Adult Views Of Children's Rights

Running head: Children Rights 2 Adult Views of Children Rights

1. Describe the overall purpose of the article. What were the authors attempting to discover?

According to A Cross-Cultural View of Adults’ Perceptions of Children’s Rights, “264 U.S., 76 Swiss, and 51 British adults completed two perceptions of Children’s rights surveys. The results showed Swiss and British participants were more likely to advocate for self-determination rights than U.S participants. Moreover, more U.S participants and British participants were also more likely to advocate for children’s self-determination rights than U.S and Swiss participants, whereas Swiss adults were more likely to grant children nurturance rights than British and U.S adults.

Adult perceptions of children’s rights are crucial to the implementation and success of the rights enumerated in the convention because adults, especially parents and legal guardians, act as the first line of implementation of children’s rights.” However, children, who continue to rely on their parents for physical support, psychological dependence, and so on, then the rights will be accessed through their parents, rather than directly through the child. This article states, “Attaining autonomy, is often understood to be conflicting with interdependence, or relatedness.” According to this article, “Western industrialized cultures have stressed the importance of the development of individuality, the self, and the identity over the development of interdependence, the latter having been associated more frequently with non-Western cultures (Guisinger & Blatt, 1994). Cultural theoretical perspectives tend to view Western and non-Western cultures along a continuum or dimension of individualism and collectivism. In individualistic societies, such as the United States, Canada, and, to a lesser extent, those of Western Europe, the self is construed as separate from the social order. In those cultures, individual rights, personal agency, and individual choice are emphasized. However, in collectivistic societies, such as those in Asia, South America, and Africa, the self is construed as stemming from the unique social roles that individuals occupy in the family or

Rucket al. (2002) reported that, in general, parents were more supportive of nurturance rights, but that with children’s increasing age, parents increased their support for self-determination rights. Similarly Bohrnstedth et al. (1981) found that adults supported granting self-determination rights to older children to a greater degree than to younger children. Cherney, Travers, and Greteman (2006) also found that parents were less likely to extend self- determination rights to children and that age was a significant predictor of when adults perceived children to have the competence to make decisions about their own rights. Yes, children deserve and need rights. I feel they should have the right to self-determination. Children deserve to be treated with respect, loved,