Under the little girl’s steady hand before me, I saw a world emerging. A world that’s more environmentally and socially sustainable, powered by solar panels and windmills, with lots of ways to get around besides cars. All laid out there in marker.

This was just one of many amazing examples I got when I asked kids to envision their ideal city. I did two different book promotion events – one at a spring festival at our local nature center and one at a book festival – and had this visioning activity to engage kids walking by. (It’s the activity in the last chapter of my book!)

All of the conversations started with, “If you could make a city any way you wanted to, what would it be?” Some kids got right to work, with one kid who said he wanted to be an illustrator when he grew up busily drawing a building with a zillion perfectly square windows. There were two sisters who definitely knew what they were doing. One of them drew the land mentioned above with solar panels; her sister drew people picking up garbage.

Other kids required a bit more prompting. It was clear no one had ever asked them a question like that. I asked, “Would you have slides to get everywhere? Free ice cream for everyone?” With those prompts, many of them waved off my silly examples, choosing things that seemed to mean a lot to them.

To expand it out, I asked them questions about how people would get energy and food as well as how they would get around town. Many of them paused before answering, never really considering where they got energy or food before. But they all had thoughtful answers once they had the time to think. Some kids drew bike trails while others had electric vehicle chargers dotting the landscape.

Not all of them came up with things that were “on theme,” as it were. When I did the activity with my own kids, my older son drew a city for rabbits (obviously, you get everywhere by hopping) and my younger son a city with humans and elephants. They didn’t really care all that much about if what they created matched my vision for the activity.

But that was okay! No matter what any kid drew, the question got them thinking and showed them that an adult respected their opinion. That was really enough for me.

As adults, we often don’t give kids a lot of credit. The phrase “you’re just a kid!” is still thrown around. Or when kids do speak up, we disrespect them by cutting them off or ignoring them.

At the same time, we put some kids on a pedestal. On issues ranging from gun control to climate change, we cry “the children will save us.” Just like when we put anyone on a pedestal, that’s dehumanizing. In addition, that puts a burden on them that they don’t deserve. That’s abandoning problems that we as adults created or at least reinforced and sticking it on them.

Instead of disregarding kids or handing all of our problems over to them, we can engage with them respectfully. We can take their perspectives into account when we make decisions. We can provide them expertise and support to make those visions for a better world happen.

Recently, I watched a staggeringly good show (Exandria Unlimited: Calamity – a liveplay of a D&D game) about an apocalypse. And Brennan Lee Mulligan, the game master, ended it with the lines: “You don’t get to give your kids the world that they deserve, but you get to give them the world that they can fight for with you.” That broke me in its truth. We all need to work together – including our children – to make things better.