Philosophy

Child Honouring is a philosophy—a vision, an organizing principle, and a way of life—the children-first way of sustainability.

It starts with three givens:

• The primacy of early years—early childhood is the gateway to humane being.

• We face planetary degradation that is unprecedented in scope and scale—a state of emergency that most endangers the very young, and that requires a remedy of equal scale.

• This crisis calls for a systemic response in detoxifying the environments that make up the world of the child.

Child Honouring is a children-first approach to healing communities and restoring ecosystems. It views how we regard and treat our young as the key to building a humane and sustainable world. It is a novel idea—organizing society around the priority needs of its youngest members.

The essence of the vision is expressed in A Covenant for Honouring Children and its underlying principles.

Its spirit is invitational—a call to imagine and create a diversity of child-friendly cultures. A child-honouring society would show love for its children, and thus for all of us, in every facet of its design and organization.