Voting and Your Children
Using the Elections to Teach About Candidates, Issues, Offices
Teachable moments occur every time there is another election, and the more press the election gets, the more important the lessons are to teach.
Each year before the elections, there is a fair amount of media coverage. During Presidential election years, the coverage starts a whole year out, as soon as the primary elections occur. As voting time comes around, use the opportunity to talk to your children and teach them about the issues and offices being voted upon.
Research
The more media coverage there is on an election, the more your children will be aware of who is running and for what office. Instead of simply telling your children who you are going to vote for, have your children help you research each candidate and discuss the pros and cons of that person being in a particular office. Children learn more from doing the research themselves because it teaches them about the topic, and it teaches them how to research. Knowing where to find the information is extremely important for children to learn.
Function of Offices
Another great teaching idea surrounding the topic of voting is teaching the function of the offices being filled. Find out what the job requirements of each office are and how that affects the community.
Issues
Discuss the issues being voted upon. Will they change the way people live on a day-to-day basis? Should these things become law or not? Ask your children to write a persuasive paper on what issues they think should be voted into law and why. These conversations will naturally spawn discussion on your values and ethics, which are much better learned at home than at school or other places where any number of differing opinions are taught. At a young age, children can begin to learn what is involved in making an informed decision on each of the issues being voted on. This will help your children to grow up as informed, responsible citizens.
If you have a group of children, either in a home school group or in a classroom, you can run a mock election. This will give your children opportunities to not only learn about, but experience the way an election works. They will learn about the electoral process and the actual election itself, participating every step of the way with age appropriate lesson plans. This is an excellent method of teaching to the various student learning styles.
Using current events and those issues presented in the news is an excellent way to take advantage of the teachable moments in every day life.
