How to talk to children about politics

Rowan Clarke - 9 Nov 16

Whether you shrugged and got on with it, or cried in your cornflakes this morning, explaining to children news like Trump’s presidency is confounding. But however you feel, if you want rounded, engaged voters for the future, it’s a subject you may want to broach. Here’s a guide to how:

1. Glaze over it

The American election result was the sole topic of conversation on this morning’s school run. Well, that and what to buy for this year’s Christmas Fayre raffle prize. And who’d been sick in the dinner hall yesterday. And whether or not Friday was mufti or normal uniform. So pretty much a standard school run…

You may feel devastated, scared, worried about the future, digesting all the possible scenarios that pop up on your Facebook news feed, but it’s worth remembering that through the eyes of your children, today looks pretty much the same as any other.

Problem is other children or other adults talk. I heard my son and his friends discussing the US presidential race; admittedly arguing about whether his name was Dump or Trump (the jury was out). But I’d prefer my children to hear big political news from me.

2. The sugar-coated approach

This is the approach of which Jo Frost might approve. You get down on their level literally and figuratively, and give it to them in a way they understand. You could say that mummy, daddy and lots of other grown-ups feel sad because a nasty bully man is in charge of the world’s most powerful country.

I tested this approach on my four-year-old over supper. He was indifferent. I pushed it a bit by bringing in a cultural reference he understood. “It’s like Mr Todd being in charge of Peter Rabbit and his friends. What would that be like?”

“Naughty,” he said. Children will render futile your explanations of complicated political processes and their implications no matter how carefully or thoughtfully you word them. Especially if they just want their pasta.

3. Go there. Warts and all.

Unlike Mary Poppins, I’ve always found the best approach for administering medicine is a kind of headlock, syringe to the back of the throat tactic. In keeping with this, I didn’t measure my initial response to the news from America. “I don’t believe it. Trump got in,” I said (I may have used swears).

“What does that mean?” said my 9-year-old. “It means there’s going to be world war III,” I growled. My daughter’s eyes widened, and I felt had to retract that statement. On balance I feel it’s probably not ok to terrify your children before breakfast no matter how scared you might feel.

“Probably not, I’m being dramatic,” I said. Did I assuage her fears? I think so; her response was to roll her eyes and say “I need to take an empty shoe box to school today.”

When it comes to explaining politics, you can try, by all means try, just don’t be surprised that they’re more interested in the fact that the new US president’s name is synonymous with breaking wind. Children live gloriously in the moment. Awful news is met with responses like “I don’t want to wear my coat! I want to run! Kick the leaves! Oops, dog poo! Oh look, there’s my friend…”

4. A chance for change

So how can we explain the status quo to children, without boring/scaring them to death or stooping to toilet talk? The answer is a bit cheesy, but quite simple. Impart to them virtues of tolerance, acceptance, equality and love. Feed them ideas that counter everything this current climate of hate and narrow-mindedness fosters.

Show them that girls and boys can do the same things, show them that it doesn’t matter where you were born, or what colour your skin is, or what god you worship, if any. Make small, kind gestures and point them out. Praise them when they show kindness.

Children are naturally accepting of differences. They may be inquisitive, but they are not innately prejudice. Kindness to others is a currency they understand. It’s a mantra at nursery, preschool and school. They know what it feels like when someone is kind, and to be at the receiving end of unkindness. We’re going to be doing a reverse advent calendar this year – on each day of advent, we’ll put something in a box to donate to our local foodbank. My three are totally behind this idea.

That children of ethnic minority origins in the USA are being told by their classmates that they’ll have to ‘go home’ now appals me (reported in a few American news outlets). But I don’t believe these messages of hate come from the children spouting them, rather they hear this diabolical rhetoric at home, absorb, and repeat.

I feel so disenfranchised and unrepresented by UK politics as well as internationally, that I feel quite depressed. But my focus must be that these poo-treading-in, fart-laughing-at, running-free-and-leaf-kicking lovelies are our next generation of voters. Rather than pass on my bitterness, I must help them become the tolerant, peaceful, egalitarian, citizens of the world that we all should be.

One story touched me. A girl in America, a minority-ethnic adopted 11-year-old at a polling station with her tearful mother, whispered “If your generation build a wall, I just want you to know my generation will be strong enough to pull it down.”

Idealistic? Yes. Unrealistic? Maybe. But in my mind, it’s the only way to talk to children about politics.

Rowan Clarke

In order of appearance my accomplishments are: woman, copywriter, mother, swimming teacher, open water swimmer, blogger. My blog is about the physical, practical and psychological aspects of taking up endurance swimming as a mid-thirties female with children. Rowan Clarke is an open-water-mother living near Bristol with her husband and three children Rufus (10), Betty (8) and Caspar (4).

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