How to Manage Election Night (and Beyond) with Kids

Five science-based survival tips from child psychologists.

As we inch closer to Tuesday, my mind keeps conjuring up terrible memories from November 2016. On election night, my husband and I had — thankfully! — put our kids to bed before the rage-crying started. But I distinctly remember waking my five-year-old up the next morning. He looked at me, bright-eyed and smiling, and said: “Is Hillary president?” It took everything in me not to start sobbing as I told him the news.

Now my kids are eight years older and far more invested in election outcomes. They know what’s at stake, yet they are delightfully optimistic that Kamala can win. They want to stay up late, of course, to watch as much as they can.

I am absolutely terrified of how I’m going to manage my feelings, and theirs, as the results roll in — especially if they aren’t what we are hoping for. What if I start bawling? How do I reassure them that everything will be OK — when really, truly, everything may not be? What if we don’t have a final decision for days, or even weeks?

WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE ALL THE PARENTS GOING TO DO?

To get answers, I reached out to three child development experts I have long trusted: Rebecca Schrag Hershberg, Robyn Silverman, and Emily Edlynn. If you recognize their names, that may be because they’ve each appeared in this newsletter multiple times. Or, maybe you’ve read their wonderful books. Dr. Silverman is the author How to Talk to Kids About Anything; Dr. Edlynn is the author of Autonomy-Supportive Parenting; and Dr. Hershberg is the author of The Tantrum Survival Guide.

I asked them what we as parents should do to get through election night — and beyond — with our kids, and I’ve organized their thoughts into five key suggestions. Although my end-of-week newsletters are usually reserved for paid subscribers, I have made this one free so please share it widely. Also, I will be hosting an election night chat for paid subscribers. I want to offer a safe space for parents on Tuesday to vent, ask for advice, or just feel seen among other parents struggling with the stress of the evening. Become a paid subscriber now so you don’t miss out.

1. Tell your kids that all feelings are welcome — and remember that it’s OK to cry in front of your kids.

No matter what happens on Tuesday, we are all going have big emotions. And that’s okay. I’ve sometimes thought I should shield my feelings from my kids to protect them, but science suggests that suppression is typically not helpful. In fact, research suggests that when parents try to hide stressful feelings from their kids, children typically sense it and then feel even worse.

“There should be none of this ‘I’ve got something in my eye’” if you start crying,” Dr. Hershberg said.

Of course, we don’t want to totally overwhelm our kids, either. We don’t want to make them feel unsafe or think they need to take care of us. So if we can, we should save our full-body-convulsing-on-the-floor sobs for other adults who can handle it. But it’s totally fine — and actually good! — for kids to see us get upset and even cry. We can both openly express our feelings and tell our kids that we are going to be okay.

With younger kids, it may help to put your feelings into a context they can understand. Dr. Silverman suggested saying something like: Just like you were upset when you lost your baseball game last week, I’m upset about the outcome of this election, because it means a lot to me and to other people.

If Trump wins (my god it’s so hard for me to even type that), our feelings of sadness and hopeless may last ….. a while. So it may be helpful to talk to kids about grief, too. Dr. Silverman suggested saying something like: When we lose something we care about, like when we lost our dog, we go through grief — a period where we’re sad for a while and processing what happened. I’m feeling grief because of the loss of this election. It’s normal to grieve, and it’s healthy.

We can also talk to our kids about what we’re going to do to support ourselves as we grieve — we can explain that we like to take walks or long showers or that we need more sleep than usual. “This is a time where you can teach your child about coping mechanisms,” Dr. Silverman said.

2. Explain that there’s going to be a period of uncertainty.

Chances are, we’re not going to know the results of the election for several days — if not way longer. To manage expectations, explain this to your kids in advance. Here’s a gift link to a great New York Times for Kids piece about what to expect, when, and why.

Be honest about the fact that this uncertainty could be hard. I really wish we could know the results of the election immediately. But we probably won’t, so we’re just going to have to wait. It’s going to be tough, but we’ll get through it together.

3. Reassure your kids that you will keep them safe.

One of the scariest things about this election is that the safety of so many American people is at stake. You may be really, truly terrified of how a Trump win would affect you and your family. What should you say if your kid asks if you’ll all be okay — especially if you’re not sure what the answer is?

Experts told me you don’t have to lie to you kids and say Everything will be fine — but they did say it’s important to emphasize that you will take care of them no matter what. “You can say, ‘As your parent, it’s my job to keep you safe, and I am going to do everything that I possibly can to keep you safe. I don't know all the steps that are going to happen next, but here's what I will be doing,’” Dr. Silverman said. She suggested pointing out the supports you have in place and the people you can turn to. (This moment feels a lot like March 2020, when we didn’t know what to expect or whether we would be safe but we had to reassure our kids that we would figure it out.)

Also, be open about your privilege. The other day, my daughter asked me if we would be OK if Trump won. I explained to her that some people are going to be affected more than others — and that because of our financial and social privileges, we will be affected less than most.

4. Remind your kids — and yourself — that you have agency.

If things don’t go well on Tuesday, I am going to feel deflated, hopeless, and despondent. But — to the extent that we can — we should remind our kids that all hope is not lost. Dr. Hershberg suggested saying something like: This is hard. I am scared. And I believe we are going to get through this. We are going to do everything in our power to fight to make things better and we are going to make a difference. Yes, I know — that does sound a little trite, and it may not reflect how you feel (like, at all). But it’s helpful for kids to know that they have some agency.

Consider and point out what you and your family can do to help people whose lives may be directly affected by the outcome of the election. “One of the best things we can teach our kids is that instead of grumbling, we can do something even in the face of frustration and loss,” Dr. Silverman said. “When kids feel like they can do something, they will feel better.”

Dr. Edlynn also suggested highlighting the history of activism in the U.S. and how that has led to progress in civil and human rights. “If we feel despondent about the election results this year, I think it’s helpful for all of us to remember the many heroes who have shaped this nation to keep improving,” she said. “We can feel sad and disappointed, and also reach toward hope.”

5. Try not to demonize Trump voters.

I’ll admit: This is a hard one. It can feel impossible to understand how good, loving people could vote for Trump — and it may be tempting to characterize all Trump supporters as bad, evil people. But it can be helpful to try to help kids understand that people sometimes make complicated choices for complicated reasons. Some people vote for Trump because they are misinformed. Some people vote for him because their lives are hard and they believe that he will help improve them.

Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote for Slate soon after Trump won the election in 2016:

No matter how you feel, you can use the situation to teach your kids about human complexity. You can say, “You know your uncle and your grandfather, and they’re not hateful people, but for whatever reason they were able to overlook the hateful things that Trump did and said because of other concerns,” explains New Jersey–based clinical psychologist Eileen Kennedy-Moore, author of Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids … Encourage empathy in your kids, too, by asking them to put themselves in other people’s shoes. As a way of explaining a Trump voter’s economic motivations, say, “If you were somebody who was working hard and your expenses kept going up but your pay didn’t, and that happened for decades, how would you feel?” Kennedy-Moore says. These can be helpful frames for kids even if you don’t buy into this way of thinking yourself; when it comes to children, “it’s not useful to characterize half of our country as hateful racists and misogynists,” Kennedy-Moore says, especially when that group includes people our children love.

You can, however, still explain to your kids why you don’t agree with Grandpa’s vote, and you can cite the election outcome as a reason for you and them to rally for change. “My answer to my children is, ‘We have a lot of work to do, a lot of education to do—because what this showed us is that at least half of the population doesn’t share certain values to the extent that we do,’ ” explains Ron Avi Astor, an educational psychologist at the University of Southern California’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

If you can’t figure out how to talk to your kids about Trump voters — or anything else relating to this election — you can also be honest about your lack of clarity. We often feel like we have to have all the answers for our kids, but modeling that we don’t know everything can be incredibly powerful. If your child asks you how so many people could have voted for Trump, Dr. Hershberg said, you could say something like this: A lot of people believe that demonizing the other is adding to the problem, but it’s very, very difficult not to do that. I don't know the answer to this one but we all need to think about it and keep working on it.

Kids don’t need us to model perfection, omniscience, or stoicism. If anything, they do better when we strive for the opposite.

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