3 much-needed parenting lessons from the 2016 election

by Judi Zirin-Hyman, contributor - 10/27/16 11:31 AM ET

Kids hear everything, whether you want them to or not, and many are arguing politics on the playground.

Technology has made it difficult to curate the information kids are exposed to in this election cycle, much of which can be confusing and conflicting at best. But here are three implicit lessons that we can hopefully draw out, learn and teach to try to make the 2016 presidential a more positive and educational experience — to get away from the harmful rhetoric and see this as a “teachable moment” in history.

Lesson One: Bullies Shouldn’t Win

Bullying is not leadership, and to confuse the two is dangerous, whether on the playground or on the world stage. This difference has been lost in an election cycle that posits a need to look tough, exclude others, respect authoritarianism and disregard fact for displays of power.

{mosads}Kids notice candidates’ conduct during debates and they recognize bullying tactics, and we hope that they won’t emulate this. In this election cycle, they have heard cruel nicknames and derisive comments, heard people being made fun of on the basis of weight, disability, attractiveness, and referred to as pigs, dogs, babies and losers. And our kids likely learned some new words in the process.

If Trump wins, the implicit message is that bullying works. We need to make sure that making America great again doesn’t become a mantra for using exclusion and cruelty as a basis for asserting power and calling that leadership, and that our children see these values rejected — see that those who bully, lose.

The same way we seek to understand why children bully and teach them not to, we need to develop a better understand the societal problems that let a Trump become a viable candidate.

We want to prevent our children, not only from being hurt, but from feeling like they need to hurt others in order to avoid being vulnerable. We need to take that responsibility seriously as voters as well.

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Americans have seen the catastrophic consequences of bullied children feeling powerless and striking back. To fail to address the societal powerlessness that the bullying posture of this election appealed to is to create fertile ground for lawlessness and dangerous protest, as we have also seen more and more recently.

The building blocks of respect, empathy and generosity are a start in beginning to address that.

Lesson Two: Don’t Put Anything in an E-mail or Online That You Wouldn’t Want Everyone to See

The best lesson I ever learned about the internet and computer culture came from a friend who put into context the futility of my hope of ever really mastering it. She said that people of our generation will always speak computer as a second language, while those growing up with it will be fluent.

How to assert generational values into a language we may never truly master is a never-ending challenge. But we can teach that the next Wikileaks may always be around the corner and it may come in the form of a middle school girl anxious to share something with the exact people you didn’t want to see it. One who looks suspiciously like a younger version of some of the “mean girl” pundits.

“Privacy” has become something different in an era of instantaneous widespread publication, and teaching children its limits a challenge.

.@GenFlynn: “Nothing is private when you are a target of…an anonymous group or a nation-state.” #KellyFile

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) September 15, 2016

Whether it’s a text, Facebook message or email that you never thought would be read, or a microphone that you didn’t realize was still on, media amplifies what we once thought was whispered.

3. Lesson Three: How To Be Gracious When You Lose

Sure, there are times you may want to slam a fist into a locker and proclaim the game rigged. Maybe a bad call sets you off, maybe you are unhappy with how you played. But that’s being a sore loser. Sour grapes. Bitter.

There is no way around it — losing is difficult. And sometimes life doesn’t seem fair. Systems can seem rigged against you, whether you are fighting poverty, disease, or stigma, or fighting for a sports victory, promotion or, apparently, even the presidency.

If you want to campaign for better education or the overhaul of an election system to promote the greater good, more power to you.

But if you don’t learn to concede with grace and move on, you lose the opportunity to acknowledge areas of deficit so you can grow and evolve, and develop new strategies for success. Crying foul instead of congratulating the winner for a battle hard won doesn’t excuse you — it diminishes you. And we all hope that you are better than that.

Of course, the biggest lesson is to parents and voters, who have likely had to answer unanticipated linguistic and moral questions — for themselves as much as for their children. Perhaps this biggest lesson is that we don’t have to accept this as the new normal.

We find some way — any way — to learn from this as an aberration, and fight to restore integrity and dignity to the political arena. If not for ourselves, for and to the next generation of voters and leaders.

Zirin-Hyman is an attorney and freelance writer in the New York area.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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