‘Well-being’ is increasingly used in child rights discourses and early childhood education (ECE) policy contexts as a desirable outcome for young children. In spite of its ubiquitous use, however, child well-being remains largely under-theorised, thereby contributing to implicit understandings within policy arenas. This paper contributes to attempts to address this gap by proposing a theoretical framework of child well-being.

The framework is developed in stages. First, two prominent approaches to well-being are described: distributive and relational approaches. Distributive approaches are subdivided into primary goods theory and capability theory. These theories focus on differential approaches to resource distribution. Relational approaches to well-being are then considered. These focus on the intrinsic importance of the processes of well-being. Second, the concepts privileged by each of these well-being theories are further developed into a framework by reflecting on children’s rights to provision, protection and participation as promoted by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Following this, the framework is used to analyse ECE policy with a specific focus on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum and measurement requirements. Academic literatures examining ECE policy is then reviewed to extrapolate understandings of the potential implications of this policy for young children’s well-being.

The findings suggest that the EYFS theorises well-being in ways that are limited and may be limiting of young children’s well beings and doings. The associated measurement practices and curriculum goals, in particular, may undermine practice supportive of young children’s well-being.

“幸福”越来越多地用于儿童权利论述和幼儿教育（ECE）政策背景中，是年幼儿童的理想成果。尽管普遍使用了儿童福利，但儿童福利在很大程度上仍然缺乏理论依据，从而促进了政策领域内的隐性理解。本文通过提出儿童福祉的理论框架，为解决这一差距做出了贡献。

该框架是分阶段开发的。首先，描述了两种重要的福祉方法：分布式方法和关系方法。分配方法可分为初级商品理论和能力理论。这些理论集中于资源分配的不同方法。然后考虑关系到幸福的方法。这些关注于幸福感过程的内在重要性。其次，通过反思儿童的《联合国儿童权利公约》所倡导的儿童的提供，保护和参与权，进一步将这些幸福理论中的每一个享有的特权概念进一步发展为一个框架。在此之后，该框架将用于分析ECE政策，并特别关注“早期基础阶段（EYFS）”课程和度量要求。

研究结果表明，EYFS以有限的方式对幸福进行理论化，并且可能会限制幼儿的福祉和行为。尤其是相关的测量方法和课程目标可能会破坏支持幼儿健康的方法。