Good Inside with Dr. Becky - How to Talk to Kids about Politics

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Pantsuit Politics podcast hosts, Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland join Dr. Becky to help us get to the bottom of how to talk to our kids about politics. From the intricacies of party politics, to the importance of voting and civic discourse, to the most important lesson of all: how to teach our kids to be lifelong learners. For more Pantsuit Politics visit: https://www.pantsuitpoliticsshow.com/Join Good Inside Membership: https://bit.ly/496wnozFollow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterOrder Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books.For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcastTo listen to Dr. Becky's TED Talk on repair visit https://www.ted.com/talks/becky_kennedy_the_single_most_important_parenting_strategyToday’s episode is brought to you by Ritual: Parents are busy. And even though we know we should prioritize ourselves, sometimes we’re the last thing on our list. Dr. Becky loves anything that makes caring for her family – and herself – easier… including a multivitamin she can trust. Enter Ritual and their “Essential For Women” multivitamin. It fills your nutrient gap with 9 key nutrients — like vitamin D and omega-3s — in just two daily pills. And Ritual delivers to your doorstep every month. It’s clinically backed and has clean, high-quality ingredients. Ritual is transparent – what’s on the label is what’s in it. And you know where everything came from. You can get started with 40% off your first month. Just visit Ritual.com/GoodInside and your 40% discount will automatically be applied to your order. Today’s episode is brought to you by KiwiCo: Not much matters more than helping our kids develop confidence. Confidence comes from watching yourself work hard, tap into your creativity, and do things you may not always do. KiwiCo is like a conduit to confidence. Each month, kids get a box delivered right to them with a hands-on project designed to spark creativity and engage problem-solving… but kids don’t know this is what’s happening, they just see it as a form of play! The projects cater to all types of kids: kids who like science, sensory play, games, or geography. KiwiCo is a win for kid fun and a win for long-term confidence. And now, you can get your first month free on ANY crate line at kiwico.com/drbecky.

I'm Dr. Becky, and this is good inside. I mean, it's just like with anything else with parenting, and just like anything else with politics, there's a lot of humility, the positions are ever evolving, it's a heightened emotional situation, and so you just add all that together. Woo-wee! It's a lot! I've gotten so many questions from listeners about how to talk to kids about politics. How do you explain political parties? How do you explain voting? How do you talk about one side of a political argument without demonizing the other side. Should you tell your kid the way you think or leave that out so they can figure out how they think about things?

Well, these are such amazing questions, and I'm so excited to pull in Beth Silver's and Sarah Stewart Holland, hosts of the podcast, Hantzut Politics, to help us get to the bottom of all of it. We'll be back right after this. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, makes caring for my family and myself easier, including a multivitamin I can trust. Enter ritual.

They're essential for women vitamin. Amazing. I'm filling my nutrient gap with nine key nutrients like vitamin D and omega-3s and just two daily pills. And ritual delivers to my doorstep every month. So easy. I also trust it, not just because it's clinically backed, but because it has clean, high quality ingredients. Ritual is transparent. What's on the label is what's in it. And you know where everything came from.

We deserve this. You deserve this. And you can get started with 40% off your first month. Just visit ritual.com slash good inside and your 40% discount will automatically be applied to your order. Even that part is easy. So when I talk to parents, there's often huge variety in kind of the top quality they wish for in their kid. Some people say confidence, some people say caring, some people say bold. And there's almost universal agreement in the number one quality parents don't want their kids to have. Entitlement. Over and over I have parents asking me, are there things I can do now?

So that my kid doesn't become entitled later on. In the truth is, there are. And so I wanted to put all of my thoughts down in one place and I created something brand new. A How to Avoid Entitlement Guide. It's all practical strategies and specific scripts you can use, so you know your kids are building the skills they need, and that they are going to avoid that entitled outcome. It's available within membership, so if you're already a member, just search, avoid entitlement within our member library. Or if you're not yet a member and want to check it out, check the link in the show notes. It'll send you right to the guide. Hi Sarah, hi back. Hi Dr. Becky, so good to see you.

So there's so many different things I want to talk with the two of you about and kind of draw knowledge from and share with our audience, right? And they all kind of fall into the category of talking to kids about politics, about kind of civic discourse, about voting, and kind of, I think what I know from so many parents is they really, really care about raising their kids to be kind of like upstanding citizens, to do good in the world. And yet, they also say, nobody talked to me about any of these things when I was young, actually not until I was much, much older. And so translating my desire to show up in a helpful way to my kids, to actually showing up in that helpful way to my kids, it is really, really hard.

So you both have kids. And so let's start there. Like, how did you first start talking about politics with your own kids, how do political discussions look? Now, maybe we can just start there and we'll end up growing from there. I don't remember a time when we didn't talk about politics in my house, so I have two girls. My older daughter will be 13 in January.

I'm starting to adopt the 13 because I feel it so deeply in her already. My younger daughter is eight. Their entire lives, I have been doing this job where the news is part of my business. And so they see me reading and they hear me listening to podcast and they know that I'm aware of what's going on in the world. They also hear a lot at school, so much more at school than I remember hearing when I was a kid. So from the beginning, it has felt non-optional.

It's not like, okay, now we're going to sit down and have the politics talk. It's just been a part of the air that they breathe every day. And I have tried from the beginning, and this is something I really learned from Sarah, to make sure that I was following their interest only. So as long as they had attention for the question to stay with the question, but as soon as they're attention went somewhere else to let that be okay. Because what I want is for them to want to keep coming back to me with their questions, not to feel like when they do, they need to like settle in and grab a pencil and it's going to be a long lecture from mom. And I think

that they realize now when they come to me more often than not, I'm trying to teach them less about politics and more about how to be a lifelong learner. They ask a lot of hard questions. And so I try to teach them how do we use the tools available to us to try to answer those questions. What sources are we going to trust here? You know, we we we talk a lot about we're going to go to a.org or a.gov website first. And if I can teach them just how to explore those questions, that feels more important to me than instilling a political stance that may or may not have any relevance

to them when they're my age. Okay, sorry, I wanna hear from you, but there's a couple of things I wanna double click on, Beth. Number one, you're talking about teaching your kids how to think more than what to think. Yes. And then you're teaching them less about, you said, politics than like how to be a lifelong learner. Can you, like maybe we can even make that very concrete. Like what's something your daughter or kid might say where our response is more like, here's my response based on politics versus, okay, wait,

here's a very different path. Here's a path that's more about asking questions and learning. Well, the topic that comes up more than any other with my daughters right now is abortion because we are in election season in Kentucky, and they are inundated when they're looking at like craft videos with ads about abortion. And so we talk about what does a life mean, what does medical technology capable of, how do we explore these questions. But instead of saying like there are two sides to this issue, they are pro life and pro choice and you

have to pick one and here's the one that I've picked. I try to talk to them about how we learn about different experiences. Who does this affect and why? And how can we hear all of those voices? And look, medical technology is changing all the time. These questions are only going to get harder as they get older. So I try to remember that pretending there are only two camps on this is just not going to be relevant in their lifetimes. I visually see that difference, and just for all the parents listening, right? Our kids will ask questions that we know have a political charge. And yet often our kids are probably not actually bringing it to us with a political charge. Like they're just like looking to understand something.

And in a way, when you lead with like, well, here's what one side believes, here's what the other side believes, or when you leave with here's what we believe. And here's why the other side is ridiculous. Right. First of all, you're probably not even meeting a child where they're at. They're like, whoa, okay. It's like so not what I was asking. Right. And also, you're probably really limiting learning because at the end of the day where our kids end up leaning politically, hopefully, becomes just like this natural extension of like how they think through things and what they believe. And if we come back to their childhood, it's very premature to get to that ending when

they're actually just starting to walk down a road of like just trying to figure things out. 100% and they come speaking of meeting them where they are with so much emotion. My eight year old has seen this commercial about rape so many times, about rape and abortion. And so I try to say to her like, how are you feeling about this? And she'll say, it kind of makes my stomach feel weird. And I say it makes mine feel weird too. And sometimes that's the most important, I think that probably is always the most important part of the conversation. Why would I take her and force her into our completely broken dialogue about this that I don't want to replicate in her generation anyway?

Wow. Sarah, I want to hear from you. How does it all look in your house? How does it start, or again, maybe it's just naturally unfolding from the beginning? Well, I had a lot more confidence in this topic before my oldest child became a teenager. Let me just put it that way. I live in a position of humility. Now, basically, every day, my oldest son is 14 years old.

He is hyper-political because we are a pretty political family. Obviously, I host a political podcast. I ran for office and served as a city commissioner. So they have come up in a very sort of outwardly political household. And I say all the time I jokingly when I was pregnant with him would say, no Alex P. Keaton's allowed for those of you who are, you know, not 42 like I am. That is reference to an 80s television show called Family Ties where the parents were super hippies and the oldest son played by Michael J. Fox was like a Reaganite, like hardcore

Reagan Republican. And it just upset them so badly. And in my mind, like that was what I was fearful of, right? This opposite political posture. I did not expect to become Alex Pequette myself, which is what has happened. He has gone so far to the left of my own politics that we're like in this weird posture I never prepared for.

I'm not proud of how I've always responded. I was not my best self, Dr. Becky, the first time I child and for me that Barack Obama was a war criminal. Let's just put it that way. It's just this extreme positions, but what you said is what I have to do and sort of what Beth articulated. What I have to do and sort of what

Beth articulated, what I have to remind myself every day. He cannot be at the finish line at 14. He has to build something up just like I did and sort of tear it down and then reintegrate everything, which is exactly what has happened with my own politics. Because, you know, politics and community and identity and our understanding of our civic selves are not static. They're ever evolving, whether you're 14 or you're 42. But that is hard to remember in a very reactionary space, because it is not like the emotions that attach themselves to these topics evaporate. The second our children are present in the conversation,

they just don't, you know, like he knows what my buttons are surrounding these things. And so like we can just get very, very quickly in the space together. And then all the way on the other end of the spectrum, my middle son is introverted, hates conflict, doesn't like politics the other day at dinner. He was like, I don't think I'm gonna vote when I grow up. And I about came out of my skin. You know, like it's just, I have all the way the opposite problem.

My oldest son and I were like, are you in the car as we often do about this? And I said, maybe we just can't have this conversation anymore, Griffin. Maybe we just have to let this one go. And in the back, my middle son went, thank God. So we just, I mean, it's just like with anything else with parenting and just like anything else with politics, there's a lot of humility. The positions are ever evolving. It's a heightened emotional situation. And so you just add all that together. We, it's a

lot. Yeah. And one of the things I want to really draw from both of you and it's just our kids pick up on their environment and that we live in the information age. It's completely different from when we grow up. There's information everywhere. There's videos everywhere. There's videos everywhere. There's social media everywhere. People, therefore, are talking about things everywhere.

And so when they go to school, when they're on the bus, the chances are they're going to be hearing about things that I actually don't think that three of us probably heard when we were there age. There just wasn't the transfer of real or fake, whatever it is, information the way there is now. And so I agree, one of the things when parents say to me, you know, oh my kid heard, heard this thing on the bus.

Like, do I bring it up or do I not? Or, right, okay, like they heard it. That's happened. Either they have someone to talk to about it or they don't. And those are really the only two options. And we know when kids are left alone with information swirling around them, they get very confused. They actually have to make up a story to understand it themselves.

Kids are not generally that sophisticated about the stories they make up. They're usually not that accurate. Or they ask an older kid. And I don't think any of us want our kids to be learning about, I don't know, the parties and our government or about voting, or even if it is about someone said, oh, what's abortion? People are talking about, you know, that on the bus. I don't want my kids learning about abortion from a random 17-year-old, you know, they happen to walk and do or an eight-year-old to that degree, right? So, okay, so I know probably

some people are thinking, okay, I'm not in politics the way Sarah and Beth are. So it's in the ether, but it's maybe not as present. Maybe my kids are a little younger. How do you think? Okay, let's just talk about the party system in the United States. Can I talk about that with kids? And how do we talk about it in a way that shares information so our kids can think

versus there's ways of explaining the party system. In a way that's actually very biased and kind of closes our kids' minds and leads them to not ask questions. Funny you should bring that example up. We talked about that just the other night. And you know, I lean a lot on history and I lean a lot on other countries just to contrast, right? Because I think, you know, for better or for worse, and this is true, you know, wherever you live, your nation, your perspective sort of absorbs all the energy and the conversation. And so the more I can sort of expand my kids and say,

well, this is how they do it in Canada, or this is how they do it in England, this is how it's different than what we do. Or we didn't always do it this way. We didn't always just have Democrats and Republicans. We used to have this. We've had this, you know, third party candidate before. I tried to use those examples

because I think the more you can expand the perspective, you can more and better occupy that learner space. So we do a lot of that. So this is the basics. Now let's talk about how it's been different over time. Let's talk about how it's different in other places so that we can sort of hold and hold it loosely and sort of ease the pressure off our system,

our understanding of the system. Because I think that's what I really try to center when everything is in the ether like that. I remember when my oldest son was an elementary school, the kids at his school were like obsessed with North Korea. He would come home talking about North Korea and I'm like, why? Where is this coming from? Why is North Korea on the lips of all these elementary school students?

And you know, what I tried to convey to him is, you know, both there might be a time where there is a dangerous situation. I'm not going to promise you that the world will always be safe and understandable to us. But what I can promise you is if that is the case, I will let you know and you don't have to depend on your elementary school friends to tell you when you know things have gotten scary and we need to pay attention. I will, you will know from me. But as long as I'm telling you, right now, things are pretty stable, you can trust me. And like I said, like in ways we do that with lots of other parenting things,

I was so my kids, like, I'll let you know when it's time to freak out. It's not time to freak out. But trust me, that I'll let you know if it is. We had a conversation about the parties when my girls were very young. It came up because we always take them with us to vote. If I could ask everybody to do one thing, it would be take your kids with you. When you vote, that's how you're going to get these conversations started.

And we tell them voting is like the brushing your teeth of democracy. This is just a thing that we do every single time. Doesn't matter how excited we are about it. Doesn't matter how important the elections are that are on the ballot. Maybe there's just one office, but it's brushing our teeth we go do it. So we're getting ready to go vote and we're talking about, you know, Democrats and Republicans. And one of my girls said, well, I don't understand what the difference is or what any of this means. And we happen to have on our table, because I am kind of a geography nerd, these placemats

that were maps of the United States. And so we took one of those placemats and looked at all of the states. And I said, generally speaking, Democrats look at this whole picture and say, we want to think about what's in the interest of this whole picture. And we want to set some rules that all of the different states start to follow. And we want to do some programs that are available. They want it to be like, if you are a citizen of this country, there are some basic things that you know you can count on no matter where you are

on this map. Republican say, no, no, we have to look at the smaller pieces here. We have to look at the individual states and let them make the vast majority of decisions. And we want very few things to happen for this whole picture because look how different all of these states are. How can we make a decision here in this little tiny state that works for this really big state over there?

And I told them, you know, the parties do not always adhere to these ideas. We're all kind of creatures of the moment, but that is the foundational difference between the two parties. And then we talked about the primary elections in terms of the elections that go on at their school, like what if what if you were going out for student council and you've got to decide in your class first who's going to be your representative, and then the whole third grade will vote, and they'll pick one from the whole third grade. And so just trying to put it in as concrete terms as possible

that they can relate to. And then again, like getting out as soon as they seem like their attention is waiting, seems to have worked for us. Yeah. And when kids push and like why then why, why, why is there so many arguments between people? How do you respond to that? Well, I would say the same reason that you and your brothers argue all the time, because humans argue about everything all the time. If you guys are arguing about who gets the remote and who gets to watch the upstairs TV or the downstairs TV, then can you imagine how often adult argue about things like money and how much money they have

to get to the government and where we should build roads and when we should repair bridges, just just imagine how often there would be arguments or disagreements about that kind of stuff. And arguments are important. I do not want them to be afraid of political conflict because if we stopped having political conflict, that would be bad. You know, we, they study American history, depending on what's going on at school, we'll talk about like, we've, we fought and people died for the right to disagree here. It really matters. You cannot get the best idea without a bunch of arguing. Can we argue better? Yes, just like you and your sister can argue better. So that's what we want to work toward arguing

better, but not stopping the arguments. So we're approaching the holidays, and if you're like me, you're soon going to be thinking, what do I get my kids? And what do I tell other family members to get them? Gift giving is one more thing on parents overwhelming holiday to do list. Well, I have a little reframe here. I wanna give you permission to let go of some of your tasks and make room for fun.

This can actually be a really hard part of parenting, but every single time I push myself to lead with lightness and join my kids in play, something good happens. And KiwiCo can help with this too because it's truly the gift that keeps on giving. Why? Kiwi Co will send your kid a fun project every month, perfect for cold weekend days when

you're not sure how to pass the time. Plus, Kiwi Co crates our design to build lifelong skills through fun hands-on projects. So as your kid is creating, they're also building resilience, confidence, and self-trust. Unwrap Hands-on-Fun with KiwiCo. Get your first month free on any crate line at KiwiCo.com slash Dr. Becky. That's your first month free at KiwiCo.com slash DRBECKY. D-R-B-E-C-K-Y. Okay, let's take it up a level. When your kids ask you and they're young, oh, well, which, which one do you believe?

Right? Is that important to answer honestly? Is there a way that gets in the way of they're kind of figuring out their political beliefs? How do you think about that? So we have very different approaches to this because I have all boys and Beth has all girls. So for me, it's really important that my sons see a female exerting a political opinion and trying to convince them of it. You know, like, that's, I want that to be normal for them. The world is going to do a fine job of telling my sons, they have a right to their own opinion.

And so I don't need to, I'm not really worried about that. You know what I'm saying? And when you talked to it at the very beginning of, a lot of us didn't have this example. I thought, well, that's not true for me. I had the men in my life, primarily my paternal grandfather and my stepfather who talked politics with me from elementary school as a very, very, very young age

and thought it was important and I was interested in it and they fed that interest. I think that was a gift. I don't think I'd be here now if they hadn't said like what you think about this is important and I will honor your interest in it. And so I, you know, I try to do that with my own boys to say like, this is important.

I'm so glad you see that it's important. We can talk about it, but I don't do a lot of open-ended questions. I say, this is how I see it, this is how the other side sees it. You are welcome to form your own opinions, but you know what I'm saying? I don't shy away from taking aside and things, particularly things like abortion with my sons. Mm-hmm. And I'm different. I don't shy away, but I go last. Because I really want to model

for them. First, what kind of questions should you be asking about this? What kind of information do you need to come to any kind of perspective? I want them to be comfortable sometimes not having an opinion. They don't need to be burdened by choosing a side on the vast majority of political issues right now. And I really try to say, this is not your responsibility today. This is our responsibility. It will be your responsibility eventually. So let's get you ready for that. But when there is an issue that they feel passionately about, and it's obvious when they do versus when they don't,

I will ask a lot of questions to try to help them figure out what they are really thinking. And then I will say, you know what, that's where I've come out to, or I really like how you're thinking about this. I see it a little differently, and here's my perspective. I'm just a lot more interested in developing their process than letting

them know what mine has been. Yeah. What I love about what you're both saying is there's no one right answer here. And for all the parents listening, like you know you, you know where you live, you know the dynamics and temperament of your kid, right? And to give yourself permission. And probably it's different in different moments too, to say, OK, I can think through things and have my general values and then say to myself, OK, I know my kid, I know what's going on and trust myself to kind of proceed. I really, really love that.

And what about, you know, I find them maybe, there's not always true, but talking about political beliefs without demonizing the other side's beliefs or discounting them, it seems in the media at least, is very, very difficult to do. And so how do you play that out with kids, right? I mean, kids will come home

and they'll ask about a certain issue. And I do think some parents, they explain their side by almost diminishing the other side. Is it important to not do that, if possible? That's definitely think so. And for us, we are a pretty liberal family. I told you my child is even more liberal than I am. But we live in Kentucky.

We live in Western Kentucky. We live in a red state. We travel with one of my best friends from college and have since my children were very small. They call my best friends children their cousins and one of my son's cousins that he is closest to is very conservative, very, very conservative. And when we were on vacation this summer,

I said, the biggest gift you guys have is each other. You can't do this. It makes me tear up. You can't do this thing where you think people who have this opinion, hate you and don't love you because you know that you love each other. And you know that you respect each other. And you feel very differently about this. And that's true for a lot of people in my kids' lives. They have a lot of people in their lives from grandparents to teachers to friends to the parents of their friends who have very different political ideas than they do. Very different ideas about some of the hardest stuff in our culture. Abortion, LGBTQ rights, like just they feel differently. And my kids know that these people love them and root for them.

And so they have to hold that. And I think that is a gift. And I, you know, I sort of treasure that and nurture that and point that out and say like, hey, I know that you feel passionate about this, but this person loves you and they see it differently. And they still love you and you still love them and you have to hold that. I'm not saying one person's right. You just, you have to develop the muscle memory,

the neural pathway that says someone can feel very differently about this issue than I do and I can still love them and they can still love me and we just have to figure out how to hold that tension. And so it's not something that I necessarily teach them. It's just something they live every day. Yeah. I think my daughters are quicker to demonize the other side than I am because that's the vibe they pick up at school. When a political hot topic comes up, it's talked about like team sports. And so when they do that, usually I agree with the side they're coming out on, but I really push them on the way they're talking about their classmates. And I'll say, wait a second, you know this person, you all play together.

He's kind when you play. He respects you when you play. Do you know one new fact about him? You don't know why he believes what he believes. You don't know how much he believes it versus his mom and dad do. You don't know how much he knows about it. This can't be the most important fact about this person right now. And I hope that that will continue their entire lives. I mean, I say all the time that I hope my part as an affiliation is the least interesting thing about me.

That's just not how I want to define myself or other people. So I feel like I'm always pulling my kids back from that cultural force. Yeah. I always think like curiosity is just one of the most important qualities to cultivate in ourselves, right, and curiosity inherently. It's like an opposition to judgment.

And so I think especially in the broader political system, at least, right, that's painted in the media, it's almost like we've mixed up curiosity with agreement. Like if you're curious about, oh, I wonder why they think that. Tell me more about that. Like it means, oh, I agree with you when you're right and I'm wrong.

It's a fallacy that those mean the same thing. And I do believe always cultivating curiosity in kids is just so important, right? And to be curious about others and why they do the things they do to be curious about yourself, to be curious about your own beliefs. We also want to ask ourselves those questions. And so, yeah, like I agree when talking about politics with our kids when they're young, helping our kids across the board cultivate curiosity and not criticism is really, really important. Well, and I think cultivating curiosity to the point where you do leave some things unresolved. That to me is the biggest issue that

adults feel this pressure to resolve every question for themselves. And if we pass that pressure on to our kids, then of course we're going to continue to inflame this partisan divide. But if we can teach our kids, you of course, we're going to continue to inflame this partisan divide. But if we can teach our kids, you know, that's a really hard question, I don't know the answer. Or this is a hard problem and we're trying some different things. And maybe this isn't the strategy I would have tried first, but it's what we're doing and I hope it succeeds. And if it doesn't, then we'll try something new.

I think that would change a lot if we could just practice that with our kids. Well, and I just think what we try to do with our kids is what we try to do on our show. What I want my kids to understand is that you can be engaged in the world and not be anxious and cynical. That's really what I try to combat and that's really hard with my teenager. But that's what you know, that's the posture we take in every conversation together on our podcast is how do we talk about this? How do we think about this?

How do we care enough to be informed without walking away anxious cynical messes? And that's hard. Like with my teenager, that's what we fight the most about is his cynicism. I'm like, hey man, I don't understand this. What do you have to be cynical about? Now, I know that's sort of the posture of a teenager, but there are a lot of voices in our kids heads, especially in online spaces. There are a lot of voices in all of our heads and online spaces that say, it's a dumpster fire, all is lost,

everything's hopeless, everything's bad. And developing that muscle is hard as an adult and like conveying it to your kids. You know, I do a once weekly show on our premium channel that's called The Good News Brief. And it was a muscle I had to build. But now that I've built it, now that I practice every week looking for the good, I don't mean like sort of anecdotal this community paid this person's medical bills.

I mean like this trend is positive. It served me so well with my kids when they come and they say, but this seems so hopeless. I say, yeah, but the stuff that doesn't get covered is important too. This is what I read. This is what's also happening. This is the complexity. This is the positive trend. This is getting better, but that's not a good news story.

You have to look for that. You have to train yourself. I mean, I think just media consumption and talking to your kids about what's a trustworthy source. How do you listen to a source every day so you can pick up on these patterns? One of my proudest accomplishments is I now have my 14 year old reading the New York Times. Thank you, everyone applaud, it took a lot of work.

My 14 year old and my boomer dad, that's all I'm trying to get to read the New York Times every day. But I have a chance to- As opposed to what? Just like TikTok? Yeah, yes, exactly. As opposed to YouTube, Discord.

No, thank you. Because he listens to a lot of like long form political analysis on YouTube. And look, they're not all bad. Some of them are wonderful, but I'm like, babe, you're just listening to opinion. That's not news. You're just, I finally got him because he sent me like this.

It was sort of like a daily show or YouTube channel. And I said, hey, do you know what they cite about half of this video? The New York Times, everything they make a joke of make a point, like they're citing an article from the New York Times. And he was like, That's a good point. I'm like, so maybe just a thought, we could just read the original sources. I'm like, because you're just reading opinion. Like, that's all you're you're just taking in opinion, you're not taking in actual journalism. And I said the same thing to my dad all the

way on the other end of the political spectrum and the generational spectrum. I said, you are consuming opinion. Opinion that makes you angry, that makes money the more angry you are. You don't actually consume journalism. That's what I'd like you to actually read occasionally. And I think that that's like that was really, that's hard to just train them to see what's happening. Not that opinion is bad, that's what we do. But like that's that to understand like sometimes you need to take in actual sources and not just takes on those sources.

Beth, how about for you with your Kittetty managed like how they get the news, what's seen as worthy and true. Right now, we don't talk a whole lot about this because neither of them is interested enough to seek out news on their own. So they do their news quizzes at school, you know, and they'll come home and talk about that. That's such a great service. I think so many applause for the social studies teachers

out there doing, I know that that comes at some risk these days, but that is a wonderful thing. So we talk through that occasionally. We have an echo show, so the Alexa with a screen and occasionally a news headline will come up there. And we'll talk about, is that a good headline or not? Did you learn something from that or did it just provoke you to want to click? So we get into it a little bit. The one rule that I have tried to share with both of them, and it doesn't matter right

now because neither of them have social media nor will they for quite some time. But the one thing I've told them is you always want to go get your news, not have it delivered to you. So you don't want to scroll and just take in what you scroll. That's the problem with the Echo show. It's trying to bring the news to me. And that's not me going out and saying, I wanna go to this place,

because I know they do such a good job. The reporting here is good. The other thing I tell them with your teachers, with the people in your lives, with stories that you read. If someone doesn't occasionally correct themselves, then you should not trust them. You should know the world moves too fast, too much is happening.

Everybody is going to make a mistake. And that's okay. Mistakes are fine. Just like for you, mistakes are good. That's how we learn. But you want new sources that come back around and say, we made a mistake. And here's what it was. That is such a powerful lesson.

Like seek out your news and news sources that offer correction. To me, that's like the best sign of reliability. Yes. I love that. Anything I haven't asked you that you feel like parents really, you know, like might appreciate this nugget or this little tip around talking about politics,

you know, with their kids. I would say the hardest thing surrounding having these political conversations with our kids is this, you know, what you articulate so well, this instinct to protect them from hard things. When, for one thing, they can smell it when you try. And for another thing, I think often it increases the anxiety. And so that's so true with political conversations with kids. You know, there's, I can, I'm a cryer on our show,

so it just happens a lot, especially when I talk about my kids, but like, you know, there's no way to protect kids from the heartbreak of war. They understand that's happening. They understand that people die. Now, I'm not saying sit down and consume like videos with them, obviously.

But I think, you know, teaching them like, oh, well, you're safe and like pivoting directly to, no, you're right, this is sad. And this is really sad for the kids here. Acknowledging the heartbreak, acknowledging the difficult things, acknowledging, like I said, that we cannot promise them what we want to promise them,

which is that everything will be okay all the time. You know, we train ourselves to say that to kids, everything's okay, you're okay, everything's okay. And so that instinct I think carries over when we talk about politics, partly probably because we want to convince ourselves. But I think you build trust just like with adults, just like with new sources, when someone acknowledges, this is sad. I am also sad about it. And I wish I had a better answer for you about why it happens when it will stop and that it will not happen again. But I don't.

I don't have those answers. All I can tell you is right now, a refrain we use on fancy politics, together is all we have. And that's, I mean, I think that's the lesson that kids need, not just that we, not that we can protect them, not that everything's okay, but that we are together now, and that it is sad and that it is heartbreaking,

and it is scary. And I think that, you know, finding spaces to say that and acknowledge that is really, really hard. That's why people love you so much. That's what you want us to try to do. I think that's so beautifully put. And it's an interesting thought experiment.

It's just an experiment. I don't have any like data. It's like, maybe kids never need to hear that everything's okay. Maybe they've never needed to hear that. Maybe they've never needed to have, you know, kind of uncertainty completely taken away. But every experience we have when we're young, when we're learning about the world, where we notice something hard around us. And the reaction is either avoidance, something we know is a lie, or a quote assurance that everything's okay.

The more experiences we have that fit into those three categories, well then of course the more phobic, we are around uncertainty or things that are just hard to sit with. And I find saying to my kids, like it's always the simplest lines when they ask hard questions,

like yeah, that's a really scary thought. Yeah. Or, you know, look, it makes sense. You're worried about that. I, like, I understand that given what we're talking about, that worry would pop up. Um, I'm so glad you're talking about this worry with me. Right. What do I know?

I always say, like, well, I know I'm here with you. I know we can talk about hard things. I know we have always gotten through things together and I have every reason to believe this will continue to fall into the category. Like my kids, you're right. Like they, you watch them not only build trust in your relationship, but in a way,

what you're really doing with your kid is they're actually building trust in themselves. Because I always think what trust in ourselves is, it's actually our ability to trust ourselves amid some certainty. It's not our ability to always gain certainty and safety. That's an impossibility. In fact, the more we try to do that as an adult,

the more anxious we become because, because we can't get there. And so it's such a gift to our kids to be able to say, yes, this is hard to think about. Yes, this is scary. Yes, I'm here with you. Yes, I don't have an answer, and yes, if I do, I'll come right to you.

And I think parents are almost very pleasantly surprised that that actually almost helps a kid move on because it's named what's true, more than any kind of more fantastical story, you know, when we come up with. Well, and I know that's true because that's what happens with our audience of adults, you know, when we say to each other and to our audience,

it's scary, I don't have a right answer, I can't promise you it's gonna be okay. Everybody feels less anxious, you know? Like that's what I say, like we, you know, we process the news together and that's what makes us, it's not that you want your side to win or you want, you know, peace and justice to rain over the world. Of course, I want that, but I don't anticipate it happening anytime soon. It's being able to come together and say, this scares the crap out of me. Does

it scare the crap out of you too? Yes. Okay. Well, I feel a little bit better because together is all we have after all. And so I mean, if it works with adults and it works with, you know, us as individuals inside our, you know, I mean, if it works with adults and it works with us as individuals inside our adult conversations, then it's gonna work with our kids too. I think that's right. Beth, what about you? I think that people about our age

have been engaged in this generational work of thinking about power and privilege. And we have a tendency to want to lay all that on our kids as though it is new information for them too. And as though their framework is going to be like ours. And as though they need to process all of that work the same way we're processing it. And I just wanna encourage everyone to sort of understand

and believe that our kids are starting from a different place. And so we don't have to put our stuff on them. We can trust that they're starting from a different place. What we teach them about power and privilege and justice, all of that relates to the work that you do. What you teach them about power is in your parenting. to the work that you do. What you teach them about power is in your parenting. And what you teach them about community is in the way that your family interacts and in the world around them. They're immediate world, they're school, the organizations that you're part of. So sometimes I just think we're trying so hard that we're actually adding burdens

to our kids that they don't need and that don't have any relevance to them because they're just starting at a different place. That's so well put. Well, look, thank you for everything you do. Thank you for being here. Thank you for providing so much knowledge, so much insight to everyone listening. Thank you.

I think about sturdiness constantly when I'm having these talks with my kids. I think Dr. Becky would tell me to be sturdie right now. Even if that sturdiness is just, hey, I don't know the right answer here, but I love you. And we'll keep talking about this and working on it. See, ultimate sturdiness, right there. All right, thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast.

You could also write me at podcast at goodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world. And parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share good inside membership. The first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like-valued parents. It's totally game-changing. Good inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsom at Magnificent Noise.

Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julianna and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Eric Kabelsky, Mary Panico and the rest of the Good Inside team and one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle, and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside. you