Respect For Children

Respect for children is one of Vegan Scouts’ core principles. Every child is a full person, no matter their level of development, and deserves respect. But, what does it mean to respect children?

For Vegan Scouts, respect means recognizing children’s abilities and giving them space to grow by using those abilities. This does not mean withholding support, but providing empathy, tenderness, and the support they really need.

This emphasis on space for children to use their abilities was developed principally by Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler and her follower Magda Gerber (no relation to the Gerber baby foods company), the latter establishing the “RIE” child development philosophy (later championed by writers like Janet Lansbury). They emphasized the importance of not “interfering with [children’s] experience of encountering life.” By understanding what kids can do and giving them room to work through challenges, we allow them to use and strengthen their capacities. Gerber called this the “essence of respect.”

This is consistent with how we adults might feel if someone did something for us—like opening a jar—based on an assumption that we couldn’t do it on our own.

Beyond feelings, a great deal of research strongly shows that having the space to encounter life and do what they can greatly strengthens children’s independence, self-confidence, impulse control, curiosity, emotional regulation, problem solving, joy of discovery, learning skills, resilience, and other developmental qualities that predict outcomes in virtually every domain of life.

Yet, no matter how well-intentioned, many adults in our culture are accustomed to continually teaching, fixing, doing for, resolving disputes, distracting away conflicts, and soothing feelings, with too little regard for how this can undermine growth. We often preemptively tell children where to put their hands on climbing structures, snap wheels back on toy trucks, zip their coats, tie their shoes, impose sharing regimes, use treats to make them feel better, among other interventions, when ceding space may well reveal their own ability to move forward or overcome.

Educators are seeing the consequences of this underestimating. One high school for boys, for example, posted this sign telling parents bringing things that their kids forgot to instead go home.