What to say when your child says "it's not fair"

“It’s not fair!” is one of the loudest cries in childhood, and one of the hardest to answer. Often the child is right. It wasn’t fair. The bigger slice did go to someone else. And “life isn’t fair, get used to it” lands like a door closing, while “let me explain why it’s fair” turns a feeling into an argument you won’t win.

There’s a calmer way through, and it’s an old one.

What to say in the moment

• Name the sting first: “You really wanted that, and it doesn’t feel fair. That’s a horrible feeling.” Being understood settles a child faster than being corrected.
• Don’t argue the fairness: you can quietly agree it wasn’t fair without promising to fix it. “You’re right, that didn’t seem fair to me either” costs nothing and buys a lot of calm.
• Then turn toward what’s theirs: once the heat drops, gently move from the unfairness (often not in their hands) to their own next move (always in their hands). “We can’t change whose turn it was. What could we do now?”

The idea underneath

Epictetus had an image for this. He said every difficult thing has two handles, and we get to choose which one we pick it up by.

“It’s not fair and I’ll never get a turn” is a handle almost too heavy to lift. “That wasn’t fair, and my turn is still coming” is one a child can carry. The unfairness hasn’t changed. The way they hold it has. We aren’t pretending it was fair. We’re helping them carry it in a way that doesn’t wreck the rest of the afternoon. That’s The Two Handles, a Stoic Sprout story about this very thing.

What to avoid

• “Life isn’t fair.” True, but to a small child it sounds like their feeling doesn’t matter. Save the big lesson for later; meet the feeling now.
• Over-correcting the ledger. Rushing to even everything up teaches a child to keep score, and there’s no bottom to that. Sometimes the kinder lesson is that we can be alright even when things aren’t equal.

Mark Fitzgerald · Founder of Stoic Sprout

Mark made Stoic Sprout as a dad in Melbourne, for his own young children, with calm stories drawn from the real Stoic philosophers. More about Mark →

Stoic Sprout builds calm and character. It isn't therapy or medical advice. If your child is struggling in a way that worries you, please talk to your GP or another professional.