Watching young students, particularly kindergarteners and first graders, participate in the recent community protests has led me to ponder the balance between activism and safeguarding their foundational learning.
Free education is a privilege many children worldwide don’t have.
I’m curious about the extent to which children so young can genuinely comprehend the complex issues like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or if participating might expose them to distressing topics prematurely. Could they actually articulate what it is they’re doing, if asked, by skipping school in these cases?
It makes me wonder if there are more effective, age-appropriate ways to champion causes without impacting their schooling.
I welcome other thoughts on this, if anyone has had a chance to consider it.
Cassandra E. Bodlak
Baywood Park
This article appears in Health & Wellness 2026.
These children dragged to political protests are nothing more than pawns. The parents aught to be ashamed of themselves for bringing the children to protests where they may be teargassed or run over by a car from some unhinged lunatic from either side. Keep the kids out of it.
Sometimes the difference between right and wrong is so clear, even a Kindergartener can understand it.
Children being held in detention centers are missing their normal education daily.
If only more adults were outraged spoke up against this, kids wouldn’t have to get involved.
The kids are being shamefully exploited by cynical activist parents trying to create an emotionally appealling image for the media. They are recklessly exposing their children to the dangers of riots to serve their own thirst for power.
And Christians are doing the same with forcing their religious beliefs on children who have no ability to give informed consent.
I don’t think children should be subject to either choice of ADULTS – not protest events OR religious indoctrination.
Very few kids get tear gassed in church, and most of what they hear is a lot more uplifting than the enraged shrieking of political zealots having a meltdown
Also, parents supporting their children’s involvement in our democracy gives them real life education about morality, personal agency and courage.
And yes, please suggest other ways for them to be involved!
Voice:
Next you’ll recommend children not recite our nation’s pledge of allegiance.
You mean the propaganda we all spout by rote but our own government doesn’t adhere to?
No one has control over the land they were born on. Feeling superior because of something that occurred by sheer chance is unworthy crass entitlement. But I expect no less anymore, from my fellow privileged white folks.
Would a lottery winner be expected to give up their winnings because they were the result of “sheer chance”? We Americans won the lottery, and it is not unreasonable for us to want to protect our good fortune.
I meant to say: additional ways for them to be involved.
Your outrage should be focused on how legal protesters have been and are being attacked with physical violence, pepper spray, teargas and bullets, both rubber and real. Point blank.
I’d recommend that children are taught, as early and often as possible, what demographic and psychological factors make one more susceptible to propaganda and misinformation.
I’d also encourage the reading of George Orwell’s 1984 and the understanding of “doublespeak.”
Voice:
Every aspiration or conjecture of yours depends on the premise that everyone’s needs are taken care of. Our living standards are declining, upward mobility is gone. Everything is collapsing.