Choice in Children: Whose Responsibility Is It, Really?

Choice in children is a tender and often misunderstood subject. It is something I find myself returning to again and again.

Children are not miniature adults. They cannot yet carry responsibility for their choices in the way adults can. This is not because something is lacking in them, but because they are still becoming. Their inner capacities are under construction, and this matters deeply when we speak about freedom and choice.

In much of modern parenting, there is an understandable discomfort with authority and power. Many parents no longer wish to control or dominate their children, and this often comes from care and awareness. Yet in moving away from authority, something else seems to be happening. We may be slipping into the other extreme, where children are left to arrive at decisions far too early, and where what is encouraged as choice is often simply a passing impulse.

Freedom and choice are not capacities we are born ready to exercise. They are capacities we slowly grow into, particularly as we mature into young adulthood. There is a reason we instinctively differentiate between children and adults. This difference is not merely legal or social. The adult age of twenty-one reflects a deep understanding of human development.

What makes children children is precisely this. They are still developing their fundamental faculties for thinking, feeling, and will. Their nervous systems, organs, and inner structures are still ripening. From a developmental and biological perspective, children do not yet have a fully developed prefrontal cortex, nor the inner maturity required to truly grasp and integrate life’s consequences.

So when we say, “My child needs to learn to make their own choices and face the consequences,” it may be worth pausing for a moment.

Children need to be held by adults. Not through control or dominance, but through steady and thoughtful presence. They should not be left alone with choices they are not yet ready to carry. The deeper work of reflection, responsibility, and holding the larger picture belongs to the adult.

How children are held will naturally change with age. Autonomy grows gradually, especially beyond puberty. But while children are still children, the responsibility for choice rests with the adult. What can change, and what truly matters, is how that choice is made.

True parenting lies in making conscious choices for the child. Choices that take into account the whole child and the wider environment they live in. And then meeting the child with empathy, explanation, and collaboration. You can listen. You can include. You can name feelings. You can walk alongside.

But the holding remains with the adult.

And perhaps this is something worth sitting with.

When we speak of choice, whose capacity are we really honouring? 

Where is the weight of responsibility being placed?

Maybe the question is not how soon children can choose for themselves, but how consciously we are willing to choose for them, until they are truly ready.

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