10 Ways Kids Learn Early That Life Isn’t Always Fair

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Kids should be allowed to remain blissfully ignorant to the harsh realities of life for as long as possible. There’s plenty of time later for them to deal with that stuff later. Unfortunately, they sometimes learn much too soon that life isn’t always fair. Here are ten ways that kids learn this lesson early:

Losing a loved one is a traumatic introduction to life’s unfairness. Especially if that loved one was still young. There’s never a good time to lose someone you love, but that first loss hits very hard indeed. Not getting picked by either team for a baseball game can be a tough pill to swallow. Every once in a while in life we find out that we’re the odd man out. We just don’t want to find it out at the tender age of 10. Some girls are more popular than others for reasons you can’t fathom. They have all the friends, get all the boys, and all the breaks. She isn’t even that pretty, you think, but there it is. Life isn’t fair. What’s she got that I haven’t got? When an only child finds out that Mom and Dad are bringing home a new brother or sister, that can seem patently unfair to him. He was supposed to get all of the attention, and now he has to share his parents’ love with a total stranger. Getting sick the day of a birthday party or other social event. Your child had planned for this occasion for weeks. All the kids are going to be there, and the flu bug bites overnight. That’s just not fair at all. When you’ve got to explain a news story that your child has seen on television, it’s difficult to put things in a perspective that a child can understand. Things just happen, and in the mind of an innocent kid, there’s just no good explanation. Kids who are born with an illness or handicap, or who incur one at an early age, learn that life isn’t always fair. They must learn to accept a condition, or a fate that others their age never need to address. And none ever should. When it’s sunny all week, then rains all weekend, that’s just not fair for a 5-year old. Or pretty much anyone else, but we’ve at least come to accept it. Then again, we don’t get 3 months off from work every summer either, so Junior can just deal with some rain. Younger kids who see their older siblings stay up later or get more privileges don’t see the fairness in that. They’ll get their turn, you tell them, but it’s small consolation to a young child who has to go to bed earlier than everyone else in the whole world. Your son’s team lost again, and he just knows that they were better than the other team. They haven’t won a game yet all season. It just doesn’t seem fair that with all the practice they put in, they’re in last place.

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