CDM By David Bell
Co-authored by Hugh Mccarthy and David Bell
âThe test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.â Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Adults and children
Children, as any parent knows, are not small adults. Their brain is growing and being acutely shaped by their environment and experience. Social skills and values are learnt from those around them, with teamwork risk-management, personal boundaries and tolerance being learned through play with other children. Their immune system is imprinting environmental contact into a set of responses that will shape health in later life. Their bodies grow physically and become adept at physical skills. They learn both trust and mistrust through interaction with adults.
This rapid physical and psychological growth makes children highly vulnerable to harm. Withdrawal of close contact with trusted adults and enforced distancing has large emotional and physical impacts, in common with other primates. Lack of experience also leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by adults who are pushing certain attitudes or beliefs – often called âgroomingâ. For these reasons, our forebears put specific protections and norms of behaviour in place that elevated the needs of children above adults.
However, protecting children did not involve enclosing them in a padded cell â policy makers knew this to be harmful to psychological and physical development. It involved allowing children to explore their environment and society, whilst taking measures to shield them from malfeasance, including from those who would harm them directly or through ignorance or neglect…
