This is an adapted excerpt from For Real: Helping Children Remain Their Authentic Selves in a Limiting World by Alexander Kopelman, reprinted with permission from the author and publisher.
As I was getting ready to write this, I took a walk on a lovely fall evening in Astoria, Queens, a bustling neighborhood of families from all over the world. I stopped to read the menu of an enticing Mexican restaurant on a leafy street corner. A boy of about two came running past, waving his arms high in the air and laughing his head off. His mother was in hot pursuit a few steps behind, yelling for the boy to stop. She caught up just before he reached the intersection and grabbed him roughly by the arm. Her fear made her seem larger than life as she towered over the boy. “I told you to stop,” she said as she gave him a shake. He looked up into her face with searching eyes and started to cry.
My heart ached for both of them. I knew firsthand the fear of a parent whose child is in danger and recognized the bewilderment and sadness of a child who does not understand why the adult is angry. I wondered, What did that little boy just learn?
The scene brought vividly to life Erik Erikson’s observation that our universal experience of childhood is very much about learning how small we are. “Every adult, whether he is a follower or a leader, a member of a mass or of an elite, was once a child. He was once small,” Erikson writes in Childhood and Society, his landmark exploration of the significance of childhood. “A sense of smallness forms a substratum in his mind, ineradicably. His triumphs will be measured against this smallness, his defeats will substantiate it. The questions as to who is bigger and who can do or not do this or that, and to whom—these questions fill the adult’s inner life far beyond the necessities and the desirabilities which he understands and for which he plans.”
The central struggles of childhood—struggles for a sense of agency and meaning, Erikson asserts—lay the foundation for how we see the world and ourselves in it and, thus, how we perceive childhood itself. If a feeling of disempowering smallness pursues us into adulthood, it is not surprising we might be ambivalent about childhood. We come to see it as a time of incompleteness, a waiting room where we eagerly count the days till we are granted the privileges and freedoms of maturity.
“In an adult-made world,” declares Professor Ashley Montagu, “the child is treated as an intruder, an alien, who has to conform to the external requirements of his socializers instead of the internal requirements of his own system of values, which are his basic behavioral needs and drives, and which cry out for the loving encouragement toward their fulfillment.”
We have all seen what this looks like: Children constantly admonished to “calm down,” “behave,” “listen,” “sit still,” “be quiet.” Whether these statements are punctuated by exclamation points or sweet sounds, they all amount to the same thing: the demand that children pay attention to the needs and sensitivities of the adults around them rather than their own.
The perception of childhood as a transitional phase of immaturity and dependence informs our interactions with children. It leads to the belief that our job is to “raise” children, to prepare them for the adult-made world. As a result, we treat them as incomplete human beings.
In her remarks at the inaugural Children & Authenticity Conference, Dr. Megan Laverty, professor of philosophy and education at Teachers College, articulated brilliantly how this opposition of childhood and adulthood shapes the status and treatment of children in our society:
Today we have a concept of childhood which finds expression in the literal and metaphorical separation of children from the world of adults. We have children’s meals, children’s spaces, children’s clothes, children’s games, children’s movies, and we can continue that list ad infinitum.
Conceiving of childhood as a developmental stage in the human life cycle, we regard it comparatively using adulthood as the norm. In other words, we focus on how the child will develop as he or she moves into adulthood. We think of the child as moving from immaturity to maturity, from dependence to independence, from pre-morality to morality. . .
Children are viewed as insufficiently rational, insufficiently selfdetermining, insufficiently mature, insufficiently moral, and lacking in self-awareness. In other words, we are inclined to view childhood as a deficit.
This view is so common that many of us may not even realize we hold it. This pervasive conception of childhood as a deficit leads to children being seen as “others,” an out group. It thus results in a societal prejudice toward children.
Let’s take a breath, that is a lot to take in, and our very beings might rebel at the notion that we are implicated in attitudes that are anything other than loving and caring toward our children. Our love and good intentions are not in question. The very fact that we are doing this work together is a testament to our commitment to supporting children.
Yet, as bell hooks reminds us in her beautifully inspiring All About Love, “There can be no love without justice.” It is in the spirit of love, therefore, that we must ask the difficult question of whether as a society we treat children justly.
Ann Margaret Sharp, who pioneered the Philosophy for Children movement, did a lot of work with children in Hawaii. A student in one of Dr. Sharp’s communities of inquiry noticed a curious thing about her school. When hot dogs were served in the cafeteria, older children were given mustard and ketchup, while younger children were only given ketchup. The adults in charge had apparently decided that young kids do not like mustard. The student felt this was unfair and worked with the administration to change the policy. In the end, everyone got ketchup and mustard.
The little things matter. A lot. And we need to encourage children to advocate for themselves. Share the ketchup and mustard story with the children in your care and ask them to think about what they might want to change in your community, whether that’s your family, team, afterschool program, or classroom. You might all be surprised by the outcome.
About the Author
Alexander Kopelman is a writer, social entrepreneur, advocate, and coach who has devoted 40 years to advancing social justice and personal empowerment. His lifelong interest in identity, self-determination, and the power of narrative has fueled his commitment to supporting young people in overcoming the limiting effects of outmoded societal stereotypes on individual development. As founding President and CEO of Children’s Arts Guild, Kopelman helped create and grow a nonprofit organization that supports children in exploring and developing their authentic selves. Prior to founding Children’s Arts Guild, Kopelman served as Director of Marketing for Girls Inc., the premier girls’ empowerment organization in the US and Canada, for over 12 years. Kopelman has authored and co-authored 10 books, including For Real: Helping Children Remain Their Authentic Selves in a Limiting World [Page Two, June 9, 2026]. He lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and very small dog.
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