"The Charter on Children's Rights makes clear that young children have important insights into the issue of children's rights and how it pertains to their own lives."
- Ellen Hall and Jennifer Rudkin, Seen and Heard: Children's Rights in Early Childhood Education
In 1989, the United Nations outlined their Convention on the Rights of the Child, a convention the United States has yet to ratify. After engaging in their own dialogue around the meaning of rights for children, a class of 4 year-old children negotiated a definition of the concept of a right and outlined their own charter - one which echoes the work of the United Nations. While the United Nations Convention speaks of rights theoretically, the children used concrete examples to illustrate their understandings of rights.
“A right is like you know in your heart it’s okay to do it… you can do it if you want and that’s it.”
“But only if it’s okay, like you won’t hurt somebody and it’s not safe… because the other person has a right to not be hurt too, right?”
“But only if it’s okay, like you won’t hurt somebody and it’s not safe… because the other person has a right to not be hurt too, right?”
As stated by a group of Boulder Journey School children, children have the right to…
Plant flowers and plants with other people
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Run or walk, to choose which one, if it is safe
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Touch everything, but gently, but not birds because that can scare them very much
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Be in love and love each other
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Clean, fresh food to eat and if the food is dirty, they can say, “No!” or they can choose to wash it so they do not waste food
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Have their words heard by other people
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