Researchers like Bond (2012) emphasize that are only when adults start to listen to children, they will discover their opinions and evaluations and realize that children’s points of view about the dimensions of their quality of life may be different from theirs. It is quite clear that no longer adults know everything or are always right. More interestingly, this rises a new question:
why do adults have the right to differ in their perceptions and evaluations of important aspects of their everyday lives while children should not.
In fact, teachers and parents often do this and a general tendency is observed to undervalue the importance of learning what would make their children happier and more satisfied in and out school (e.g. these are childish things or you have a bad behaviour etc.).
Though, additional studies suggest that when children feel listened and understood are probably more equipped to thrive in psychosocial well-being and develop skills such as higher self-esteem, perceived control and better interpersonal relationships (Boele et al., 2019; Stern, et al., 2015).