Working with children raises a set of ethical concerns that go beyond those that arise when working with adults. From a legal and administrative perspective, it is likely that this kind of research will have to pass through a more complex approval procedure and adhere to stricter requirements. Our manual offers some advice. 

In any case, you will have to follow your university’s and community’s procedures. It is always helpful if you have worked with adults in the field before, so you are already familiar with many of the procedures. Below we only point out some challenges related to the sketch acquisition format. 

• Recruiting participating children and their families
  We recommend extensively informing about the project within the community, including elucidating the criteria for in-/exclusion leaving plenty room for discussion, and offering different options for collaboratation (e.g. a family might participate in transcription if they are eager to participate, but do not have children in the right age bracket).
• Informed consent
  Parents or caregivers will have to give informed consent for minors. Think about how you will handle this issue when the children come of age. Also, as the recordings are likely to include further members of the community, you will need to address the question of who can give consent for whom. Moreover, discuss the sensitive nature of the data with the participants, including that of the background and metadata information, as they give information on a child’s development and their personal life and network. This is not only relevant to participation and archiving, but also to data handling (e.g. during the transcription and analysis process, other community members may gain insights into other families’ personal lives).
• Outcomes and benefits for the community
  Think about how to best compensate participants for their time and efforts, and how the community as a whole may benefit from the research. Some suggestions can be found in Part II of our manual.