How Have You Talked with Your Kids About the Election?
Let's share stories.
Parents this week have it extra hard. Not only do we have to grapple with our own feelings about what’s happened, but we have to figure out how to talk about it with our kids and hold all their feelings, too.
My 10-year-old daughter has been very, very sad; my 13-year-old son, angry and confused. They really want to understand how and why it happened. As my son said at dinner last night: “How could so many people have chosen lower gas prices over basic human rights?”1
I answered by telling him that, truthfully, I didn’t know why so many people voted for Trump — but that different people almost certainly had different reasons. Some people who voted for him, I said, were probably struggling and thought Trump could help them (though I didn’t think he actually would). I said that some people were probably misinformed — they’d heard terrible things about Kamala that weren’t true, or they’d heard wonderful things about Trump that weren’t true. I said that some people probably didn’t trust a woman, especially a Black woman, to run the country. I said some people probably voted for Trump even though they didn’t think he was a good person.
After dinner, we watched Harris’s concession speech together — when you’re ready, you may want to consider doing watching it with your kids, too. It was beautiful and cathartic. Towards the end, Harris directly addressed “the young people who are watching” and said:
On the campaign, I would often say when we fight, we win. But here's the thing — sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn't mean we won't win. The important thing is don't ever give up. Don't ever stop trying to make the world a better place. You have power. And don't you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before.
Oh, don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here bawling in the corner.
How have you been talking about the election with your kids? Please share in the comments, including how you’ve addressed their tough questions.
And thank you for this,
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At this point my 10-year-old interjected: “except that he won’t actually lower gas prices!”
I did talk to my 5 year old daughter yesterday morning- I had barely pulled myself together 10 minutes before, so she could tell I had been crying. I said to her, “You know how you talked about the election at school yesterday?” She nodded yes. And I said, “Mommy and Daddy disagreed about who we thought the best person for the job of President was, so he voted for Donald Trump, and Mommy voted for Kamala. I am sad today because Kamala lost, and I don’t think that Daddy is right that Trump will be a good President, but we both love each other, and we love you, so I am just sad today.”
She didn’t really say anything, she just hugged me, and when we got in the car she said, “I think we should listen to Taylor Swift since that makes us happy!” And I turned on our CD with the Red bonus tracks.
My 9 yr old asked over dinner who won the election. She was upset when I told her. I went on to explain what Kamala said in her concession speech, why Mommy and Daddy were so sad over the results, why we voted the way we did, what the candidates' messages were, etc. I think I went too far at times by sharing that close family members, notably my parents, voted for him and that hurts me even more. My 6 yr old started crying once I got going with my tears and he said he didn't understand how, "he can do those crimes and then be president." Ultimately I'm glad we had the talk we did, bc we touched upon a variety of issues and I felt like they were really considering our words and why we have the passion we do for getting our voices heard.