Posted on 11/12/2013 5:48:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In my last column, I proposed some explanations for why many conservative parents have left-wing children.
In a nutshell, American parents who hold traditional American values such as belief in small government as the basis of liberty, or a God-based moral code, or American military strength as the greatest contributor to world peace and stability, or American exceptionalism, not to mention the man-woman definition of marriage or the worth of a human fetus are at war with almost every influence on their childrens lives. This includes, most important, the media and the schools.
Here, then, are some suggestions for raising a child with American i.e., conservative values:
First, non-left-wing parents need to understand that if they do not articulate their values on a regular basis, there is a good chance that after one year, let alone four years, at college, their child will adopt left-wing views and values. Do not think for a moment that values are automatically transmitted. A hundred years ago they may have been because the outside world overwhelmingly reaffirmed parents traditional values but no longer.
You have to explain to your children repeatedly what America and you stand for. (That, if I may note, is why I wrote Still the Best Hope and why I started PragerUnversity.com).
Second, they need to know what they will be taught at college and now in many high schools and how to respond. When they are told from Day One at college that America and its white citizens are inherently racist, they need to know how to counter this libel with these truths: America is the least racist society in the world; more black Africans have immigrated here of their own volition than were brought here forcibly to be slaves; and racist is merely one of many epithets, such as sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, and bigoted, that the Left uses instead of arguments.
Third, when possible, it is best that your child not go to college immediately after high school. One reason colleges are able to indoctrinate students is that students enter college young and unworldly. It is very rare that adult students are convinced to abandon their values and become left-wing. Why? Because they have lived life and are much less naïve. For example, someone with life experience is far more likely than a kid just out of high school to understand that the best formula for avoiding poverty is personal responsibility get a job, get married, and then have children not government help.
Teenagers who spend a year before going to college working in a restaurant, for a moving company, at an office will mature far more than they would after a year at college. And maturity is an inoculation against leftism.
If your home is Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or Mormon, another option for the year after high school is to have your child devote a year to studying religion in some formal setting. The more your child knows, lives, and adheres to the principles of any of these religions, the less likely he or she will convert to leftism, which has been the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years. For example, it is a fundamental belief of each of these Judeo-Christian religions that the root of evil is within the evildoer. But it is a fundamental belief of leftism that people murder, steal, and rape overwhelmingly because of outside influences such as poverty and racism. The moment your child understands that people who commit evil not poverty or racism are responsible for it, he or she cannot be a leftist.
Fourth, dont be preoccupied with instilling high self-esteem in your child. It is the Left that believes that self-esteem is a childs right, something that parents and society owe children. Conservatives believe that everyone, including children, must earn self-esteem. Indeed, the belief in earning rather than in being given is conservative.
Fifth, teach character. The Left has essentially defined a good person as one who holds progressive social positions on race, the environment, taxes, health care, etc. That is why the Left, including the feminist Left, could so adore Bill Clinton, who regularly used his positions of power to take advantage of women: He held progressive positions.
If your child recycles, or walks five or ten kilometers on behalf of breast cancer, that is lovely. But if your child refuses to cheat on tests or befriends an unpopular kid at school, that is character. And teaching that definition of character is more often done in a conservative (usually a religiously conservative) context.
It is not all that hard to produce a son or daughter able to withstand left-wing indoctrination. You just have to understand that it doesnt happen automatically.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
My daughter is a freshman at a public high school. I have been inoculating her against left-wing propaganda since she was in first grades.
Not all parents are able to home school. But parents who have kids in public school have a moral obligation to be aware of what their kids are being taught, and to make sure she gets the other side.
On her first day of first grade, I told my daughter: “Some of what they teach you in school is always true. Some of it is only true for now, and some of it is absolutely wrong. Your job is to learn to recognize the difference.”
I am very proud of her.
Did you not see post 2?
I live in a solidly Christian and red county. The 5 year old Sunday School children that my husband and I teach have already learned to rattle off, “reduce, reuse, recycle” and “ Take care of the earth.”
At 5 these kids can't exactly tell you what the earth is or the define the meaning of the words, “Reduce, reuse, recycle”, but already the government schools are starting the indoctrination process. Gee! I'll have to check on Sunday, but I bet some of these kids think that “Reduce, reuse, recycle’, is one word and not three separate words.
In other words, even though the parents of these 5 year olds are firmly Christian, these children in the godless government schools are being taught the religion of godless liberalism/Progressivism/Marxism.
So sorry to hear about your daughter. Only in a wealthy, decadent society can people become afraid of FOOD! Hope she’s back to the occasional Mickey D treat.
The best option is homeschooling. Private schooling ( maybe) but choose with care because many are flamingly liberal.
And...Finally, even if the private school is conservative in its worldview, the teachers and principal were likely trained by godless Marxists in Marxist run colleges and universities. This Marxist influence is likely to leak through even in the most conservative private schools.
You sound like a wise person!
The whole leftist, nationalizing socialist thing, is about ego - having a pointed head and being proud of that.
The conservative thing, is about love and maintenance.
Also put myself through Master's degree at USC. Even though the program was completely non-political I had to bear class after class of the profs’ liberal rants. Disgusting and a waste of time and money.
Absolutely right about keeping kids out of public schools. My daughter’s 11th Grade English classroom had a picture of Che Guevarra on the wall and no pictures of Washington, Lincoln, Madison, Jefferson, et al.
I have 5, 4 rock-ribbed conservatives and 1 leaning left in the vein of loving and trusting everyone type weakness. This one has been in private Christian school. We chalk it up to an accident she had a few years ago that had a traumatic brain injury component that changed her personality and set her back developmentally.
That’s good advice!
‘twas also thus at U of Iowa.
“We chalk it up to an accident she had a few years ago that had a traumatic brain injury component-————”
__-
:-)
.
Dennis, raising them to be conservative doesn’t always work. I raised my kids to be conservative. My daughter was raised conservative. She didn’t get her rebellious phase until the week she turned 18. That week she graduated high school, and made a very abrupt choice to join the Army, and was sworn in the same week.
In the Army she rejected her conservative roots, and she rejected God. And now after ten years, she is still in the Army, but hates it and plans to get out. She is still a liberal, and calls herself an agnostic.
Oh, yes, she’s now grown and is doing beautifully.
Last couple of years of high school were a struggle though.
No thanks to idiot teachers like this.
After college? Seriously Dennis?
This starts happening as soon as they are old enough to Watch Sesame Street or go to pre-school. It does not start in college and most definitely not after college
Great approach in my opinion.
Carved in stone, and set in the alcove of our house where we have the current pictures of the children, we have a plaque that reads:
"Raise the child for the path, not the path for the child."
We all see this every morning as it faces the bottom of the stairs where we walk down from the bedrooms to start our day.
1. Keep them out of the public school system. Home school or private Christian school.
2. Keep them off the tv - at least what most kids are exposed to.
3. Keep them off any music that undermines your values.
4. Keep your home free of liberal pollution - and full of your Judeo Christian values.
5. Take them to church. A good Bible believing and practicing church.
6. Pray. Pray. Pray some more.
Sit around the dinner table and discuss government genocide with your tweens.
That should work — saw it on Doomsday Preppers.
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