Infant and toddler participation is not what we say. It is what we do
Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989) affirms that children have the right to express their views on matters that affect them, and to have those views taken seriously. Despite the clarity of Article 12, children’s participatory rights are often treated as conditional, recognised only under certain circumstances, such as:
- when it is convenient
- when children are verbal
- when adults choose to listen.
Participatory rights in infant and toddler early learning environments are often positioned as beyond children’s capability, but it is adult practice, not children, that sets these limits. As a result, infants and toddlers are frequently excluded from meaningful participation because their ways of communicating do not align with adult-centred definitions of voice, choice and agency.
Infants and toddlers are not silent participants. Their communication is embodied, relational and continuous, expressed through gaze, gesture, movement, affect, repetition, withdrawal and resistance. When these forms of communication are dismissed, it is not because they are unclear, but because they do not align with adult-centric ideas of voice, rationality and authority.
The Early Years Learning Framework (V2.0) (EYLF V2.0) (AGDE, 2022) positions children as active participants in their learning from birth. It foregrounds children’s rights, belonging and agency as foundational to early childhood practice, not as future goals to be unlocked once children are verbal or compliant. And yet, across infant and toddler practice, while the language of the EYLF V2.0 is often visible, its intent is harder to locate in everyday decision-making.
Consider the following example: during a morning routine in an infant room, a toddler repeatedly turns their body away as an educator attempts to guide them toward the mat for group time. Each time, the educator gently repositions the child, offering verbal reassurance and continuing the routine. Later, the child’s behaviour is described as difficulty with transitions, a refusal to cooperate, or tiredness. What is not recorded is the child’s clear communication: a refusal to participate in that moment, in that way, or on those terms.
This is how participation is quietly narrowed. We speak of responsiveness while routines remain fixed and adult priorities continue uninterrupted.
We reference agency while limiting children’s influence to trivial or tokenistic choices.
We document interests without allowing those interests to reorganise time, space or pace.
Participation becomes something we perform, rather than something we practice.
What participation requires in infant and toddler practice
Participation in infant and toddler settings is not a choice between two adult-designed options, nor is it contingent on clear words, pointing or conventional signals. These interpretations reduce participation to recognisable behaviours rather than lived influence.
In practice, participation is enacted through how educators respond to children’s communication in the moment, and whether that communication is allowed to shape what happens next.
Authentic participation looks like taking refusals seriously, even when they disrupt plans or unsettle routines. It involves allowing routines to stretch, pause or dissolve in response to children, rather than requiring children to adapt to predetermined schedules. It requires educators to interpret body orientation, repetition, affect, withdrawal and resistance as meaningful communication, not as obstacles to be managed.
Participation also means allowing children’s interests to reorganise environments, not merely decorate them. It asks educators to notice when children’s engagement calls for a change in pace, proximity or expectation, and to act on that noticing.
This kind of participation is demanding. It requires educators to relinquish certainty, to tolerate disruption, and to accept that being responsive may require slowing down. It is precisely because participation asks adults to be changed by children that it is so often resisted.
When participation is taken seriously
Taking participation seriously has consequences. It requires educators to notice not only what children express, but how adult systems either respond or fail to respond to those expressions.
When infants’ participation is recognised as meaningful, everyday practices begin to shift. Tight schedules become ethically questionable rather than operationally necessary. ‘Busy’ rooms become pedagogical red flags, not markers of engagement. Adult comfort can no longer function as the organising principle for children’s days.
Participation exposes power. It reveals whose perspectives shape decisions, whose time is protected, and whose discomfort is tolerated.
If infants’ perspectives do not matter in everyday practice, then children’s rights remain rhetorical.
If participation is recognised only when children can speak clearly, then it is not a right, but a reward. And if Article 12 does not apply in infant and toddler rooms, then participation becomes something we claim rather than something we enact.
The measure of our work in early learning is not how smoothly environments run, or how compliant children appear, but whether everyday practice is willing to be interrupted, unsettled and reshaped by children’s authentic participation.
Article 12 does not begin later—it begins at birth.
References
Australian Government of Education (AGDE). (2022). Belonging, Being and Becoming: Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (V2.0). Australian Government Department of Education for the Ministerial Council. https://www.acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/EYLF-2022-V2.0.pdf
United Nations (UN). (1989) Convention on the rights of the child. Treaty Series, 1577, 3. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child
