Recently, my daughter and I embarked upon the ultimate social studies field trip. It wasn’t supposed to be one. In fact, since she’s often bored at meetings, I try to limit her exposure to them somewhat. After all, I am involved in many community organizations and go to a lot of meetings!
We’re in Canada, where we have city, provincial, and federal elected officials. That morning, I was on my way to talk with our provincial official about several health and environmental issues. This particular person is quite approachable, and I’ve spoken with her several times.
It was funny, though. When I told my daughter what I was doing, she wanted to come along. Not only did she want to come along: she wanted to discuss the issues with the woman I was going to speak with. I told her what I was going to talk about, and she embarked upon a discussion about politics and her viewpoints on these various issues. I was astounded! She had her own distinct opinions, and even if they were similar to my own, she had ideas that were not mine, ideas that came from her own perceptions of these issues. After discussing them with me, my daughter turned to me and said, “I think I should go, and I think I should be the one doing the talking.”
Uh huh.
Now, my daughter is also an introvert, and once we got to the actual meeting she was no longer all that interested in talking. I did say what she’d said to me in the morning, though. I hope that from that experience, she believes that it’s possible to have a dialogue with people in government and that she realizes that people are just people, no matter what power they hold.
I remember being 8 or 9 years old. I wrote a letter to an elected official to express my opinion on an issue. He wrote back, and somewhere in my files I still have that letter. It was the first of many.
Now, I have no plans to ever go into politics, but I’ve been a community organizer all of my life. I think that this early experience made a big impression on me. It made me feel empowered to speak to those in government.
Have you brought your child to speak to elected officials? Would you?
Image Credit: linder6580