But there are things you can do now, long before your kids hit voting age, to encourage an active participation in the democratic process.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/VotingKid.jpg?resize=673%2C350\")
<\/p>\n
1 | Talk about the issues<\/strong><\/h1>\nDon\u2019t hesitate to talk taxes and health care and women\u2019s rights in front of your kids. Let them hear both sides of every issue. Do they wonder why they always have to go to the dentist, the pediatrician, and the eye doctor before the first of the year? Explain high deductibles and why they matter.<\/p>\n
Is there a filibuster in the Senate? Let your kids watch them squirm and fall asleep in their seats like children. Is your state primarily Republican or Democrat? Tell them why this matters. The more you talk about it, the more they know it needs to be talked about. This isn\u2019t just stuff for government class. This should be part of the fabric of everyday life.<\/p>\n
2 | Make it historic<\/strong><\/h1>\nMy parents never took me along when they voted. They always went while I was in school. But when my son was seven months old, I strapped him to my chest and took him to the polls in 2012. We both got \u201cI Voted\u201d stickers.<\/p>\n
Voting should be a celebration, a historic act of freedom that we don\u2019t let pass by without a sense of importance. To vote is to execute your democratic right to freedom. It puts action behind words and should be something to commemorate.<\/p>\n
3 | Encourage empathy<\/strong><\/h1>\nA recent program called Fast Track, originally created to help at-risk kids succeed in school, had a positive side effect. By encouraging social skills, specifically empathy, it created better voters. Of the adults who were in the Fast Track program as children,\u00a07.3 percent of them turned up at the polls as adults.<\/p>\n
John Holbein, the Brigham Young University professor in charge of the study, explained in a recent article in New York Magazine that \u201c[T]here are people experiencing various things in their lives: various hardships, various difficulties, various obstacles in their lives. [Fast Track] gave [kids] the ability to see that and say, \u2018Okay, what am I going to do about that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
If kids don\u2019t care about what happens to anyone else, they won\u2019t care about the big issues. Teaching your children to notice and invest in the people around them teaches them to care about the world at large<\/a>.<\/p>\n4 | Promote perseverance<\/strong><\/h1>\nSchool, work, relationships, health \u2013 all the most important things in life require dedication and personal investment. The same goes for active citizenship.<\/p>\n
Encouraging your kids to stick to the hard things \u2013 the new sport, the rough patch in math, or the after-school job \u2013 will also build the perseverance that will get them to keep fighting for the issues that matter most in their country. Being a good citizen means putting in the time to stay informed, to stay involved, and to stay in the ring just as long as the guys on the other side of the issue.<\/p>\n
It is a great thing to give voice in politics and to participate in the checks and balances of the system. As parents, we can help our kids while they are still young to feel that they have a voice and to want to share it because it matters.<\/p>\n
*Linking up with Amanda<\/a>. This article originally appeared on Parent.co<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is 2000, I\u2019ve just turned 18, and I\u2019m excited to vote in my first presidential election. It\u2019s Gore and Bush, in it until the very end. I watch the debates, register early, and read up on the issues. I ready myself for November. It feels momentous. I\u2019d grown up in a house talking politics \u2013 always a one-sided discussion. They were tried and true red, through and through. But my grandparents were all blue …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,23,26],"tags":[78,97,413,250,46,48,209,55,136,63,54,204,84,207,90,414],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/patrioticfamily-e1509552077434.jpg?fit=1920%2C968&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-11x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3939"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4030,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions\/4030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
My parents never took me along when they voted. They always went while I was in school. But when my son was seven months old, I strapped him to my chest and took him to the polls in 2012. We both got \u201cI Voted\u201d stickers.<\/p>\n
Voting should be a celebration, a historic act of freedom that we don\u2019t let pass by without a sense of importance. To vote is to execute your democratic right to freedom. It puts action behind words and should be something to commemorate.<\/p>\n
3 | Encourage empathy<\/strong><\/h1>\nA recent program called Fast Track, originally created to help at-risk kids succeed in school, had a positive side effect. By encouraging social skills, specifically empathy, it created better voters. Of the adults who were in the Fast Track program as children,\u00a07.3 percent of them turned up at the polls as adults.<\/p>\n
John Holbein, the Brigham Young University professor in charge of the study, explained in a recent article in New York Magazine that \u201c[T]here are people experiencing various things in their lives: various hardships, various difficulties, various obstacles in their lives. [Fast Track] gave [kids] the ability to see that and say, \u2018Okay, what am I going to do about that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
If kids don\u2019t care about what happens to anyone else, they won\u2019t care about the big issues. Teaching your children to notice and invest in the people around them teaches them to care about the world at large<\/a>.<\/p>\n4 | Promote perseverance<\/strong><\/h1>\nSchool, work, relationships, health \u2013 all the most important things in life require dedication and personal investment. The same goes for active citizenship.<\/p>\n
Encouraging your kids to stick to the hard things \u2013 the new sport, the rough patch in math, or the after-school job \u2013 will also build the perseverance that will get them to keep fighting for the issues that matter most in their country. Being a good citizen means putting in the time to stay informed, to stay involved, and to stay in the ring just as long as the guys on the other side of the issue.<\/p>\n
It is a great thing to give voice in politics and to participate in the checks and balances of the system. As parents, we can help our kids while they are still young to feel that they have a voice and to want to share it because it matters.<\/p>\n
*Linking up with Amanda<\/a>. This article originally appeared on Parent.co<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is 2000, I\u2019ve just turned 18, and I\u2019m excited to vote in my first presidential election. It\u2019s Gore and Bush, in it until the very end. I watch the debates, register early, and read up on the issues. I ready myself for November. It feels momentous. I\u2019d grown up in a house talking politics \u2013 always a one-sided discussion. They were tried and true red, through and through. But my grandparents were all blue …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,23,26],"tags":[78,97,413,250,46,48,209,55,136,63,54,204,84,207,90,414],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/patrioticfamily-e1509552077434.jpg?fit=1920%2C968&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-11x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3939"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4030,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions\/4030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
4 | Promote perseverance<\/strong><\/h1>\nSchool, work, relationships, health \u2013 all the most important things in life require dedication and personal investment. The same goes for active citizenship.<\/p>\n
Encouraging your kids to stick to the hard things \u2013 the new sport, the rough patch in math, or the after-school job \u2013 will also build the perseverance that will get them to keep fighting for the issues that matter most in their country. Being a good citizen means putting in the time to stay informed, to stay involved, and to stay in the ring just as long as the guys on the other side of the issue.<\/p>\n
It is a great thing to give voice in politics and to participate in the checks and balances of the system. As parents, we can help our kids while they are still young to feel that they have a voice and to want to share it because it matters.<\/p>\n
*Linking up with Amanda<\/a>. This article originally appeared on Parent.co<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is 2000, I\u2019ve just turned 18, and I\u2019m excited to vote in my first presidential election. It\u2019s Gore and Bush, in it until the very end. I watch the debates, register early, and read up on the issues. I ready myself for November. It feels momentous. I\u2019d grown up in a house talking politics \u2013 always a one-sided discussion. They were tried and true red, through and through. But my grandparents were all blue …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,23,26],"tags":[78,97,413,250,46,48,209,55,136,63,54,204,84,207,90,414],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/patrioticfamily-e1509552077434.jpg?fit=1920%2C968&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-11x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3939"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4030,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions\/4030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It is 2000, I\u2019ve just turned 18, and I\u2019m excited to vote in my first presidential election. It\u2019s Gore and Bush, in it until the very end. I watch the debates, register early, and read up on the issues. I ready myself for November. It feels momentous. I\u2019d grown up in a house talking politics \u2013 always a one-sided discussion. They were tried and true red, through and through. But my grandparents were all blue …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,23,26],"tags":[78,97,413,250,46,48,209,55,136,63,54,204,84,207,90,414],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/patrioticfamily-e1509552077434.jpg?fit=1920%2C968&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-11x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3939"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4030,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions\/4030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}