9 Ways to Raise Value-Driven Kids in Today’s Political Climate
The 2024 election season has put a lot of us through the wringer. We may have deeply held values around fairness, freedom, and what it means to belong in a community – and it can feel scary when other people don’t share those values. For parents, the election obviously gives us an opportunity to discuss our values with our children, and how these values may be different from those of people who voted for other candidates. But beyond that, it also creates an opportunity to examine whether we’ve really been living our values as much as we think we have – and to adjust course if needed.
In a recent podcast episode 229: Raising kids in divisive times: Where do we go after the 2024 election?, I discussed in depth the ways that we liberals may not have been living our values as much as we think we have. I offered strategies that we as parents can use to bring our actions into greater alignment with our values. In this blog post I focus more specifically on ways we can be with our children that are value-aligned.
Understanding Differences: What’s Behind People’s Beliefs
I have found that Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s research into moral foundations provides a useful framework to understand why people think (and vote) the way they do.
In his book The Righteous Mind, Haidt identified five moral ‘foundations’ that shape how we view right and wrong:
- Care/Harm: Concern for others and a desire to protect those who are vulnerable.
- Fairness/Cheating: A focus on justice, fairness, and avoiding people who cheat or take advantage of others.
- Loyalty/Betrayal: The importance of being loyal to a group or community.
- Authority/Subversion: Respect for tradition, authority, and social order.
- Sanctity/Degradation: Valuing purity and a sense of what’s “right” in a moral or even physical sense.
The diagram below, which is recreated from Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind, shows the five foundations:
People who lean toward liberal values often prioritize care and fairness with the other values being relatively less important, while those with conservative views tend to see all five as more equally important.
We liberals have been hypocritical in how we live some of our values
Liberal values often emphasize ideals like care for all (not just those in our immediate families), fairness, and belonging, but I think we have to admit that we haven’t been great at living those values.
When we think about caring for all, we look at economic indicators like the ever-growing GDP and low unemployment rates and tell people with relatively low incomes that “everything’s fine.” We ignore the 25% jump in house prices during the pandemic, that rental rates rose 8% from 2022-2023, childcare costs are up 32% from 2019…and hourly wages only rose 4%. Meanwhile, propelled by the stock market, relatively wealthy liberals are moving away from expensive urban and suburban areas to places where conservatives have long been able to afford homes and are now priced out of the market. How are we ‘caring for all’?
Similarly, the liberal commitment to fairness sometimes falters when we’re advancing our own goals. Liberals advocate for a shift to low-carbon energy sources at a much greater rate than conservatives. Many more conservatives live in states where energy is produced and when we argue for shutting down coal-fired power plants, we don’t incorporate plans to help workers transition into new jobs. This can leave conservatives believing that they can’t meet their need for autonomy, which is the ability to make decisions that feel important to us that affect our lives – it’s no wonder they resist these policies. An approach called Targeted Universalism helps us to develop policies that benefit everyone, while providing more support to those who need it the most. People tend not to protest others getting more help than them, as long as they’re being helped as well.
We also haven’t been very successful at creating family structures that are truly fair. I can’t tell you how many women I work with have husbands whose trauma takes on an outsized role in the relationship (but the father refuses to acknowledge it), while the mother is in therapy and learning new parenting techniques and the father refuses to try anything new – or go to couple’s therapy. The mother finds herself stuck in an endless cycle of appeasing him, and trying to reassure herself that research shows that kids do OK if they have at least one parent who tries to meet their needs. She resists divorce because she knows it counts as an Adverse Childhood Experience, and she’s trying to protect the kids from as much trauma of their own as possible. Why would we think that conservatives would want our family structures, when many of us don’t really want what we have either?
And while we might argue in principle for a world where everyone belongs, we haven’t been able to create and model this in our own lives. While many liberals advocate for inclusivity and equitable public resources, many of us still make choices that prioritize our own family’s opportunities over community-wide equity. For example, some liberal families support public schooling in principle yet enroll their children in private schools or highly competitive public schools to avoid being in the minority in a majority-Black school, or to make sure our kids don’t miss out on opportunities to help them get ahead in life.
We talk about letting more immigrants into the country, but here in the Bay Area local residents resist building affordable housing (because it will ‘change the character of the neighborhood’), so many teachers now have a 3-hour daily commute because they can’t afford to live where they teach.
We preach ‘inclusion,’ but at the first sign that someone doesn’t use exactly the right words, or think about an issue in exactly the same way we do, we kick them out of the tent. It’s no wonder that nobody else wants to buy the ‘belonging’ we’re selling.
We’re all trying to meet our needs
I wanted to see whether the moral foundations could be translated into needs, so I pulled up the needs list and tried to understand what need a liberal and a conservative is trying to meet when we use these moral foundations – and how this translates into policy positions. I found that it actually does translate pretty well:
Then I realized that all of these needs really ladder up to the need for safety – and liberals and conservatives use different strategies to meet those needs. Liberals want to be able to express our whole selves (including our identities as women, LGBTQ, BIPOC), and to live in integrity with our values. Conservatives want the safety that comes with both cultural and financial security – and that they have a real say in how these decisions are made. I believe that when we live our values more authentically, and also truly listen to conservatives and develop policies that address their concerns, that we’ll be able to move toward creating a world where everyone can be their whole selves – and create true belonging.
Actionable steps for parents
It can seem like the most obvious action to take is to talk about our values with our children, and make sure they know that we prioritize care for all, fairness, and belonging. If you’ve ever sworn in front of your kids and then told your child not to swear, you’ll know that kids remember the lessons of our actions much more effectively than they remember the lessons of our words. With that in mind, here are some practical ways to live your values through your relationship with your kids:
1. Practice fairness by recognizing different needs
Kids have an eagle eye for fairness, but they tend to get stuck on whether everyone else has exactly the same as them. But we can practice Targeted Universalism in our families as well! It doesn’t make sense to spend 30 minutes reading to Child A just because you spent 30 minutes reading to Child B, when Child B would much prefer you to play LEGOs or Let’s Pretend. When we give each child what they need, they complain a lot less about what their sibling got, instead of perceiving ‘unfairness’ in every interaction.
What you can do: During family decisions, encourage open conversations about each person’s needs. In Parenting Beyond Power we call the needs that a child is trying to meet over and over again their ‘cherry’ needs (the cherry on top of the frosting and cupcake of other needs). Try to make sure that your child’s cherry needs are met most of the time, and that your cherry needs are met as well.
2. Build a culture of belonging by prioritizing inclusion
Belonging means that everyone’s voice is heard in the community; they have agency and can help develop the community’s values. So rather than buying one of those posters that tells kids about your family’s values (which invariably end up being things parents want children to do/not do (like “We are kind” and “We use our manners”).
What you can do: Ask your kids what’s important to them, and how they can live those values. So if they say it’s important to be kind, what does kindness mean to them? How will they live out their value of being kind? If they say: “I’ll never call [sibling] a bad name again,” don’t be surprised if they forget in a difficult moment. Afterward, you can remind them: “I thought we said that we wouldn’t call each other names? What happened? Do we still hold that value? If so, what about that interaction was hard for you? How can we support you much earlier on next time so you don’t get so frustrated you call [sibling] a name?
3. Show care through mutual aid
Volunteering is a traditional way of supporting others but when we volunteer, we’re putting ourselves in a position of superiority over others. We’re saying: “I don’t need help; I’m only here to help you.”
When we engage in mutual aid, we’re acknowledging that we all have needs and we can support each other in meeting those needs. We can share childcare, carpool, and meal preparation. We can develop communities where it’s not just OK but encouraged to reach out and say: “I’m having a hard week. Can anyone pick up some groceries for me or cook me a meal?,” knowing that we will do the same for someone else in future. We’re seeing that all people have resources and can make valuable contributions to the community, rather than one person always giving and the other always receiving.
And while we’re at it, we’re making it clear that the reason we can’t cope is not because we are failing individually, but because our social systems are failing us.
What you can do: Get to know your neighbors. Offer help when you see someone in need. Ask for help yourself, instead of trying to go it alone. I offer free babysitting for our neighbors whose babies are young enough to go to bed early, and old enough to sleep for several hours at a stretch. I read bedtime stories to Carys at their house, and it’s no more difficult than being at home. Let your kids see you doing this mutual support work with others.
4. Acknowledge privilege and advocate for equity
While we may say we support inclusivity, our decisions may not align with those values. If we have a relatively large amount of privilege, we may find that systems like those found in schools are set up to support us. If we ask for something to be done then it happens; if other parents ask then the request is sidelined and then forgotten. The same faces get voted onto the PTA year after year, and while people may ask: “Whose voices aren’t here?” no plans are ever made to make sure those voices are not just present but heard next time.
What you can do: Listen to this podcast episode on How to advocate for the schools our children deserve, which is packed with ideas and resources you can use to create change at your kids’ school – whether you’re the kind of parent who wants to be on the PTA, or who prefers to stay in the background.
5. Create a culture of accountability and integrity at home
Living out our values can be messy and imperfect. Our intentions may not always align with our actions, and our actions don’t always have the impact we intend. When you make decisions that don’t align perfectly with your values, talk about it with your kids. Explain that integrity isn’t about perfection but about honesty and growth, and help them to understand why you made this choice.
When you recognize that your actions had an impact that was different from what you intended – even when the person impacted is your child, apologize. This doesn’t make you a ‘weak’ parent. It’s likely to lead to greater connection and closeness with your child.
What you can do: Be open with your children when you make a decision that doesn’t fully align with your family’s values. Use it as an opportunity to discuss why it happened, what you learned, and how you’ll work to do better next time. Modeling accountability shows that living with integrity means learning from mistakes.
Try apologizing to your child about something you did recently that you know hurt them, even if that wasn’t your intention. Tell them how you’re planning to do things differently the next time this situation comes up.
7. Support each child’s individual identity and need for belonging
You may have had the experience when you were a child of being told you were too big, too loud, or too much for your parents to cope with. They were doing the best they could to raise you with the tools they had, but they couldn’t cope with all of your needs.
True belonging involves giving people space to express who they are, without trying to get them to conform to our standards. (Parents I work with often worry that this will mean their children will be unprepared for the real world, and yet they themselves found the experience of not being accepted by their parents to be extremely hurtful and even traumatizing.)
What you can do: Try to find value in each of your kids’ traits. If they have to have to have the last word, it’s not that ‘they’ll be a great lawyer someday’ – it’s that they aren’t afraid to advocate for their needs now, which is a good thing!
8. Encourage self-advocacy balanced with community responsibility
Care, fairness, and belonging are needs that are important to many people. Teach your kids that advocating for their own needs is important, but so is considering how their actions impact others. If we advocate for Advanced Placement classes for our child, will all children be able to benefit? Are there also children who would benefit from classes to support them with more basic skills?
If you want to start a drama club, and you’re proposing that rehearsals happen after school, does everyone have access to transportation to attend?
Is your child aware of how they take up space? If they eat while you’re grocery shopping, or take their own toy into a store where toys are sold, is your child likely to be accused of stealing? If not, they may want to consider not eating or taking their toy, in acknowledgement that not everyone can do this.
What you can do: If one of your children wants to ask that something in the family be done differently or request an exception, encourage them to explain why it matters to them. Then, help them consider how this change might impact everyone else before making a decision together. This practice helps them see that personal choices are part of a larger family dynamic and that considering others’ needs is part of responsible self-advocacy.
9. Participate in civic engagement as a family
Community involvement as a way to support collective well-being. Participating in local elections, attending town meetings, getting involved in a place of worship or your kids’ school, or working on an issue that’s important to your kids are ways to live out your commitment to community care and fairness. Plus they create belonging: people who participate in one type of civic engagement have improved health outcomes over people who don’t participate in any. The benefit is even greater when you participate in more than one type of engagement.
What you can do: Choose an issue that’s important to you and/or your kids, and decide together how you can best contribute to it. Doing the work together provides even more opportunities for the show-rather-than-tell approach to learning, which is much more impactful for kids.
References
Lumanlan, J. (2024, November 12). Episode 229: Raising kids in divisive times: Where do we go after the 2024 election? Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/trump/
Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Pantheon Books.
Powell, J. A., Menendian, S., & Ake, W. (2019, May). Targeted universalism: Policy & practice. Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, University of California, Berkeley.
Lumanlan, J. (2024). Needs list for parents. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/needs/
Lumanlan, J. (2023). Parenting beyond power: How to use connection and collaboration to transform your family—and the world. https://www.yourparentingmojo.com/book
Lumanlan, J. (2022, September 25). Episode 167: Healing and helping with mutual aid with Dean Spade. Your Parenting Mojo. https://www.yourparentingmojo.com/mutualaid
Lumanlan, J. (2024, August 18). Episode 221: How to advocate for the schools our children deserve with Allyson Criner Brown & Cassie Gardener Manjikian [Audio podcast episode]. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/equitableoutcomes/
About the author, Jen
Jen Lumanlan (M.S., M.Ed.) hosts the Your Parenting Mojo podcast (www.YourParentingMojo.com), which examines scientific research related to child development through the lens of respectful parenting.