Being a child in the family: young children describe themselves and their parents

ABSTRACT

This study explores how children describe their experiences of family interaction with parents who had taken part in parenting training. 11 children between five and nine years participated in semi-structured interviews which were analysed using a qualitative content analysis method. The children described themselves as active participants in family life, identifying strategies that they used to safeguard their subjective selves on one hand and to enhance communication with their parents on the other. The analysis displayed three main approaches in everyday life: withholding thoughts and hiding, extending limits for personal agency, and putting trust in their parents to guide and protect them in their stride. While handling these processes the children showed a willingness to take part in democratic family decisions by compromises and compliance. Towards their parents they expressed understanding and forbearance with adult shortcomings such as absentmindedness. Their reasoning involved issues of integrity and relational closeness. Conclusively, the children balanced their own selves with an undemanding respect for parental care and adult competence. The study contributes to awareness of and respect for how children position themselves as relational agents in a generational order. The results suggest that future research should further explore children’s perspectives on family life in a parenting training context. Children’s views should be drawn on to inform future developments in parenting training.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• parenting
• parenting training
• participation
• children’s rights

Introduction

A strong parent–child relationship is regarded in Swedish public health policies as a determinant of children’s future health and wellbeing (R2013/14:87). Since the early twenty-first century, manual-based parenting courses have been recommended for all parents with children aged 0–17 years, in order to strengthen parenting skills to prevent future problems in child development (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018; SOU 2008, p. 131). In pursuit of evidence to validate the outcomes of universal manual-based parenting training interventions, research has hitherto mainly focused on parental self-efficacy and adult evaluation of child behaviour. Less attention has been paid to children’s relational skills and agency (Kesby et al., 2006; Prout, 2011).

In the study presented here, children whose parents had attended parenting training describe their own experiences of family interaction. The children participated in semi-structured interviews which were analysed using a qualitative content analysis method. The study formed part of a research project which addressed power relations and rationalities of governing in Swedish parenting training policies (Rooth et al., 2018a; Rooth, 2018; Rooth, Forinder, et al., 2018; Rooth, Piuva, et al., 2018).

Two manual based parenting training programmes were chosen for the project, the Canadian Connect programme and the Swedish All Children in Focus (ABC). Connect is based on attachment theory and was initially designed for parents with children diagnosed with severe behavioural disorders and mental health problems (Moretti et al., 2011). Connect is additionally used as a universal intervention aimed at parents with children 8–12. The manual relates to developmental psychology and evolutionary theory. Guidelines for the course leaders include understanding of human relations - connection, lifelong attachment, natural conflicts, and empathy.

All Children in Focus (ABC) draws primarily on social learning theory and was designed for universal use, for parents with children between 3 and 12 years. The manual adheres to behaviour psychology and uses methods related to positive discipline. Course content deal with understanding of human behaviour - showing feelings, choosing battles, important behavioural factors, critical situations, and natural consequences (Lindberg et al., 2013).

Both Connect and All Children in Focus (ABC) adhere to a policy of a strong parent–child relationship which nurtures a strengthened parenthood in a setting of preventive risk-protection in children’s lives (Rooth et al., 2018a).

Two other studies in the project involved analysis of the programmes’ course manuals and recording of live course sessions (Rooth et al., 2018a; Rooth, Piuva, et al., 2018). A summary of their findings revealed an adult ambiguity towards children’s agency accompanied by support of parental leadership and downplay of children’s participation in family relationships (Rooth, 2018).

That relationships between children and parents do not work unidirectionally but are dependent on reciprocal and transactional processes has been shown by many scholars (Alanen, 2009; Fitz & Hood-Williams, 1982; Qvortrup, 1987; Stattin & Kerr, 2006; Wall, 2010). Children’s agency in a generational order is therefore not hierarchical but fundamentally relational (Alanen, 2009).

A theoretical move from an adult driven child centred perspective to bringing children’s own perspectives into research was regarded in the present study. Historically the Swedish author Ellen Key inspired child-care professionals to embrace a child-centred approach in the early twentieth century. Her pedagogical ideas which were connected to children’s rights remained influential throughout the century (Dekker, 2000; Key, 1909/1909; Macinai, 2016). From a child-centred perspective, the child is to be respected by adults, and children’s integrity and human dignity to be recognized. With such good intentions, adults have tried to find out what children’s needs are, while considering children's co-determination as a need among others to be catered for by adults (Lindgren & Halldén, 2001). A child-centred view thus tends to preserve an objectification of children by putting adult views in the forefront, which could be an obstacle to the realization of children’s rights (Sommer et al., 2013; Stern, 2012). Stern (2012) describes objectification as the greatest threat against the possibilities of the individual to exercise rights. As an example, child centeredness is often present in decisions and policies regarding the best interest of the child (UNCRC, 2008). With a similar adult gaze, child-centred research is inclined to filter children’s experiences through scientific concepts of how children understand the world and their actions in it (Halldén, 2003; Sommer et al., 2013).

Researchers in the Scandinavian countries have moved away from child centeredness with increased attention to children’s own thoughts and experiences. The child is first and foremost regarded as an individual with the capability to act independently (Stern, 2012, p. 21). Consequently, researchers need to be attentive, sensitive, and supportive of each child’s expressions, experiences, and perceptions to capture a theoretical as well as a practical shift (Sommer et al., 2013; Söderbäck et al., 2016). As is reasoned in this study, children’s creative role in negotiating family relationships will be clarified by bringing children’s own perspectives upfront in parenting training research.

Aim

The aim of the study was to explore how children reflect on relationships in their families, where one or both parents had taken part in a universal parenting training course.

Research questions

• How do the children describe their own actions as participants in family life?

• How do the children reason about the interaction between themselves and their parents?

Method

Participants and procedure

Prior to the recruitment of children for the study, the research was ethically approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Uppsala (Dnr 2016/028). The children were selected by subjective and homogenous purposeful sampling, which is relevant when a limited number of people are knowledgeable about or experienced with the topic of interest (Cresswell & Plano Clark, 2011; Patton, 2001). A criterion for the sampling was that the children’s parents had participated in a parenting training course within the previous one to six months (either Connect (U) or All Children in Focus, ABC). The time limit was judged as suitable for the children to remember that their parents had taken part in a parenting course. Gender heterogeneity among the children was desirable but not set up as a decisive criterion. For interview consistency, the children had to be five to nine years old.

The sampling began through contacts with course administrators at local social services, who in turn informed course leaders about the study. Interested course leaders informed parents, who were attending or had attended universal parenting training, about the purpose of the study: to interview children about their experiences in the family. Parents who gave consent their children could take part were given a letter with written information about the study. The parents then informed their children and asked them if they agreed to be interviewed. For clarity, the children were also given their own written information and were told that they were free to leave the study at any time. Finally, the parents gave consent for their children to take part. Before the interviews started, the first author told the children about the purpose of the interviews and which questions were going to be asked. The children then gave their consent to be tape-recorded.

11 children, 7 girls and 4 boys with an age span of five to nine years old, were interviewed by the first author during the winter of 2017. The age of the children was chosen within the age range of the two programmes respectively (Lindberg et al., 2013; Moretti et al., 2011). It was reasoned that the children should share a similar stage in childhood. Old enough for the parents to let them speak for themselves, but not yet in their pre-teens.

In semi-structured interviews the children were first informed about the purpose of the interview. They were told that other children were to be interviewed as well. They were also told that interviewing children was a way to learn more about children’s views on relationships within the family. Questions about how they experienced their own position in the family and their parents’ position were related to the children’s daily lives while they were interacting with parents, siblings, and friends. For the children’s convenience, as well as confidentiality, a home or school environment was chosen for the interviews. No other adult than the first author was present during the interviews. The tape-recorded interviews were followed by verbatim transcription (Hammersley, 2010).

Analysis

The analysis of the transcriptions followed an inductive qualitative content analysis process according to Elo and Kyngäs (2008). The interviews were initially read several times for familiarity. As a first step, two key domains were identified in children’s narratives:

Describing oneself as a child in the family’ and ‘Describing their parents in the family.

Following this meaning units were allocated to each domain, before being analysed to explore how the children talked about their own positions and interactions in the family. Meaning units were then coded and grouped together to form eight manifest categories (four per domain). During the last phase, the interpretation process of the categories led to a conceptualization of two themes in each domain. According to Elo and Kyngäs (2008) it should be noted that content analysis is not a linear process but a back-and-forth movement between the whole and parts of the text. In the analysis the first author contracted meaning units from the transcripts, then the first and last authors coded and categorized the units and conceptualized the themes. For increased credibility, the second and third authors critically reviewed the analysis (Tables 1 and 2).

Table 1. Describing oneself in the family.

Domain	Codes	Categories	Themes
Describing oneself as a child in the family	Cherise one’s own thoughts. Withdraw from adult company. Set limits	Self-protection	Defining one’s own space
	Quarrel with siblings. Tolerate siblings. Spend time with friends	Generational positioning	Interacting outside one’s own space
	Take part in decision making. Willing to compromise. Want to behave in a good way	Togetherness
	Want to manage on your own. Want to be listened to. Being curious	Moving borders

Table 2. Describing their parents in the family.

Domain	Codes	Categories	Themes
Describing their parents in the family	Arguing with the children. Arguing with each other. Being stressed	Unbalanced attitude	Relational shortcomings
	Being occupied. Turning their backs. Seeming not to bother	Faltering attentiveness	Learning possibilities
	Practical skills. Social knowledge. Teaching children	Adult competences
	Emotional presence. Listening to children. Offering security	Availability

Findings

The children expressed limited knowledge about the content of the courses that their parents had attended. A few children had heard that the courses were ‘for learning about children or learning how to treat children’. They experienced that their parents wanted to attend a course to become better parents, or because they did not want their children to be sad. The children’s experiences were allocated to the two domains: ‘Describing oneself as a child in the family’ and ‘Describing their parents in the family’. The following section analyses these two domains in detail, using themes and categories that emerged from children’s discussions as headings and subheadings, respectively.

Describing oneself as a child in the family

In the first domain ‘Describing oneself as a child in the family’, the children’s answers were coded and grouped into four categories (Table 1). Two categories, Self-protection, and Generational positioning were thematically conceptualized as ‘Defining one’s own space’. The two other categories, Togetherness and Moving borders, were thematically conceptualized as ‘Interacting outside one’s own space’.

Defining one’s own space

Self-protection as a category appeared during the interviews when the children described how they defined or claimed a space of their own in the family. Internally it meant for them to have secrets and keeping their thoughts to themselves, which they described as something you just did in daily life. Self-protection was coded as cherishing one’s own thoughts, withdrawing oneself, and setting limits. Space was claimed by the children by hiding or vanishing from sight in conflict situations or to avoid parental attention. Thus, building frames of integrity around themselves like Linda, age 9 and Vicky, age 7:

Some things you do not want to talk about. (Linda, age 9)

I do not want them to know what I think. There are quite a lot of secrets that I have. Then you do not want to tell. (Vicky, age 7)

Explaining his way of dealing privately with difficult situations. John, age 6 said that he did not let on when he was upset, he never cried even if he felt sad inside.

Refusing to talk or hiding away were common strategies in conflicts with the parents:

When I get angry, I go to my room. To play. Or else I go into my laser hall and I lie there and shoot. Or I call a friend or go to someone who lives nearby. (John, age 6)

Sometimes I sit on the sofa if I do not want to talk with them. (Lotta, age 8)

I go up to my room. (Martin, age 9)

I run to my bed. (Vicky, age 7)

Generational positioning appeared when the children talked about quarrels with siblings, tolerating siblings and spending time with friends in a flexible generational order. Younger siblings, older siblings, parents, grandparents, and friends were all included. Quarrels with siblings were described as an intrusive constraint on the self, but something you needed to adjust to. ‘I am a big, big sister’, Anna (age 8) said, who had two younger siblings. She sometimes found them tiresome but did not like to quarrel. She doubted that her parents understood this.

Susie (age 7) had a younger brother and expressed a will to handle their interaction in a better way. She suggested that elder brothers and sisters might need to attend a course to learn to be tolerant and to be nicer to their younger siblings.

Friends as a part of the extended family life, could become a source of conflict between generations. Linda had no siblings and felt that her daddy did not really understand how important her best friend was to her. ‘My best friend is like my sister’, she said. Linda described with some subtlety her generational position when she was not being listened to. She had to conform to the effect of her father’s ignorance of her wishes. But she felt indignation towards her dad.

It’s a kind of a bad feeling when he does not listen to me. For example, one thing, if I want to play with this friend and then after a few minutes when she has already gone home. he says: What did you want? Well, it’s already too late.

Interacting outside one’s own space

Togetherness constituted a category where the children described how they interacted with family members beyond their own personal space. Togetherness included taking part in decision making, a will to compromise and a will to behave in a good way in family matters, as well as their own standpoints on democratic fairness. In general, the children expressed that children and parents should decide 50/50 about joint family matters, such as which movie to watch or how to spend a holiday together. They also described their own compliance as part of family interaction. Outcomes of complicated deliberations, which sometimes involved conflicts, compromises, and turn-taking, were reflected on. Some children, like Vicky, were willing to compromise and step back to avoid conflicts:

My brother and I will fight about choosing first, but then I always let him do it. (Vicky, age 7)

Other children reacted in a similar way: ‘I usually badger a bit but then it blows over and after a while we agree’ (Lotta, age 8). Mick said that: ‘One should be kind. You should do what the other person wants … yes you do what the other person wants’ (Mick, age 9).

Peter had three siblings and described how family disagreements could be resolved by putting aside his own wishes:

Maybe I want to go for a picnic and my mum might want to go biking and my father just wants to stay home and watch TV and my brother wants to do something else. Then we start a big family quarrel. In that case I think mummy should decide. (Peter, age 9)

Penny reflected carefully about how her mood influenced her own reaction towards decisions: ‘When I am in a bad mood I want them (parents) to obey me and when I am sad I just let them do what they need to do, but when I am like on the top, then I WANT them to do what they like, and I can wait for them’ (Penny, age 5).

Overall, the children thought that adults should decide a little bit more often than children in the family about practical things such as food and clothes. These were personal issues which the children often had their say about anyway.

Moving borders represented the children’s acceptance of limits for their actions set by the parents while they looked for ways to extend their boundaries in daily life. Moving borders included the codes managing things on their own, being listened to, and being curious. The children described how they wanted to manage things on their own, without breaking rules or contesting their parents. In relation to the parents the children claimed space as subjective agents. They wanted their parents to listen, to take children’s capabilities seriously, and to put trust in them.

John exemplified it: ‘Put on the shower yourself, but I can already do that, and build things, and lay the table for breakfast and plant flowers. Things like that’ (John, age 6).

Linda(age 9) recalled and missed, how a few months ago her dad had made a weekly dinner menu, and she had been allowed to choose and cook the meals.

The importance/significance of being listened to appeared when the children positioned themselves as subjective agents, which was demonstrated in Linda’s narrative as a claim for personal space and agency. ‘Parents should listen and let the child speak. It is like this with my dad, he can interrupt me in the middle of a sentence. I get so angry because it has happened so many times. Let me finish!’ (Linda, age 9).

Moving borders also included curiosity as a means for the children to widen their horizons outside the family. Curiosity could be restrained by family structures and habits.

Penny longed for her relatives to visit her.

They do not come often; they do not live here. They live in a wood. I think that parents must be able to understand when you want to have visitors. (Penny, age 5)

Susie explained her keen interest in knowing more about the world outside: ‘Children think more about how other people are living, but the mother and father do not do that. They mostly think about what they are doing. I mean if you have not been to someone’s place you really want to know what it is like there’ (Susie, age 7).

Anna united the two categories of togetherness by suggesting that the children led the way towards new experiences:

When going on holiday I think that the children should decide where to go, I would like to go to London. To see Harry Potter. Me and mum and grandma might go to London, maybe. Go to the museum and buy other things. (Anna, age 8)

Describing their parents in the family

The second domain ‘Describing their parents in the family’, was categorized into two groups (Table 2). The categories of un and Faltering attentiveness were thematically conceptualized as ‘Relational shortcomings’. The categories of Adult competences and Availability were conceptualized as ‘Learning possibilities’.

Relational shortcomings

Unbalanced attitude encapsulated the children’s experiences of parental conflict management, describing parental nagging and quarrelling as well as withdrawal when they were upset with the children. Some of the children said that they did not want their parents to argue and quarrel with each other or with themselves.

Anna said her mum and dad quarrelled a lot with each other and with the children.

But I think that there has been a small change now (since the course). It feels like that because they have not quarrelled for some time. (Anna, age 8)

Parents walking away in conflict situations was reported by several of the children, sometimes with an air of lightness, as such situations which could pass quickly. John noted that his mother, when stressed, acted defensively in conflicts: ‘My mummy gets angry with me a lot. But she goes out of the way when she is mad at me’ (John, age 6).

Linda shrugged her shoulders:

Well (sighing) they sort of walk into another room, and I am left to think things over. But it all ends with us just forgetting it. We quarrel in the morning, but it all ends with … that we forget all about it. (Linda, age 9)

Vicky described her own resistance to parental nagging. ‘You say stop! When they chastise you and argue and so on?’ She said that quarrels made her sad, but that she did not really need comforting ‘It usually works out by itself (…) because it passes rather quickly anyway’ (Vicky, age 7).

Faltering attentiveness conceptualized that parental absent mindedness could be handled with mild resignation. Faltering Attentiveness included the codes ‘parents being occupied’, ‘turning their backs’ and ‘seeming not to bother’. Children discussed how parental absent-mindedness could be handled with mild resignation. Susie exemplified this: ‘Sometimes, when I want to be with my friend, daddy says sure we can call them and then he starts to do something else and just forgets it’ (Susie, age 7).

Mick tolerated his parent’s absent mindedness:

Well if you say something, then they do not hear you or it’s like they don’t care. I think that they don’t hear and that they are in a hurry. (Mick, age 9)

Like Mick, Linda forgave her mum’s lack of attention as an adult thing:

Mum has a job that means she speaks a lot on the phone. There are a lot of phone calls. (Linda, age 9)

Martin, age 9 expressed frustration with his parents when they did not listen to him. ‘Then I get angry’. Anna wanted her dad not to hurry her so much and give her time in the morning. ‘It is so stressful because we are always late’ (Anna, age 8). Only a few children, like Maria, had experienced some change after the course. She felt that her mother paid more attention to her now: ‘Mummy plays a lot with me. We play, and we train together, and we go outside’ (Maria, age 8). The same feeling was shared by Penny whose daddy ‘had understood now’ that he should play more with her (Penny, age 5).

Learning possibilities

Adult competences: The children described parental competences as well as areas of improvement. When they were asked if they had experienced any improvement in the relationship with their parents, some had noted small changes after the course, such as fewer quarrels and more attention. Some children had pragmatic opinions about adult competences and their purpose. These were coded as practical skills, social skills, and teaching children. Practical skills might be learned from a course, like cooking food, driving a car, or handicrafts. Also teaching children to play football, to ride a horse, to ski and other activities were parenting skills that the children thought were important.

Peter, who lived in an atmosphere of turmoil at home, forgave his mother for getting very angry and making him cry. She still possessed adult competences.

She is smart, and she is kind. And she knows what to do if the computer is lagging. She can fix it. (Peter, age 9)

Availability was categorized as an area of learning possibilities. Availability adhered to protection of children’s spaces in daily life. As such, availability was an adult capacity. Thus, it was mentioned as important in the relationship that parents who were occupied with their other adult things should learn to be emotionally present by listening, caring, and being supportive. The children wanted their parents to be kind, fun and comforting when they needed it. Availability was coded as emotional presence, listening, and offering security. Susie calmly stated that her mum should come to her when she was sad. ‘Turn off the kitchen stove and come to me’. (Susie, age 7). Accompanying the child, as a parental offer of security, was described as important as well. ‘So, the child does not get lost. If you go to the wrong place and it scares you’ (Vicky, age 7). The children reasoned that their parents could offer both social and moral security by helping or listening if they had trouble at school or with other children or adults. Mick said that his parents just wanted to know if something bad had happened to him at school: ‘First they get angry and then, when I come home, they want to talk about it, to know what the problem was. Then nothing more happens. We talk, and it is OK (Mick, age 9)’.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to explore how children reflected on relationships in families where one or both parents had taken part in a universal parenting training course. The overarching research questions sought to understand how the children described their own actions as participants in family life, and how the children reasoned about the interaction between themselves and their parents. Current Swedish policy developments served as a backdrop to the findings. The Swedish National Strategy for a strengthened parenthood (S2018013, 2015) highlighted a child’s rights perspective in parenting training interventions. In due course, the incorporation of the UNCRC (2008) into Swedish law in 2020, manifested children’s voices as inevitable in parenting training and other interventions involving children. A rights perspective on parenting training interventions should thus acknowledge that children construct their own selves within existing relationships, and that their subjectivity is a participatory right.

A generational perspective on participatory rights was used to understand and challenge the consequences of adult age coding, based on stages of maturity adhered to developmental psychology (Rooth, 2018; Wintersberger et al., 2007). A possible conflict between parental authority and children’s rights to make decisions for themselves was already noted when the UNCRC (2008) was processed in the 1980s (Rooth, 2018). The dilemma was addressed at the time by referring levels of child autonomy to a developmental understanding of age and maturity (Hammarberg, 1990). Age-based participatory rights have since been disputed by scholars as an adult creation, a hierarchical social order of inclusion and exclusion (Näsman, 2004; Sundhall, 1989). This study has instead chosen an intergenerational perspective on children’s participatory rights (Wintersberger et al., 2007, pp. 59–90). In a European context rights as expressed in the UNCRC (2008) are regarded as primary considerations in parenting with positive impact on child–parent relationships, making them more democratic (Daly, 2007; Rooth, 2018).

Still children’s participatory agency is not generally understood as straight forward but as creative even when children are compliant (Corsaro, 1997; Sevón, 2000). The findings of this study envisaged that the children nurtured their immediate family relationships with both democratic awareness and self-supportiveness, intertwining trust with integrity. When asked who should make the decisions a common answer was ‘50/50’.

Children’s participation in social life can be integrated as part of a generational process (Nolas, 2015; Sundhall, 2017). This was illustrated when the interviewed children contributed with a relational scenario that disregarded an age coding which fixated age and maturity to adult biased participatory decisions. Moreover, the children appeared to alternate between child and adult perspectives when describing generational spaces for mutual understanding. A will to comply and be ‘good’ mirrored an intention to establish mutual understanding in the family. As Mick (age 9) argued: ‘One should be kind. You should do what the other person wants … yes you do what the other person wants’.

The interviewed children navigated in a common space actively shared with parents, siblings, and friend, also in conflict situations. In this space, the children were aware of their own continuous involvement in family life. ‘I usually badger a bit but then it blows over and after a while we agree’, Lotta, (age 8) explained. It seemed evident, as Wall (2014) writes, that children’s actions in social relationships are not unidirectional, and that children simultaneously construct and reconstruct relationships.

The children used strategies to safeguard their subjective selves on one hand and enhance communication with their parents and siblings on the other. They withheld their thoughts and hid when they needed to calm down the situation. They kept themselves to themselves at times. ‘There is quite a lot of secrets that I have. I do not want them to know what I think’, as Vicky (age 7) said. Such strategies seemed to help the children to challenge the power balance between themselves and their parents and to maintain a self-integrity in conflict situations. The children’s communicative strategies toward their parents thus included extending borders for their own personal agency. They did not characterize these borders as unlimited, instead they put trust in their parents to guide and protect them in their stride.

Parental attention to children’s opinions, wishes and problem has been brought forward as an important feature of universal parenting training (SOU, 2010, p. 131; Government Offices of Sweden, 2018). True to a circular movement in relationships, mentioned above, the children demonstrated a compromising and understanding attitude towards eventual parental faults, sometimes accompanied by mild indignation.

These reactions were not interpreted as a need for closeness or affirmation but as a representation of altering power positioning between adults and children, in relation to respect.

A picture thus emerged of how children and parents moved within a reciprocal interaction, which affected the relationships between parents and children, as has been described by Stattin and Kerr (2006). ‘When I am in a bad mood I want them (parents) to obey me and when I am sad I just let them do what they need to do, but when I am like on the top, then I WANT them to do what they like, and I can wait for them’, Penny (age 5) declared. Subsequently the children’s relational skills demonstrated that they did not just see themselves as subordinate receivers of parenting. For the most part, the interviewed children accepted borders and rules that their parents set up for their actions, but they neither generalized human actions as inevitable nor did they diminish their impact on their lives. When Linda (9 years) was asked by the first author what she would like parents to learn at a course she answered simply: To listen and let the children speak.

The findings illustrate a call to renew how children’s participation is understood and practiced. As Qvarsell (2003) writes, respect and rights as a value base is an alternative to forwarding children’s need in research.

Children can be viewed from a needs-oriented perspective, and from a competency-oriented perspective, which both shed light on the realization of children’s rights (Lindgren & Halldén, 2001). With a competency-oriented approach, agency is placed with the children strengthening their opportunity to influence their situation regardless of what adults consider to be the best solution (Singer, 2011).

Listening to children’s experiences as co-producers of family relationships was regarded as an important asset in parenting training interventions. It is conclusive that children’s perspectives on family life need to be investigated in parenting training research and incorporated into future developments in parenting training.

Strengths and limitations

There has so far been limited research about how children act as agents in family life, when their parents have taken part in universal parenting training courses. Although restricted to 11 interviews, this study contributes to the research field of parenting training with important experiences and reflexions from the children’s point of view. Children’s opinions are seldom incorporated in studies which are evaluating outcomes of parenting training: Keeping children’s own perspective in focus was a challenge throughout the process as the children were not directly involved in either planning or evaluating the interviews. As Qvarsell (2003) has shown, respect, as a value base in research involving children, is important and distinct from a children’s needs perspective, which is often used in relation to children’s rights.

To define and avoid possible adult grids in the analysis and to minimize the risk of resorting to an adult child perspective discussion of the results, involving all four authors was imperial.

Finally, it is desirable that future research involves more participation from children throughout the research process.

Conclusion

More than thirty years have passed since the UNCRC (2008) was produced and presented in support of children’s rights. This study contributes to knowledge of children’s subjective experiences, which has been little documented in parenting training research. The findings demonstrate that the interviewed children took an active part in family life, while reflecting on the interaction between themselves and their parents. Children are increasingly referred to as agents in the construction of both their own realities and society (Baraldi & Iervese, 2012; Söderlind et al., 2000). Research has shown though, that a child’s rights perspective has not been incorporated in universal parenting training interventions (Rooth, 2018; Widding & Olsson, 2014). These data highlight the importance of incorporating children’s rights in future research on universal parenting training (Alderson, 2008).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).