ABSTRACT
This chapter is focused upon researching children’s perspectives on and experiences of their families. It seeks to document some of the ‘ordinary’ complexities (Mason and Tipper, 2008a) and troubles (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2013) that children discussed in my research into children’s family and personal relationships. It offers a reflective account of the key ethical issues that arose in my research during the processes of generating, analysing and writing up children’s accounts of their inter-generational relationships. Some of these ethical issues arise because the research is with children and about their families and because any researcher working with children in families, or researching children’s family and relational lives, will necessarily have to ‘confront generational issues’ (Mayall, 2000: 121); they will consider how children are positioned in relation to those significant others, by others, and how children locate themselves relationally.
