If this idea interests you…

One of the voices I would highly recommend following in this space is Connor Pall, a family violence survivor, advocate and author. His work offers a powerful perspective on power, relationships, safety and what it means to listen differently.

You can find his work at conorpall.com.