Checks and Balances - concepts of governance for kids

Checks and balances - concepts of governance for kids to learn about -  social studies skills studied in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grades.
While the United States government has a lot of different things about it that make it really great for the country, there are some parts of how it works that are really complicated. One of these things is the system of checks and balances. We use this system in our government to make sure that no one part of our government has too much power. With this system, each of the three parts of our government have the ability to counter the others if they are trying to do something they don’t think is good for the country.
How this works is exactly this: our government is separated into three different branches. These branches are the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches. The executive branch is the President’s. The Legislative branch is the Senate and House of Representatives. The Judicial branch is the Supreme Court. Together, these three branches enact a system that we refer to as checks and balances. In the checks and balances system, each branch can veto the decisions of some of one other branch.
This is the whole idea of the check system. Because our country is a democracy, we rely on the voice of the majority over the will of one person. Because this is the case, we want most decisions to be agreed upon by more than one group. If the President made a decision that was bad for the country, it would be terrible if we were forced to accept it no matter what. This is why the other branches have some power over the Executive branch, even though we don’t often think of the President as getting overruled.
Of course, the President can do the same thing to the other branches. If there is a bill that Congress wants to pass that the President doesn’t agree with, he can veto that bill to side against it. While a veto doesn’t always win over the will of the people, it still has a very powerful influence on decisions that our government makes as a whole. Continue reading below>>>

That said, checks and balances is a very simple system that distributes the power in our government between all three branches. If the power is shared, no branch can have absolute power, and no branch can abuse their power without consequence because of the other branches watching over them.
It’s all part of the democratic system of America. No one in this country is allowed to make decisions by themselves. As far as the government is concerned, they all have to get the agreement of the majority to make anything happen. This is how we ensure that everyone has a voice and that no one has all the power over everyone else, something we didn’t like too much when Britain was still in control. There are many ways we try to guarantee liberty and justice for all, but in the government the well-established and well-practiced checks and balances system is one of the most effective.