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The often‐posed dichotomy between the interest and choice theory of rights can obfuscate a proper understanding of children's rights. We need a gradualist model in which the grounds for attributing rights to a being change in response to the development of autonomy. Rights for children initially function to protect their interests but, as they develop into full‐fledged autonomous choosers, rights function to ensure that their choices, even those that do not serve their welfare, are respected.

This suggestion resonates with Rousseau's prescriptions for Emile. 6 This image of the child in danger and in need of protection, and of the threat posed to childhood by sexuality, is explicit in Postman 1982. 7 Daniel Monk concurs writing that "the traditional construction of the child as a non-sexual innocent" is often protected by "excluding the sexual child from the category of childhood itself" this time in using a medical model of childhood. (Monk 2000, 187) 10