This article interrogates childhood politics through a case study of voluntary sector responses to benefit sanctions in the UK. It explores the absent ‘voices’ of children in this resistance and considers, in contrast, the possibilities of engaging with children’s perspectives in political endeavours. We argue for the importance of moving away from both simple platitudes about listening to ‘the voice of the child’ and the political retreatism that results from a sole focus on the impossibilities of representation. Whilst aware of inevitable power relations between children and adults, we suggest ‘solidarity’ as an animating concept, emphasising attention to the processes whereby people are differently impoverished.
