Texts for a New Time: Kids allyship roundup
A rollup of inspiring resources relating to dismantling systemic ageism and creating a more inclusive world
In honor of World Children’s Day last month, here is a rollup of resources I’ve found inspiring lately in dismantling the systemic ageism in our culture and its impacts on children. I hope you’ll find one or two that support your practice of youth allyship. It covers mindset shifts, places and spaces, governance, and a bonus section on child-affirming holiday toys and games.
Mindset shifts
As changemakers know, the highest-leverage place for systems change is in shifting mindsets. I invite you to open your mind and immerse in some of this bracing new thinking. For me it really articulates why those of us who care about fairness and inclusion must critically examine our attitudes toward children.
Sarah Fitz-Claridge’s work Taking Children Seriously is an elaboration of this simple phrase. I appreciate her passionate commitment to non-coercive relationships with children and the subtlety of her arguments which have given me a lot of food for thought.
The documentary Chasing Childhood and its related initiatives explore the need for young people to have autonomy and space to reflect, and how caring adults can support them in meeting this need skillfully and safely.
Places and spaces
Here’s to creating places where children belong, not where their needs are an afterthought.
The City of Children is a gorgeous concept driven by city mayors in partnership with children to increase the autonomy of children in cities. Francisco Tonnucci is an extraordinary, loving, indefatigable advocate for children. I read his book, City of Children, and although the English translation was only passable I was touched by the wisdom in it. I wonder how we could engage US mayors to join the 200 cities engaged in such a joyous project that has benefits on so many levels.
The incredible 2019 Loose Parts Play Toolkit, published by Play Scotland, is based on Simon Nicholson’s beautiful theory that places full of open-ended elements meet childrens’ needs much more fully than narrowly- prescriptive spaces like typical swings-n-slides playgrounds. Read it to get ideas on how to foster and advocate for places of more imaginative play.
Governance
Conventional governance systems reinforce discriminatory assumptions of adult superiority and systematically exclude children. But kids have so much to contribute! There is such cosmically beautiful stuff going on in the world of children’s enfranchisement:
Child-friendly decision-making: Over the past two hundred years, sociocracy has become established as a means to efficient, inclusive decision-making which is also child-friendly. Participatory governance consulting organization Sociocracy for All has been a leader in sharing stories and resources on facilitating children’s inclusion through sociocracy, including publishing Hope Wilder’s book Let’s Decide Together, which I reviewed a few months ago.
Kids’ voices shared at scale: Kid-run governing bodies must be embedded within a system that brings their voices to forums of ever widening influence, from the neighborhood to local, regional, national, and even global levels. Swarnalaksmi Ravi, who as a child was a leader in such a network, wrote a beautiful and well-researched MA dissertation on the topic. It articulates the governance basis of the kind of Spaceship Earth I want to live in.
By marginalizing youth just because they are smaller in size and fewer in years, we lose access to a deep and potent wellspring of imagination and energy. As members of a culture in complex transition, we actually urgently need the ideas and perspectives of these millions and millions of brilliant, compassionate, creative, warm and wonderful people.
Youth tech and kids UX
I believe folks in tech are going to witness and cocreate a massive groundswell of activity over the next three years. We need to collaborate closely to dramatically evolve devices and platforms to better meet the needs of children and youth.
One of the things driving this is the epic California Age Appropriate Design Code. Californians, did you do a happy dance when you learned that Governor Newsom signed this Act into law in September? Great breakdown here by the Center for Humane Technology. This means big shifts are in the works for pretty much all companies whose apps are in the small hands, required by 2024. It provides the groundwork for some of the bigger changes I proposed in my essay earlier this year, New frontiers in incluisivity: the future and youth tech.
To support these changes, we can draw on the work of futurist and thought leader Riane Eisler who has been paving the way a child-friendly culture through her seminal work on partnership vs. domination. To translate this into the world of tech, the Center for Partnership Systems have developed the Partnership Technology Toolkit.
Hand-in-hand with developmentally appropriate design and sane regulation, families and schools must also commit to active media literacy education, starting in early childhood. Here is a wonderful roundup of resources from National Media Literacy Week. And, I also want to remind you of Faith Rogow’s wonderful book Media Literacy for Young Children: Teaching Beyond the Screentime Debates, which I reviewed here.
A vote for utopia
I hope you’ve found this roundup of resources stimulating and mind-expanding. In all the cacophony of news and social media I find it hopeful to intentionally set my sights on thinkers and initiatives that hold the DNA of the world I’m intentionally building, in my imagination, in my fictional work, and all around me. These resources have indeed dramatically shaped the writing project that is absorbing so much of my discretionary time and creativity and which I can not wait to share with you once it’s ripe! Thank you for reading this.