A Literary Life

Election fever: Presidential campaign offers opportunity to expand kids’ political awareness and teach the responsibilities of citizenship
By Kate Jonuska
Pikes Peak Parent magazine

It’s a subject that’s usually complex, often passionate and always controversial. It’s a topic that you probably don’t want your child to learn about on the street or from TV. No, we’re not talking about birds and bees, but something almost as volatile and important in your child’s social education: politics.

In this election year, when the presidential campaign invades our daily lives, more families are finding political issues cropping up at home and are using that opportunity to broaden their kids’ political awareness.

“It’s extremely important for them to know about the election,” says Arienne Middlebrooks, mother of two. “As a military family, the election is a crucial part of what happens to our family. My husband may have a shorter deployment, he may not get a big enough raise. Many issues affect us.”

To that end, the Middlebrooks family has done research on the candidates together on the Internet, discussed current events the kids read or see on TV, and have even included them in the voting process in the past, bringing them to the polling place on election day.

For many families, talking about politics and government is an important way to shape a child’s moral character and their perspective of the world.

“It’s our personal belief that just as you pass down your faith, you should help inform your children’s political outlook, explain why we believe what we do,” says Cari Pemberton, mother of this month’s cover models Bethany Salgado, age 12, and Erin Pemberton, age 6.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this article, which published in the October 2008 Pikes Peak Parent magazine