Explain it to Jimmy

[trenton]

It seems that polarization is a going to remain a part of the heated discourse in American or Australian politics.  A response I see in children is that they don't like the fighting at the dinner table when the family starts arguing over various political issues and they may quietly leave the room. This can include wealth inequality, elections, abortion, LGBTQ, and so on. Some children will leave the room and hide from the rest of the family because they see no way to stop the fighting.

Imagine that five year old Jimmy is worried about all of the fighting in family. For example, mom and his sisters are fighting over abortion as grandma and grandpa insist that the election was stolen while using the N-word. Jimmy wants the fighting to stop so his family can be happy. Jimmy does not understand why the family is fighting so much. Your task is to explain polarization to Jimmy and teach him to navigate the situation.

If I were to try this, I would start by informing the family that Jimmy is uncomfortable with all of this fighting and he wants the family to be happy. By first telling them that you are uncomfortable with the situation, the family should immediately become more aware of the fact that they are yelling and getting angry with each other. This alone should stop some of the fighting. I would also point out that the grandparents are a terrible influence and Jimmy should probably be removed the situation. This would probably cause more fighting, and it does not seem ideal if Jimmy wants his family to be happy rather than separated by political ideologies.

If for some reason there is no way to stop the fighting, then I have never found a good answer to this scenario. I would try to tell Jimmy to avoid contributing the situation and making it worse. A common cause of this fighting comes from people looking at only one news source. People then repeat what they heard from that news source without comparing it to other sources. The problem with this is that it is a bit complicated to ask a five year old to do independent research and compare a dozen different sources to figure out what is actually happening in the world. The approach I am attempting to use is to teach children to value open mindedness so they don't get stuck in one point of view and thus contribute to the polarization. In fact there is likely not much that can be done to stop this fighting if the family is not open minded to new sources and they don't care about the child's feelings. At that point the best Jimmy could do is focus on doing better in school and try to let his family sort this out themselves. His family needs to learn that this kind of fighting can go on and on and on and they will not be happy.

Maybe there is a better approach you could give young children on these sorts of issues.

How would you explain polarization to a five year old?

[Reciprocality]

I mean you could say that everyone think they are fighting Darth Vader or Mewtwo and considers themselves to be on the team of Jedi or Pikachu.

That everyone needs an enemy to fight, it is both true and understandable for a five year old, win win.

I guess you also have to reassure that grandpa is no villain regardless.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Reciprocality

[trenton]

@Reciprocality explaining moral relativism in this way seems like a very straight forward way of avoiding an opinionated outcome. I was worried that trying to point to a bad influence would keep a child stuck in the same endless back and forth.

I remember I used to make sense of this by looking at the holy wars. When judging from different moral values you reach different conclusions about who the bad guy is.