 The right to be heard is a valuable right. What makes it valuable is both that there is a point to making one’s views known and, further, that making one’s views known makes a difference. It matters to me that I can speak out on political questions. It matters also, and probably more, if what I say leads to the changes I favour. Correlatively it is true both that I do not want to be silenced and that I do not want the statement of my views to be ineffectual. As a further general point it is clear that there will always be some issues on which it is more important that I be allowed to speak and that what I say about these issues carries weight in determining outcomes. Those are the issues that matter to me, and the more they matter the more important it is that I have the freedom to speak about them and be heard. On one account since children’s views should not be ‘authoritative’, that is determinative of what is done, they have only a ‘consultative’ role (Brighouse 2003). They may influence an outcome by, most obviously, providing those who do make the decisions affecting a child’s interests with a clearer picture of what in fact is in those interests. On another account encouraging and according a weight to the expression of children’s views—even where this is unlikely to affect outcomes in line with the views’ content—is valuable just because the child is capable of expressing a view and deserves to be listened to (Archard and Skivenes 2009).