This paper reports on a doctoral study that explored young children’s (ages 5 to 7 years) relationships with sticks during their school-based outdoor learning experiences. Sticks (parts of trees) became uniquely contextual agents due to the profound agentic effect the stick-based experiences, which were enacted through Wild Pedagogies, had on the children’s understandings of Place. Sticks were used in physical and symbolic ways throughout the children’s self-guided learning experiences. The children used long sticks to build large structures, houses, and other creations, and selected smaller sticks to represent microphones, brooms, or currency. The use of the Mosaic approach in this study aligns with Wild Pedagogies’ openness to new and different ways of being in and understanding the world, particularly as this approach privileges children, natural objects, and Place as agentic co-teachers and co-learners. The children demonstrated their agency as they made cognitive, physical, corporeal, agentic, affective, and aesthetic connections with Place, which they expressed through their Wild Pedagogical experiences. The study underscores the value of tactile, immersive, and bioregional experiences in helping children connect with nature, build knowledge, develop and share collective agency, and cultivate an ethic of care for the environment in Wild Pedagogical ways.

In light of social policy’s growing focus on children and a changing family policy portfolio, we need better classifications and a more nuanced understanding of policy approaches to children. The aim here is to contribute to further thinking and analysis by reviewing some of the existing conceptualisations and the latest relevant policy developments on the one hand and developing an analytic framework for further research on the other. The article takes an EU-wide approach and empirically examines developments in income support policy, parenting-related leaves, early childhood education and care and children’s right to participation to see what they reveal about prevailing approaches to children. The paper identifies some strong moves towards a greater focus on children in social policy but suggests differentiating between three different approaches: family-oriented, childhood-oriented and child-oriented. These approaches differ in terms of whether their primary focus is on children or adults, whether they engage with children directly or indirectly, the set of entitlements involved and the desired outcome.