There comes a moment in every child’s unfolding when they begin to look inward—
Who am I?
Am I good at this?
Do they like me?
And alongside that, they begin to look outward—
What is she feeling?
Is he better than me?
Do we belong together?
In these questions, we hear the pulse of something sacred:
Self-awareness.
Social understanding.
The tender work of building identity and connection.
In developmental research, one method dares to do something rare.
It asks the child directly.
Not to prove, not to perform—
but to reflect.
This is the gentle power of self and peer assessments of competence and well-being:
Methods that trust the child to know something of their own inner world—
and the worlds of others.
Not because they always have the words.
But because they live these truths every day.
Why Ask the Child?
For so long, developmental research relied on the adult gaze.
Parents, teachers, professionals observed, rated, reported.
They answered: How is this child doing?
But the child lives inside the experience.
They know the weight of their own mornings.
They know if they feel included at lunch.
They know whether a task feels thrilling or terrifying.
And they know who among their peers makes them feel safe—
and who does not.
Self and peer assessments invite the child’s perspective.
They make room for subjective truth—
not in opposition to objective data, but in dialogue with it.
Self-Assessment: Becoming Known to Oneself
Self-assessment asks children to reflect on their own abilities, emotions, and social world.
- Am I good at reading?
- Do I make friends easily?
- Do I feel happy most days?
- What do I like about myself?
With younger children, these are often simplified:
smiley faces, colored scales, simple drawings.
With older children, open-ended questions and reflective tasks emerge.
These assessments don’t just gather data.
They support metacognition—the ability to think about one’s own thinking.
They foster self-concept, self-regulation, self-worth.
And sometimes, they reveal quiet truths:
the child who seems cheerful, but selects a sad face every time.
The high achiever who quietly doubts their worth.
The quiet child who, given a page and a crayon, draws a world of joy.
These are not diagnostics.
They are windows.
Peer Assessment: Seeing Each Other
Peer assessment turns the lens outward.
It asks children to reflect on one another—gently, ethically, with care.
- Who would you choose to play with?
- Who helps others when they’re upset?
- Who do you think is good at solving problems?
These questions, carefully designed, offer a view into the child’s social world—
who is admired, who is overlooked, who is trusted, who is excluded.
They uncover status, belonging, perception—
as experienced from within the group, not imposed from above.
This can be especially powerful for understanding classroom dynamics, bullying, friendship patterns, or shifts in social-emotional learning.
But they must be held with deep responsibility.
Peer assessment is never about ranking.
It is about revealing the invisible—
so we might respond with care, not correction.
What We Learn
Through self and peer assessment, we discover:
- That children are astute observers of emotion, ability, and behavior.
- That their sense of self often mirrors—but also distorts—what others see.
- That social dynamics begin far earlier than we assume.
- That well-being is not just felt—it can be named.
We also learn that children, when trusted with voice, do not disappoint.
They offer honesty, sometimes raw, sometimes aching.
They offer insight, even in simple drawings or circled faces.
They offer perspective that deepens our understanding
of what it means to grow from the inside out.
The Ethics of Asking
With such intimacy comes responsibility.
We must ask:
- Are the questions age-appropriate, respectful, and non-harmful?
- Is the data kept private, protected, used only to support—not label?
- Do children know they can say no? That silence is also a voice?
And when we hear their answers—especially the hard ones—
we must respond.
A self-assessment is not just research.
It is a call to be met.
Not Just Methods — Mirrors
Self and peer assessments are not checklists.
They are mirrors—held up with softness and trust.
They help the child begin to name their experience.
They help peers begin to see one another.
And they help adults realize:
We don’t always know what it feels like to be this child.
So we ask.
And we listen.
And in doing so, we don’t just measure development.
We nurture it.
In the End: Trusting the Child to Know
There is wisdom in the child’s gaze—
on themselves, on each other, on the world that is still so new.
Self and peer assessments remind us
that children are not simply subjects of research.
They are interpreters of their own lives.
They are capable of insight,
capable of empathy,
capable of truth.
And when we ask them,
with tenderness and care,
to share what they see—
we honor the most sacred kind of data there is:
The child’s own voice,
speaking their becoming
into the light.