The overriding aim of this article is to make a contribution to the discussion about individual development plans (IDPs) in Sweden as an expression of a regulated childhood and institutional practice. Individual development plans are seen as a phenomenon linked to the emergence of an auditing society. In sum, children are studied as subjects in relation to content, form and assessment in the individual development plans. The IDP material was collected in October 2006 in three urban municipalities and one rural municipality in southern Sweden. The three urban municipalities comprised municipal areas that were ethnically relatively homogeneous and heterogeneous, respectively. The material consists of 82 randomly chosen plans for children in preschool and preschool classes. The method is based on textual analysis. An overall picture of a multicontextual regulation of childhood and institutional practice gradually emerges. The analysis can be summarized in distinctive principal tracks, or normalities, marked by equivalence with variation