Today children are the last large social group affected by the problem of exclusion and discrimination. Scientifi c discourse on this issue started a few decades ago in the world, while in Poland this topic is addressed only occasionally. Janusz Korczak was the fi rst who drew social attention to the inequality and discrimination that occur in the relationship between children and adults, but the development of this perspective really started when the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted in 1989. Despite some analyses and attitudes developing intensively since the 1990s in the literature on childhood studies, on the rights of the child and the situation of children, indicating the need for adopting a social position of the child as equal to the adult, i.e. calling for partnership in this relation, in everyday practise the child as a citizen and the child as a partner of an adult is only a political and scientifi c construct. Why is this idea so hard to accept in social life? The paper is an attempt to address the problem and provide an answer.