As all parents know, children hear a lot of things you say when you think they’re out of hearing range. While often what they overhear is harmless, there are a lot of things that parents say that heavily influence their child’s thoughts, even when they don’t intend to. Parents need to be very conscious of what their child overhears and what influence it has on their thinking. One of these things is politics.
Now, let me say first I am politically involved. Sometimes more than other times, depending on recent events, and sometimes even my own energy level. There are times where I feel it’s exhausting and exasperating to read all the news, and other times when I can’t get enough. I’ve done volunteer phone and canvassing work for a politician’s political campaign, had signs in my yard, buttons on my purse and written articles and blogs about various political actions. I have strong opinions, and I’m not afraid to voice them though I do aim to be very respectful about where and when (I block friends who I know are very politically conservative from seeing political posts of mine on Facebook, for example and wouldn’t bring it up at lunch).
With my children, I’m even more careful than I am with my friends. In fact, I work very hard to not let them hear my strong opinions, especially when I’m exasperated or angry, and I reserve some language for when I know they’re not even awake or in the same house. Why? Because I want to teach my children to make up their own minds, not tell them what to think.
When I was active in a politician’s presidential campaign, my son asked a lot of questions.
“Is the other guy a bad guy?” he asked.
“No, he’s not a bad guy at all. They both have lots of ideas about what they think would make this country a better place for people. I just don’t happen to agree with him about what would help Americans, but there are plenty of people that do.”
As much as I may dislike the other candidates, and sometimes I do believe some of them are kind of awful people, that’s not what I’d tell my son. My internal mental dialogue may be entirely different: “Yeah, he’s seriously got problems, has no idea what it’s like for people who are actually poor, has no empathy for people who are struggling, thinks people who can’t “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” are just lazy, and is incredibly misogynistic and also supports a lot of laws I think are horrible and would seriously damage this country.” (I’m not talking about anyone specific here, I promise.) But what I say out loud to my children can’t be that — it can’t be ranting, generalizations, my frustrations and sometimes petty insults coming out.
We tailor just about any answer we give to our kids to be appropriate for their age level, but often people still try to very much influence what their kids think. I try very hard not to. In fact, I make a goal to ask him questions so he can work through things himself. For example, when he asked about gay marriage, I said:
Me: “Well, you know that being gay means that a boy loves another boy, or a girl loves another girl, right?”
My son: “Yes, or they can love girls and boys.”
“That’s right. Well, some people don’t think anyone but one girl and one boy should be able to be married.”
“Why?”
“Sometimes it’s because they believe their religion says it’s wrong, or because they think it’s a problem someone should see a doctor for.”
“That’s silly. Just because they think it’s wrong doesn’t mean they can tell other people what to do. And I didn’t think who you loved was something your body controlled, is it?”
“Do you think it is?”
“No, I mean… a girl who loves a boy is just how she works, just like a boy who loves a boy.”
Now, of course, my own personal opinion will be part of the influence of the conversation. That can’t be helped. But by trying to let my children answer their own questions, come to their own conclusions, I feel I’m doing them a better service than if I told them how to think and why. I also believe that negatively discussing other people and beliefs in front of children is part of the reason children end up being bullies and talking badly about other children as well.
It’s not uncommon that you hear insults out of a child’s mouth that obviously came from somewhere else, such as, “Those liberals just want to take all our money” or “Obama is just destroying this country.” Adult thoughts out of a child’s mouth who doesn’t understand even what they’re talking about is a blatant sign that the kid has overheard things they probably shouldn’t have… and sadly when a child hears their parent say something like “gays are destroying marriage” and a child finds out a classmate is gay, it’s not uncommon to discover the child uses the gay child as an unwarranted outlet for bullying and anger… even if he doesn’t quite understand the politics, he gets that his parents think they’re bad and will treat them as such.
If we want them to model understanding and empathetic behavior, we have to model it as well… including making sure you don’t speak horribly about a Presidential candidate in front of your child, especially if you’re not being respectful.
