If we want children to grow up to make wise and thoughtful life decisions and we believe, as John Flavell does, that developing metacognitive awareness will have a positive impact on this goal, then we must try to facilitate the development of this awareness. In order to do this an understanding of the origins of metacognition and the likely factors mediating its development is necessary. This chapter considers metacognition from a developmental perspective. However, there are criticisms of the whole fi eld of developmental psychology and its tendency to work with defi cit models. Feminist critics such as Erica Burman have highlighted some of the defi ciencies inherent in the developmental perspective and it is worth being aware of these limitations when considering the development of metacognition.