Through the TOY4Participation project, Play Hubs across Europe have been exploring how young children can participate more meaningfully in shaping everyday decisions, relationships, and community life.
One of the more unexpected reflections emerging from this work has been how often child participation began resembling forms of democratic practice adults usually associate with much later ages.
Across different countries and communities, young children were not only participating in activities. They were increasingly participating in decisions, negotiations, and shared community life in small but meaningful ways.
Often, these moments emerged through everyday routines.
Children voted on activities.
Helped create shared rules.
Discussed how they wanted the space to feel.
Negotiated disagreements with peers.
In Bulgaria, children helped create community agreements around kindness, conflict, and cooperation, including a “Happy Day” initiative focused on reducing insults and helping children treat one another more respectfully.
In Croatia, children participated in rule-making discussions and restorative approaches to conflict, particularly around bullying and exclusion. In Latvia, children regularly helped update shared rules as the Play Hub community evolved.
Several teams also reflected on how quickly children began understanding collective decision-making itself.
In Bulgaria, facilitators noticed children organizing themselves into groups to influence one another’s votes, something adults jokingly compared to “political parties.” In Slovakia, facilitators observed that children often followed whichever voting option already appeared most popular until voting methods were adjusted to encourage more independent choices.
What many Play Hubs began noticing was not only that children were capable of participating in these processes, but how naturally many of these skills emerged when children were genuinely given the opportunity.
These young children were already learning how to:
- express preferences,
- negotiate with peers,
- experience disagreement,
- influence group decisions,
- and participate in shared community life.
Researchers have long argued that democratic participation begins long before formal civic education, through everyday experiences of cooperation, decision-making, fairness, and shared responsibility (Hart, 1992; Percy-Smith & Thomas, 2010).
Importantly, these moments were rarely framed as formal civic education. They emerged naturally through play, routines, conversations, and everyday group interactions. Studies suggest that young children who experience meaningful participation early in life are more likely to develop confidence, social responsibility, and long-term civic engagement later on (Lundy, 2007).
Across several countries, teams began reflecting on how powerful these experiences could be, both for children themselves and for the kinds of communities they may help shape over time.
Many adults involved described becoming surprised by young children’s capacity to think collectively, navigate fairness, influence one another, and engage seriously with shared decisions from a very early age.
For the project partners, this confirmed that the foundations of democratic culture begin much earlier than societies often assume given children’s capacity to practice democracy in their everyday life. Not through formal lessons about democracy, but through everyday experiences of being listened to, negotiating with others, participating in decisions, and learning that their voice can genuinely shape the world around them.
References:
Hart, R. (1992). Children’s participation: From tokenism to citizenship. UNICEF International Child Development Centre.
Lundy, L. (2007). “‘Voice’ is not enough: Conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.” British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 927–942. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920701657033
Percy-Smith, B., & Thomas, N. (Eds.). (2010). A handbook of children and young people’s participation: Perspectives from theory and practice. Routledge.
