Employing a caring pedagogy to enhance children’s rights during COVID-19 in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In times of disasters and adversity, children are among the most vulnerable. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) highlights the importance of protecting children from harm and making decisions in their best interests—matters that become heightened in an adverse context. From 2020 to 2023, the government of Aotearoa New Zealand employed strict lockdown and vaccination requirements to ensure that such rights were upheld during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article reports on a small-scale research study conducted during and after the first COVID-19 lockdown, involving children aged 3–8. The article extends the discussion of children’s rights in a disaster or adverse context, such as a pandemic, to include Articles 12 and 13 of the Convention, which focus on children’s rights to express their views and to express them freely. Using the conduit of stories about a toy bear, along with willing parents, the research gained insights into children’s understandings, emotions, and experiences of this time. The study revealed children at home navigating a new identity in which they displayed connection, autonomy, responsibility, and compassion. A parallel finding was the way in which parents in the study used a “pedagogy of care” to make these informal learning situations ones in which children could freely and openly express their feelings, ideas, and opinions.