'child-focused' originates from modern English as a compound of 'child' and the past-participial form 'focused'. 'Child' derives from Old English 'cild' meaning 'young person, infant', and 'focus' (source of 'focused') comes via Latin 'focus', originally 'hearth' and later 'point of attention' in sense.

'child' changed from Old English 'cild' and developed into the Modern English 'child'. 'Focus' entered English from Latin 'focus' (through scholarly and scientific use in early modern English) and formed the verb 'to focus' in the 17th–19th centuries; 'focused' is its past participle. The compound 'child-focused' is a modern formation combining these elements to mean oriented toward children.

Individually, 'child' originally meant 'young person/infant' and 'focus' originally meant 'hearth' then 'point of attention'; together the modern compound came to mean 'oriented toward the needs or interests of children'—a contemporary, purpose-built descriptor rather than an older lexical item.