Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the way we use the phrase “nothing for us without us” in conversations about children and technology.
It is understandable why the phrase has gained traction... For a long time, adults have made decisions about children’s digital lives without really understanding how children experience online spaces, the pressures, the exclusions, the unspoken rules, the shame, the risks, and sometimes even the harms. In that sense, the call to involve children is an important corrective.
However, sometimes I wonder if the phrase is being stretched too far.
Children have rights, perspectives, and lived experience that matter. But it is not the same thing as expertise, foresight, or responsibility for risk. A child can tell us what platforms they use, what feels intrusive or unsafe, and how adults often misunderstand their online realities. This is valuable knowledge that adults should not ignore.
But a child cannot reasonably be expected to determine what level of data extraction is acceptable, which design features are developmentally harmful, how commercial incentives shape online behavior (drive engagement for profit), or what kind of legal and policy framework best protects children at scale.
That is still the work of adults.
This is where I think the conversation needs more clarity. We do not ask children to design the academic curriculum from scratch. We may listen to their experiences of school, ask what helps them learn, or hear where they are struggling, but adults still decide what foundational knowledge matters, how it should be sequenced, and what standards should guide education. We do not hand over decisions on nutrition, health, or protection simply because children are affected by them. Why? Because part of adulthood is accepting a difficult truth: children do not always know what is best for them in the long term, even when they know very clearly what they want in the moment.
Technology should not be treated as though it is exempt from that truth.
Yes, children should be heard. Yes, adults should avoid blind, paternalistic, top-down decisions. Yes, policy and product design should be informed by children’s actual digital realities. But child participation should not be turned into a slogan that replaces adult judgment.
Sometimes, if we are honest, the language of “centering children’s voices” is used too loosely. It can romanticize digital fluency as wisdom. It can elevate the views of a small, articulate, often coached minority and present those views as though they represent all children. And sometimes it becomes a way for adults to avoid the harder work of setting boundaries, making protective decisions, and taking responsibility for unpopular but necessary choices. That is not empowerment. That is abdication.
The real standard should be more honest. Children’s voices should inform decisions, not replace adult responsibility. Participation matters, but protection cannot be outsourced.
That does not mean adults should dominate without listening. It also does not mean children should become the final arbiters of what is good for them in digital life. The better approach is something more balanced and more responsible: adult-led, child-informed decision making, grounded in children’s rights, evolving capacities, and their best interests over time.
Because the truth is this: children often do not fully know what is best for them in technology, and adults often do not fully understand what children are actually experiencing online. Both things can be true at once.
And that is exactly why children need their voices heard and they also need grown-ups.