Dr. David Palmiter's Blog for Hectic Parents

We parents do everything in our power to protect our children from experiencing injustice, including lobbying school personnel, coaches, other parents and law enforcement officials. However, it is inevitable that everyone experiences injustice, from the mild to the truly dreadful and horrifying. What follows are six tips for responding to these experiences after you’ve done all that you reasonably can or should to prevent the injustice or right the wrong.

#1: Let your child experience her pain. It hurts to experience an injustice. Empathic statements can help.  “You deserved that leadership position, what happened is wrong and it makes sense that you’re in pain over it.” “Being bullied is a shaming, awful experience and I understand how hurt you feel.” “Being arrested when you’re innocent is something no one should ever have to go through. You must feel more terrible than I can even imagine.”

#2: Let your child know that everyone goes through this and sometimes it happens because a person has displayed excellence. We all want to believe that we live in a just world where all wrongs can be righted and where virtuous, hard-working people do not have bad things happen to them. We all want to live in a world where others do not respond to our gifts and successes with jealousy, envy or resentment. But, in my experience, such perspectives are right up there with Disney’s “happily ever after” concept. Just as all bodies living in the world are exposed to germs and viruses, and need to learn to respond effectively to them to survive and thrive, our psyches need to learn to respond effectively to injustice when it inevitably comes our way.

#3: Teach the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.” Regardless of one’s spirituality, the wisdom behind this psychological model is sound. Indeed, it is often used in helping people to recover from addictions because it can be the antidote to many kinds of madness that facilitate self-medication.

#4: Look for the opportunity imbued within all pain. The pain must be given its due for this to work well; this is not about being in denial about the injustice, or being pollyannaish about it. However, once the pain has been given its due think of the injustice, as one poet put it, as a dragon guarding treasure. Resilient people think this way: they take the hit and expect to become better because of it. Teaching your child how to do this at a young age is a major gift. (To read more on this theme see my blog entry Failure: An Important Part of a Psychologically Healthy Childhood.)

#5: Timing is everything here, but let your child know about injustices you’ve experienced, including your thoughts about what you did in response that was effective, ineffective or some combination of both. (Of course, you’re going to want to consider what material is developmentally appropriate for your child. For a discussion that highlights similar issues see my blog post Helping Children Cope with Scary News.)

#6: Teach unilateral forgiveness. In my judgment unilateral forgiveness is the psychological equivalent of an ironman triathlon. Yes, bilateral forgiveness (when the other person has acknowledged fault and has asked for forgiveness) can be, especially when the wrong has been mighty, a marathon unto itself. But, forgiving when the other person has not asked for it, or even feels justified in the injustice they’ve perpetrated, puts a person on one of the highest psychological roads a human can traverse. This is not the same thing as denying the injustice. This is not the same thing as tolerating the injustice or not protecting oneself from future manifestations of it. It is to say that bitterness, revenge and products of their sort are like poisons that hurt the victim most of all while forgiveness promotes healing and the capacity to not become owned by the injustice. Just as the case with training for an ironman triathlon, it takes lots of time and practice–often for many years and with many stumbles along the way. And, it can’t be forced. But, it’s a journey worth any effort we can offer it, both for ourselves and for our children. (To read a great self-help book on forgiveness see Forgiveness is a Choice.)

In closing, let me suggest that you may need to take additional steps if your child has been traumatized by the injustice. For a discussion on these issues see my blog post Ten Steps to Take if Your Child is Exposed to a Traumatic Event or click here to find a psychologist in your area.