What is fair? We have a deeply ingrained sense of justice and it often appears as though sameness is the desired outcome. Is it really?

From a young age, kids are aware of how many smarties each person gets, or who gets to sit in the front seat – we all want our fair share. We all want the same. However, what we all need in order to be successful in life is not going to be the same. The goal of being successful – however that looks for each person – is the same. What you need in order to reach that goal will not be the same for any two adults, let alone any two children.

We are diverse and interesting community. I was at a community event today with my daughter and was struck by the variety of people who came to enjoy an afternoon activity with our kids. The people who make this community their home are not homogeneous. There is a wide variety of lifestyles, clothing styles, hair styles, parenting styles, interests and belief systems among us in this little town. Our classrooms and schools are reflections of this. Kids come to us with different background experiences and different learning, social and emotional needs each day. Let’s embrace each other’s wonderful complexity and look for individual and personal ways to meet the needs of those around us… Fair is not everyone getting the same, but everyone getting what they need in order to be successful.

Being truly fair when managing a classroom or school – or your children’s bedtime routines – means taking into account more than just rules. It means considering what each person needs and how to give them what they need in order to be successful. Finding consequences that allow people to have dignity, to learn from their mistake and to move forward allows us to be human and have compassion rather then simply being punitive. Beginning with common expectations is key, but how we deal with individuals who aren’t able to meet those expectations says as much about us as it does about them.

Would you go to a doctor who treated every headache the same way? Of course not. A headache could be cause by anything from allergies to a tumor. Treating all patients the same would be malpractice. What situations can you think of where it’s important to not treat everyone the same in order to be fair? Does your older child have different bed time? When your partner is sick do you do more of the chores? Does the coach differentiate drills in practice in order to encourage new athletes and challenge more experienced ones? Does the teacher give more time and fewer questions to a student with a learning disability?

Being truly fair is harder and requires more work in the short term than just treating everyone the same. In the long run, it saves time and is more effective. And when it comes to treating everyone the same, every child deserves a lot better than that.

Stacy