The living rights theory positions children at the heart of how childhood is constantly entrenched, contested and negotiated. The theory starts from the premise that children, like people in general, are active subjects who act upon their environment and reflect upon their actions in a specific context, in relation to others. As active subjects, children claim and put notions of rights into practice, helping hereby to bring to life what these rights are and become in the social world and how they live their childhood. Childhood is never the fixed outcome of a consensus but carries many, even contradictory meanings and is hence part of a living, dynamic process in which children themselves play a crucial part. The theory is critical of how advocates of children’s rights and children’s participation often reduce children to mere helpers in implementing an ideal childhood that carries little relation to their daily experiences. We argue that the living rights theory offers a productive starting point to consider how children’s conceptualizations of their rights are fundamental to understand the nature of childhood and should be included in debates about childhood and youth policies on local and global scales.