Have you ever been in a situation where a child screams at you in their most fervent voice, ‘but they got 15 minutes of TV, and I only got 5!’ or ‘they’ve had 2 biscuits and I’ve only had 1’. How did you handle it? Did you realise that they were right and that, being the fair, justice-driven parent that you are, you must add 10 more minutes of TV or give them another biscuit? Or did you gloss over it and put it down to the fact that they can’t count, or you weren’t aware of the time or how many biscuits they’d got out of the jar.

It is really important to have equity conversations with our children. And I’ll be clear about that – equity is NOT about giving everyone the same thing or the same amount, but about providing equal opportunity to obtain the same thing or achieve the same goal. This is particularly important when a child has additional support needs. The make-up of their bodies or brain is different so, of course, they will have different needs. As a parent, you might be thinking that they haven’t eaten well for a while so 2 biscuits might be necessary. They might need more time in front of the TV because it helps them with processing. You are making decisions all the time which respond to the individual needs of your children. It is time to be explicit about them.

How to have equity conversations:

1. Accept and understand the frustration that the perceived injustice might have caused.
2. Try to turn the injustice into something fair by explaining why you’ve made that choice
3. When faced with the ‘it’s not fair’ ‘she always gets more than me’, be firm. Life isn’t fair and we all have different opportunities and challenges. A child with additional support needs does not have as many life opportunities as a typically developing child. I use this one regularly!

It isn’t easy and you can try to be as fair as you possibly can, but children have a very strong sense of justice and, if you credit them with an explanation, you might find they respond well to the change in approach. There are individual approaches for individual needs.