We often speak about giving children a voice. Far less attention is paid to what it costs them to use it.

In family law and child protection matters, a child may tell their story to police, child protection workers, therapists, lawyers, family consultants, report writers, and courts. Every conversation is intended to help. Every interview has a purpose. Yet children do not experience these interactions as separate events. They experience them as part of a single childhood.

The sector rightly worries about children not being heard. But we rarely ask whether there is a cumulative cost to repeatedly being asked to explain fear, violence, neglect, loyalty conflicts, or trauma.

The issue is not that children should speak less. The issue is that systems often require children to carry the burden of proving their experiences over and over again before adults are prepared to act.

A child can become both the source of evidence and the person most affected by the process of gathering it.

Perhaps the question we are not asking often enough is this:
When does the process of hearing a child become another burden that the child must carry?