Key points

Political systems can teach children about respect for other people's opinions.

Political endeavors can teach children about putting one's values into action.

Political opponents can provide good examples of how to behave respectfully.

This is a tough time to be a kid in our society. Adults are behaving badly everywhere, from the nightly news to the holiday dinner table. Anger has become the go-to dialect of choice in politics and infiltrates our living rooms and our minds—including those little minds that are playing with their trucks under the coffee table during 60 Minutes. Righteous indignation is the new patriotism. Everyone is upset about something.

And the kids are watching.

Kids sense anger long before they know how to process it . When the adults in the roo

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