Your Kid Is Learning From This Election. Here's How to Make It Count.
If you've watched a football game with your kids this month, you've seen them. Dark music, a grainy photo of a candidate, a voice telling you someone is dangerous. The midterm election is November 3rd, October is the heaviest month for political ads, and your kid is sitting right next to you watching every one.
Here's the short answer to how to talk to kids about the election: you don't need to explain every race or share every opinion. You need to teach them three questions they can ask about anything they see or hear. I call it Feel. Real. Paid. Below is why it works, how to adjust it by age, and what the research does and doesn't say.
2024 was the first election my kids were old enough to actually follow. The news, the debates and the ads were on constantly in our house, because we wanted to stay informed and we wanted our kids to understand the basics: what voting is, what we were voting for, and why it matters. This year it's the midterms, and the ads during their dad's football games are scaring my kids as much as they scare me. So I went back to the research.
This really is the most advertised midterm ever
It isn't your imagination. AdImpact, which tracks political ad spending, projects about $11.6 billion for this cycle, more than was spent in the 2024 presidential race. October alone typically accounts for roughly a third of a cycle's ad spending, and campaigns lean heavily on NFL and college football broadcasts to reach voters.
That means the next three weeks are the densest stretch of political advertising most of our kids will ever see.
Why young kids take election ads at face value
An American Psychological Association task force reviewed the research on children and advertising and found that kids under about 7 or 8 generally don't understand that an ad is trying to persuade them. They tend to take what it says as true.
So when a six year old watches an attack ad, they aren't hearing an argument. They're hearing news that a bad person exists. That's why these ads can rattle kids so much. It isn't that your kid is too sensitive. It's that they don't yet have the filter adults use without thinking.
The new wrinkle this year
This is the first midterm where AI-generated campaign ads regularly show up on TV and social feeds. Researchers with the Wesleyan Media Project have tracked about 170 unique AI-using political ads this cycle, and only 31% of them disclosed it. Some place real candidates in scenes that never happened.
Adults struggle to spot these. A kid who can't yet recognize persuasion has no chance on their own, which is exactly why the questions below matter.
Why "that ad is lying" doesn't help
It's the first thing most of us want to say. The problem is that it only ever gets said about the other side's ads. Your kid doesn't learn to think. They learn whose team you're on.
Kids pick up teams early. In a study published this summer in the journal Cognition, children ages 5 to 9 tended to side with their own group's claims even when the evidence in front of them said otherwise. The encouraging part: when accuracy was rewarded instead of loyalty, kids moved back toward the evidence. (The groups in that study were colored T-shirts, not political parties, so it shows the building blocks of partisanship, not partisanship itself.)
A larger survey of more than 1,500 kids ages 6 to 12 found that some children develop a party identity that works much like other social identities, often paired with negative views of the other party's leaders. Kids who learned about politics without forming that identity tended to view the political system more positively.
Feel. Real. Paid.: three questions for every election ad
Ask these out loud, together, whenever an election ad comes on.
Feel: What does this ad want us to feel? Scared? Angry? Proud?
Real: Did that actually happen, or could it be edited or made up?
Paid: Who paid for this? Election ads have to tell you, usually at the very end. Then look them up together.
Two tips that make it stick. Practice on a regular commercial first, like a truck or snack ad, so the skill is ready before the next political ad comes on. And ask the questions about ads you agree with, too. That's what shows your kid this is a skill and not a weapon.
How to adjust it by age
Under 8: Start with Feel. "That ad wants us to feel scared so we'll do something." Then reassure them about whatever specifically worried them.
8 to 12: Add Real. Talk about how videos can be edited or created with AI, and that grown-ups get fooled too.
13 to 17: All three, and Paid becomes homework. Fact-checkers use a technique called lateral reading: leave the source, open new tabs, and see what others say about who's behind it. In a Stanford study of about 500 high school students, six 50-minute lessons in this approach made students twice as likely to spot questionable websites.
Dose it, don't shield it
You don't have to turn off every game. In a 2026 study that tracked teens daily through the 2024 election, political stress rose on days with more election exposure. On low-exposure days, teens reported little to no political stress. The sample was small (36 teens, mostly white, female and Democrats), so treat it as a signal, not a rule.
In practice: talk through some ad breaks, skip or mute others, and don't leave the news running in the background all day.
How you disagree matters too. Research on family conflict by Mark Cummings and Patrick Davies found kids do best when they see adults disagree and then work it out. A respectful disagreement about a candidate, followed by "we see it differently, and that's okay," teaches more than hiding every opinion.
It was never really about the election
These three questions work on what a friend says about a candidate at lunch, the YouTube video they watched last night, and the news article they're citing in their book report. The election is just a major practice field opportunity we’re getting this.
Frequently asked questions
Should I tell my kids who I'm voting for? That's your call. Kids often figure it out anyway, and research by Christopher Ojeda and Peter Hatemi found that about 1 in 5 people adopt the party they think their parents support, even when they're wrong. What matters more than the name is showing your reasoning, and that people who vote differently aren't villains.
My kid is scared of the ads. What do I say? Name the feeling, explain that ads are made to make people feel scared or angry, and reassure them about the specific thing they're worried about. Then lower the dose for a while.
What age should I start? Feel questions works with preschoolers. Conversations about voting itself usually click around early elementary school.
Should I just turn the TV off? Not necessarily. A commercial break with you sitting right there is one of the safest places for a kid to practice this skill.
Want help with your kid specifically?
If your kid is scared, stuck on a side, or asking questions you don't know how to answer, or you want to make sure you are building their critical thinking skills beyond political ads, that's exactly what a free 30 minute discovery call is for. We'll figure out where your kid is and what they're ready for.
Not ready for a call? Get my weekly research breakdowns free on Substack.
By Lauren Greeno
Child & Adolescent Development Specialist & Parenting Coach | Founder, The Parenting Collaborative
Lauren specializes in helping parents understand invisible dynamics shaping their children’s development and redesigning family systems before patterns calcify into adult identity. With expertise in child development, family systems theory, and trauma-informed parenting, she works with families navigating sibling dynamics, only child considerations, neurodivergence, emotional regulation, and breaking generational patterns.
Work with Lauren: Book a discovery call | Learn more| Instagram | TikTok
Sources
AdImpact 2026 cycle projection, reported by NewsNation, Oct 8, 2026; October share of spending reported by CNBC
Political ads and live sports: Basis
Kunkel, D., et al. (2004). Report of the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children. American Psychological Association.
AI political ads tracked by Wesleyan Media Project researchers: The Conversation, via Salon, Oct 6, 2026
Children ages 5 to 9 and group claims, Cognition (2026): University of Maryland summary
Lay, J. C., Holman, M. R., Greenlee, J. S., Oxley, Z. M., & Bos, A. L. (2023). Partisanship on the playground. Political Research Quarterly, 76(3). Link
Daily fluctuations in adolescents' political stress (2026): Illinois State University
Wineburg, S., et al. Lateral reading study, Journal of Educational Psychology: Stanford summary
Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. T. (2010). Marital Conflict and Children: An Emotional Security Perspective. Guilford Press.
Ojeda, C., & Hatemi, P. K. (2015). Accounting for the child in the transmission of party identification. American Sociological Review, 80(6).
