He’s the winner, no she did better. The day after a political debate you will always hear the political pundits debating about who the winner of the debate is, but what does your kid think?

We recently watched part of a congressional political debate. I explained the format for this formal way of arguing. As with any communication, there is much more than just the words involved. Appearance and body language, particularly in debates, are very important aspects. As we watched the debate I asked who was making a better impression. Why? Was it because of their clothes? Their tan? The way they held their hands? What made her feel more confident in that person?

Then we talked about the questions. The debate we happened to watch was sponsored by a medical association. As a result all the questions involved medicine, malpractice insurance and doctors. As we watched we discussed why those were issues for that segment of the population. I asked why everything involved medical questions? What was a sponsor?

As the candidates answered the questions we discussed their answers. One candidate kept talking about how wonderful the state legislature was while the other talked about congress. So, I posed the following questions. Why would someone vote for the candidate that keeps saying how great the legislature is doing when this is a congressional position? Would you vote for someone that did not understand the difference between congress and the state legislature? Would you vote for someone that kept praising another political area instead of talking about what they would do if elected?

My goal through it all was for our daughter to analyze the debate, critically think about the answers, see how they looked at the future, how these candidates solved problems, the different aspects of communication and why it all matters. If more people did this you would not hear Monday morning quarterbacks three months later complaining about their newly elected representatives. As one of the greatest countries we have serious responsibilities to not just vote but to vote intelligently and teach our children to do the same.