“That’s not fair!” As anyone who has raised children during their elementary years, this chorus rings out sometimes several times each day. Siblings “fight” and the fine line between fair and unfair is constantly tested. There is a developmental reason for this that is worth exploring by parents and educators. Between six and twelve years, the child’s mind is oriented for comparison and contrast. As intellectual hoarders, the elementary aged child is collecting and prioritizing the entire cosmos. “Which came first, which one is faster, stronger, longer, better?” These are the questions that plague their curious minds. This holds true for social equations as the elementary student tries to piece together, from observation, the way that the world works. He or she is still in a state of innocence, assuming that grown ups know what they are doing and trying to find the rules to the game of life (and sometimes making erroneous assumptions along the way). What can we, as the adults in their lives, do to help them?

The answer lies in two things. The first is hard the second is harder. The first thing we must do is to be consistent. This is hard, especially when we are tired, stressed or feel guilty. Avoiding guilty parenting will make your child a lot happier in the long run, and for some of us, that is the motivation we need. Guilt sometimes leads to “giving in” and breaking the rules as children test our boundaries. The phrase “nevertheless” can be helpful to remember. “I know that so-and-so is allowed to play first person shooter games, but nevertheless, those are not allowed in our family.” The exhaustion and tiredness can also lead to trouble as we succumb to seemingly endless bombardment from children exposed to media and peers who do and have things that may or may not coincide with our family’s values. However, know that “giving in” is a slippery slope and, instead of leading to gratitude and satisfaction, it leads to insecurity and increasingly manipulative behavior on the part of the child. You are essentially teaching them that boundaries are made to be broken and that one can get what one wants by whining or worse, being manipulative.

The second and harder thing we must do is to model ethical behavior as well as faith that there is justice in the world (although it is sometimes difficult to win – it is always worth seeking).

Our just, honest and fair behavior, whether it is refusing to cheat on our taxes or going back to pay when we have been undercharged, sends a message to our children that we believe in the importance of the rules, and that when we disagree with rules, we will seek to change them and not break them.
When a child is mean, dishonest or cruel, we sometimes look to see if he or she has been a victim of some sort of injustice. In spite of age old adages, children are not naturally mean to each other. In fact, in natural human development, elementary children are extraordinarily compassionate and selfless. It is the child who has experienced injustice, sometimes at home and sometimes at school, who seeks retribution. Usually this “restorative justice” is not sought from the source of his or her own tormentors, but is taken out on others, in order to re-establish a sense of order and fairness.

The key is to create an environment where a child feels safe to voice his or her concerns. This can be difficult if there is already a brewing distrust in the world. The classroom meeting, the family council or the one on one peace table discussions provide a space for this. The other opportunity for us, as adults, is the long hard slog of consistency, with clearly defined boundaries that apply equally and always. This creates a sense of security and a belief that the adults in the world really DO have something to show us. Then we have to walk our talk and make sure to model our belief in a just world, where individuals can make and keep rules and everyone has a right to be treated fairly. Our children make us better adults in SO MANY ways, the difficulty and the joy is rising to that challenge every day.