Do you talk to your kids about politics?

[mamadadawahwah]

My kids are too young to understand "political" but i have started already to enlighten them about how the world is "ordered". Rich people/poor people, powerful people aka rich people/powerless people aka poor people, you get my drift.

They are really interested in what it means to be rich or poor. NO concept of money, God bless them.

Ds is five and although we don't let him see the news, he has developed into a fluent reader and can now read headlines in papers, and more if the subject grabs his interest. So even if you are careful about the TV, they will find out from other sources - including overhearing other people on buses and seeing party political posters etc at train stations.
Luckily dh and I are currently not in complete political harmony, so ds is hearing very different views (on Europe and the Iraq War for example). I think it helps him to realise that political views are sincerely held, that more than one point of view is valid, and that politics can be discussed emphatically but reasonably politely!
We just aim ultimately to encourage curiosity, the ability to see a situation from all sides, and the importance of participating actively in democracy. They have a School Council from 7 + and I think that's a super start. In the meantime, if he asks, we discuss.

Not often - although both DD1 and DS1 have picked up on my "dislike" of George Bush - both piped up with "I hate that man" when he was on TV the other night

The school operates a "School Council" - both of them have been up for nomination recently, but lost

I try to make sure they are aware of current affairs that will somehow affect them directly - for instance they have Indian classmates who were back home for the Christmas holidays so I made sure they knew about the tsunami, which countries were affected, etc.

Beyond that, I answer questions. Ds on Sunday wanted to know "but why do we have to have a government" (to which, can you believe, dh gave him a disquisition on the difference between Hobbes and Locke) - I did a separate answer later, on the lines of schools and roads.

They're five and four.

Binkie - the Hobbes and Locke thing is a classic! My dh is a bit like that too - but more on things scientific and mathematical (I did Hobbes and Locke et al at Uni, he did engineering). Some of the stuff he comes out with for dd aged 4 are fantastic. She "knows" (can parrot) stuff about "real" numbers, negative numbers, knows what a googol (sp?) is. I learnt what a googol is at, erm, exactly the same time as dd.

Ha ha custardo at 'crap'!

I don't watch the news, ever (I do read newspapers though), but if I did I wouldn't have it on in front of ds (7) either. Fine if other people want to but I wouldn't. I do think it's ok to let your children know what's going on around them, without scaring the life out of them and while letting them have a worry free childhood. I do tell ds what I think about various things (war for example) as they come up but I tell him that not everyone agrees with me.

I remember reading my mum's Daily Mail when I was a child about a woman who'd been kidnapped and buried alive, underground, in a coffin. They only found her once she was dead and her nails were black from trying to scrape her way out. Being The Mail, there was a lot of detail and I had awful nightmares about it for a long time.

I do think it's ok to let your children know what's going on around them, without scaring the life out of them and while letting them have a worry free childhood.

Agree - but if you have papers they could easily pick it up from there - it's still news, whether written with still pictures, or spoken with moving pictures - and I often find 'stills' more frightening that moving ones as the horrible picture doesn't just disappear it stays there - along with often scary headlines (hence the reason I developed a great phobia of escalators in 1988....)