ABSTRACT
Children are routinely treated paternalistically. There are good reasons for this. Children are quite vulnerable. They are ill-equipped to meet their most basic needs, due, in part, to deficiencies in reasoning and in executing their wishes. Consequently, raising children involves facilitating their best interests. In practice, this requires caregivers to manage a child’s daily life. If apposite, this management will focus partly on a child’s well-being. To be ably executed an account of children’s well-being will need to be articulated. This chapter focuses on the nature of children’s well-being. It has five sections. The first section clarifies the focus. The second section examines some hurdles to articulating a view of children’s well-being. The third section evaluates some accounts of children’s well-being. The fourth section addresses the claim that children possess features essential to them that make their lives on balance prudentially bad for them. The fifth section sums things up.
