...things often still do go wrong in the lives of children and young adolescents, and bad, incompetent decisions that negatively affect their lives are routinely made. It's just that these decisions are not their own, but the decisions of those who have near-total control of their lives, and who define their "interests" for them: certain adults, most often parents, teachers, and politicians. And the "best interests" made for these underagers by adults are generally the best interests of those adults and the current gerontocentric power structure of society, not the kids themselves.