Child participation from home

Fostering child participation is good for children's development: it increases their self-esteem, self-confidence and sense of responsibility. It also helps children to feel involved in processes and decision-making. As one of the main agents of socialisation, the family plays a very important role in children's development. For this reason, we offer some guidelines that can be implemented at home to encourage children's participation:

1. Creating a safe space. Establishing a mutually supportive space at home is the first step in encouraging child participation. Active listening is essential to creating an environment in which children feel comfortable, and this is the key to fostering more participatory children.

2. Involving children in decision-making.For example, when establishing rules for living together at home, it is important to involve children in decision-making. Involving children in the household or other informal family rules establishes guidelines that are perceived as fairer and increases children's sense of responsibility.

3. Fostering children's critical thinking.Make children feel that being curious is a positive thing. It is important to be able to give answers and to be honest when we do not have an answer to the questions they sometimes ask. It is important to encourage children to express their opinions and to participate in decision-making, i.e. we need to stimulate critical thinking, and to do this we need to ask questions.

4. Give children responsibilities. Taking responsibility encourages the development of more involved children. Therefore, assigning age-appropriate tasks to children (such as older siblings helping younger children with specific tasks or doing small household chores) is important in creating children who are more involved in the dynamics of the household. 

5. Respect their likes and preferences. A very important point is to respect and value their own ability to make choices so that we can encourage children to express their preferences in certain areas of the home or their sphere and integrate them into the dynamics of the house (for example, respecting their taste in clothes or, when we prepare a weekly menu, we can add foods that they like more or negotiate those that they do not like).

These are just a few guidelines that can be implemented to encourage children to be more proactive at home. What are you doing to encourage children's participation?