I’ve previously written about the importance of giving neurodivergent people more self-determination in childhood.  Indeed, I think all children, including the neurotypicals, could probably benefit from increased self-determination and autonomy.  Isn’t it rather strange that entering adulthood in our society, legally speaking, gives one full rights to autonomy overnight where previously one’s autonomy was legally minimal?  An abrupt transition, for sure!  Why not give people more practice exercising autonomy in childhood?

It certainly seems like giving more opportunities for self-determination in childhood would probably help prevent the phenomenon whereby some post-secondary students, who may never have enjoyed substantial freedom to make decisions before they arrived at university, find themselves making poor decisions (e.g., around time management, etc.) and perhaps dropping out of college.  If they had more experience with autonomy, the freedom of college life might be less of a shock.  They might have more experience to help them make good choices.

If one must make bad choices in order to learn, better to do it when the consequences are less serious!

Admittedly, we could talk about “immaturity of prefrontal cortices” and whatnot, but I think it’s worth pointing out that young legal adults in our society also have immature prefrontal cortices!  I’m not suggesting we should ignore developmental stages and treat all children as miniature adults, but I think it’s important for us to question how much immature behaviour in adolescence is due to underdeveloped brains and how much of it is due to our culture and its institutions.

Children really don’t have much of a stake in what they do, at least not until someone is on the cusp of entering adulthood.  I admit that employment and volunteer experiences in the final years of high school can be important.  But will someone’s middle school grades exercise a major influence on their life trajectory?  I would hope not!  Thus, middle school students don’t really have a stake in anything.  They get sent off to a school they are forced to attend compulsorily, but their success there doesn’t matter.

This contrasts sharply to the adult world, where employees and post-secondary students have at least theoretically chosen their paths and presumably feel they are deriving some benefits from their educational and career choices.

Our society doesn’t really give children a reason to be responsible.  This in turn forces schools to develop a very authoritarian culture.  If students have no real stake in their early educational experiences, a system of coercion becomes necessary to ensure obedience.

How could we expect children to be responsible if they have incentive to do so?  How could we expect children to be responsible if they have few opportunities to practice making decisions?  I think that children could become much more responsible if society was set up in a way that encouraged this.

How far can we go?

Of course, I realize we do need to be cautious about increasing the responsibility offered to children and teenagers.  There is a delicate balance between (1) giving people enough responsibility and enough of a stake in their lives for them to develop healthy motivation and self-determination and (2) giving people so much responsibility that they become stressed and that, as a result of poor decisions, paths become closed to them.

Many people completely reorient their career and educational interests in university or later, as they realize other paths are better suited to their abilities and interests, or as they extricate themselves from the influence of over-controlling parents who had previously been forcing them on an unwanted path.  I believe we need to keep these options open.

More generally, the consequences of making bad decisions need to be reasonably modest.  People shouldn’t face the danger that their life could be ruined by a few bad choices in childhood.

That being said, I feel compelled to point out that the authoritarian and coercion-based educational model can often apply harsh punishments.  Especially in the contemporary United States, one often hears of police being summoned to schools to “deal with” students!  So I’m not at all sure the consequences of bad choices would be worse in a model more based on fostering responsibility than a model based on using coercion to enforce compliance; if anything, I would expect a less coercion-based system to be advantageous.

Of course, we also need to make sure we aren’t imposing such an onerous level of responsibility on young people that they become stressed.

That being said, if people don’t have the stress of responsibility, I think it’s worth noting that they may divert their energies into meaningless social competition and bullying that is also extremely stressful and, I’m afraid, widespread among children.  Furthermore, lacking control can itself be extremely stressful and anxiety-provoking, since one then spends much of one’s time worrying about the uncontrollable future.  We know this from considerable research.  It can even have health consequences.

Thus, I think it’s fair to say that children are already often extremely stressed, and that giving children a healthy amount of autonomy could help with their stress levels more than it hurts.

What choices can we offer?

These are just a few examples, but here are some domains in which I think minors’ opportunities for self-determination can be increased to generally beneficial effect:

Topics of study.  As I mentioned above, I do think we need to leave children’s educational options open, since many people will continue to change their career and educational plans well into adulthood.  At the same time, I think there’s a lot we can still do to give people choices about what they want to study and how.  We can give people more latitude to do work of interest to them.  This would increase autonomy, and because it would leverage people’s interests, it would also increase intrinsic motivation to learn.

Elections and voting.  I’m 100% convinced many minors would make more responsible political and voting decisions than many adults.  Indeed, if we allowed older children to vote and influence politics, perhaps this could pressure politicians to develop policies that protect children’s interests and promote greater self-determination for minors: a virtuous cycle.

Time and extracurriculars.  This is a tricky one, because I know many young autistic kids – my past self included – can need a bit of a nudge out of the door before we try new things.  However, one someone’s had an opportunity to try something, it should generally be their choice whether or not they continue.  Maybe they’ll make a bad choice, but the consequences will be modest, and it’ll give them an opportunity to learn.  And if people are going to go off and use their free time to party, perhaps it would be better for them to figure out a healthy balance when they are younger than when they are adults…

Educational placements.  This is another tricky one.  I constantly rant on this blog about why I think neurodivergent children need multiple options around educational environments, like homeschooling, mainstream schools, and specialized schools, but I can be a bit evasive when describing who chooses educational placements.  I definitely think it should be “the family,” not the schools/district/educational authorities, but does “the family” mean the parents or their child?  I must admit I struggle with this in my own head, because on the one hand I like the idea of children having self-determination, to the extent that they are developmentally ready, but on the other hand it’s important to remember that children have less practice making choices and – very importantly – that the schools are a compliance-based authoritarian system.  This serious power imbalance might make it hard for students to make an autonomous choice, as they will be used to doing what their teachers want.  Thus, I feel like parents should generally have the final say (except maybe in the final years of high school), but I do believe that neurodivergent kids should be present and meaningfully involved when these decisions are made. Similarly, if they are developmentally ready, I believe they should be centrally involved in (not just passively observing) their IEP meetings.

Food.  As someone with sensory sensitivities, who can experience distress due to the imposition of other people’s eating habits, I would definitely endorse the idea that children should have some self-determination around food choices.  While children can benefit from incentives to try something new, if somebody really ends up hating a particular food, they should be able to simply take the time to prepare their own food, albeit within certain health limits.

Exercise and physical activity.  School-based physical “education” classes are generally organized on the archaic principle that everybody should do the same exercise activities at once.  This not only represents an unnecessary violation of autonomy, but it also requires people to practice physical activities that may be challenging for their motor skills or unpleasant.  These experiences of stress and struggle can in fact deter many people from being physically active.  Greater flexibility to choose exercise activities, and to do them indoors vs. outdoors, could give children more positive experiences.

Finances.  This is probably somewhat elitist of me to say, since I of course realize many families have little to no wiggle room in their budgets, but if possible I do think it’s useful for kids to learn good financial habits.  If the family budget can afford, I think it’s good for children to – from a young age – get an allowance and a bank account, and thus the option of spending their money, saving it, or even investing it.