How to Talk to Kids about Politics

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. That'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 Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland, hosts of the podcast Pantsuit Politics, to help us.

Get to the bottom of all of it. We'll be back right after this. Hi, Sarah. Hi, Beth.

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 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, 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 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? Like, maybe we can just start there and then 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. And my younger daughter is eight. Their entire lives, you know, I have been doing this job where the news is part of my business. And so they see me reading and they, they hear me listening to podcasts, and they know that I'm aware of what's going on in the world. They also hear a lot at school. So much 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, as long as they had attention for the question, to stay with the question. But as soon as their 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 gonna 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 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, Sarah, I want to hear from you, but there's a couple things I want to 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, you know, 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, you know, 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 life mean? What is 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.

Hmm.

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 8 year old has seen this commercial about, 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? Or how did it start? Or again, maybe it's just naturally unfolding from, you know, 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, put it that way. I live in a, 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 not 42 like I am, that is a 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 P. Keaton 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 informed me that Barack Obama was a war criminal. Let's just put it that way. You know, it's just this, like, extreme positions. But what you said is what I have to. 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 this 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 going to vote when I grow up. And I about came out of my skin, you know, like, it's just I have the 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. Like, so we just. I mean, it's 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.

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 we live in the information age. It's completely different from when we grew up. There's information everywhere, there's, 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 the three of us probably heard when we were their age. Like 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, you know, the parties in our government or about voting or even if it is about someone said, oh, what's abortion? People were talking about, you know, that on the bus. I don't want my kid learning about abortion From a random 17 year old, you know, they happen to walk into or, or, or an 8 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 like, okay, let's just talk about the, the party system in the United States. How do you talk about that with kids and how, 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 in 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 try to use those examples because I think the more you can expand the perspective, you can more, 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, you know, what I really try to center when everything is in the ether like that. Like, I remember when my oldest son was in 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 both there might be a time where there is a dangerous situation. I'm not gonna 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. You will know from me. But as long as I'm telling you right, 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 always tell 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 gonna 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. These placemats that were maps of the United States. And so we took one of those place mats 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. Republicans 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 you were going out for student council and you 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 are 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 REM and who gets to watch the upstairs TV or the downstairs tv, then can you imagine how often adults argue about things like money and how much money they have to give 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. They study American history. Depending on what's going on at school, we 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 argument.

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 their 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 it at the very beginning of the. 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 sort 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, Like, I don't shy away from taking a side in things, particularly things like abortion with my sons.

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, you know, 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, okay, like I can, I can think through things and have my general values and then say to myself, okay, 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, and maybe it'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, 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? You know, if possible.

I definitely think so. And you know, 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 called my best friend's children their cousins. And one of my son's cousins that he is closest to is very conservative. Very, very conservative. And you know, 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 passionately 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, you know, and I'll say, like, 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 partisan 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 for.

Yeah, I always think, like, curiosity is just one of the most important qualities to cultivate. Right. In ourselves.

Right.

And curiosity inherently, it's like, in 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 and 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 onto our kids, then, 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, and I 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, 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, 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. You know, 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. And 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 cheat.

As opposed to what? Just like, 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 like 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 listening. I finally got him because he sent me a. Like this. It was sort of like a Daily Show Tik 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, I 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's bad. That's what we do, you know, but like, that's that to. 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 kids, how do you manage, like, how they get the news, what's seen as worthy and, you know, true.

Right now, we don't talk a whole lot about this because neither of them is interested enough to. 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 ne 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. That's not me going out and saying, I want to 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. Some ways 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. 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.

Yes.

And so that's so true with political conversations with kids. You know, there's, again, I'm a crier 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 it'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 news 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, you know, a refrain we use on pantsy 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, because, well, that's what you help us try to do.

I think that's so beautifully put, you know, and it's an interesting thought experiment. It's just an experiment. I don't have any, like, data to say. 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. That's a really scary thought.

Yeah.

Or, you know what? 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. 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 this 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 amidst uncertainty. 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 guess what? 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, 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 going to 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 it. It's not that you want your side to win or you want, you know, peace and justice to reign 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 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 want to 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. And what you teach them about community is in the way that your family interacts and in the world around them, their immediate world, their school, the organizations that you're part of. So sometimes I just think we're trying so hard and 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 sturdy 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.

It's the ultimate sturdy answer 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 podcast. You could also write me@podcastoodinside.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 Farhee, Julia Natt, and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, 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.