Dr. Jessica Peck We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com/AFR $28 may not sound like much, but to a scared mother considering abortion, it can help provide something incredibly important. A real opportunity to pause and see her baby for the first time. Today, a woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can reach for her phone, search for abortion pills, connect with a provider online and have the pills delivered directly to her home. She can move from fear toward abortion incredibly quickly. But your gift can help create another opportunity. For just $28, you can help provide a free ultrasound through a preborn Network clinic. There, a woman can see her baby, talk with people who will listen to what she's facing, receive compassionate support and consider another choice before abortion becomes her answer. And when women see their babies through an ultrasound at a PreBorn Network clinic, 80% choose life. $28 can help provide one ultrasound. $280 can help provide 10. Reach her before the pill does with your strongest gift today, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound250 baby. Or visit preborn.com/AFR that's preborn.com/AFR all gifts are tax- deductible and PreBorn is a five star rated charity. preborn.com/AFR hello and welcome to the Doctor Nursemama show prescribing hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day. And today is a very important day. If you have not heard, which I'm sure you have because it is everywhere today. Today is, election day in our country and there are all kinds of different races on the ballot no matter where you live. But today is election day. This is really important for us. Before you cast your ballot, if you have not already, I want to make sure that you know about ivoterguide This is a resource that is supported by American Family Association. You can go ivoterguide.com now this is a voter education resource that helps you research candidates candidates through a biblical worldview. So to get started just Again, go to ivoterguide.com it is so easy to Use. I used it when I voted. I voted in early voting. I went to ivoterguide.com I put in my address and it brought up my exact ballot, like all of the local races, everything that I was going to vote on. And it helped me to see the research that was done on, where the candidates stand on the issues. So all you do, Again, go to ivoterguide.com Put your address in Select View my voter guide, and you can see the races that are covered in your areas there. You can click on anybody's profile, things that you'll see there are, all of the available research that was done on that candidate. Now, I will say some of the candidates don't respond to requests for information. And that in itself is a little bit of information as well, isn't it? It gives you positions on the issues, their voting records, endorsements, campaign contributions, if that information was provided, so that all of the possible information that's there. Coverage varies by state. So you can use the guide as a starting point, you can examine the supporting information and most importantly, most importantly, prayerfully apply your own discernment as you prepare to vote. Pray before you vote. That is so important. And tonight, here on American Family Radio, they will have live coverage of the election results. That'll be from 6pm to 9pm at least, depending on how things go, how the races shake out, you know, how that can go. That's Central Standard Time. So they will bring you election results live. And I really want to encourage you to go out and vote. If you have children at home, if you are raising grandchildren, take them with you to the polls, let them see what that looks like. And that's what I'm going to talk about for the rest of today, because you're going to hear a lot of political punditry today. And I'll tell you, we have some excellent commentary. There's some excellent options on that. I encourage you to engage. But today, for this hour that I'm with you, I want to talk about something I don't hear people talking about. I really want you to encourage. I want to encourage you to consider how elections and how civic engagement affect your family. How we steward our civic engagement, how we steward our vote, how we communicate about that to our families through our facial expressions, through our, shall I say, potential tirades on issues we feel really passionate about. How do we lead our families? Well, with truth and hope at the same time. Because if you open the news today, it can be really scary and really overwhelming and you can get sucked into A fear cycle really, really quickly. The truth is that election day brings very real questions about leadership in our country, about the good of policies, about the freedoms that have, the freedoms that are at risk, how we exercise our freedoms. And honestly, today's elections will be consequential in determining our, country's future. That alone should bring us to our knees and stop to pray. And we're told in scripture to pray for our, our leaders, and we should do that. Christians should care very deeply about those matters. But how we carry that fear into our homes can really set the tone for pessimism or for hope. And it shapes our family's worldview, especially for the children in the world today who are generations that are born post 911 who believe that the world is generally not safe, who have all of the world's bad news delivered to them in microseconds and live unfiltered coverage. They are looking to the trusted adults in their life on how to interpret these cultural messages.
Children Observe Parental Reactions to Politics and the Importance of Trusting God
And the truth is, children notice our volume when we talk because sometimes when we start talking about things we're passionate about, we get really loud and we start talking like this. And children don't interpret that as, oh, my parents, my grandparents, wow. Their passion inspires me. They think, oh, that scares me a little. I, I don't know if I like that. They notice our facial expressions. They notice our conversations that we're having with other adults around them. The constant checking of our phones are constantly being gl to the news feed, which most of the time things don't. We don't need 24. 7 news coverage to be informed about an issue. We can be really thoughtful about that. So I want to ask you a really reflective question. If your child, if their only understanding of politics was came through watching you this week, if that was their only exposure in the world, I want you to really think about what would they learn about truth? What would they learn about God? What would they learn about how to see the world? If their filter is you? Because the truth is their primary filter is you. And they're learning like, oh, this should scare me. I should be worried about this. I, I should think pessimistically about this. I it that that is, that is a reality. And our children may not fully understand a ballot measure or the intricacies of the policy issues, but they for a slammed door, a, nasty nickname that we throw around a parent who cannot put down the phone and doom scrolls for days, they understand getting off that phone, grumpy and frightened. We are teaching Our kids in this moment how to respond to uncertainty. And my hope is that our kids will look to us and see, no matter the outcome, that God is sovereign, that God is on his throne, that he is not pacing the throne room of heaven saying, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen in these elections? This is such a nail biter.
Navigating Political Disagreements with Civility and Understanding Policy's Impact on Life
I can't. I can't wait to see what happens. That is not the character and nature of our God. And when we see a world today where people disagree strongly about what our country needs and which leaders are going to help, some conversations not only become really unkind, they become really uncivil really quickly. We have strong convictions which we should absolutely hold to, but our children are looking to the language that we. We use, the tone that we use. And we can be passionate, we can be forceful, we can be steadfast in our convictions, but there is no biblical justification for cruelty, for using bad language in our speech. And that is a tough truth. I know. And because politics does feel very personal for me as a policy professor, the number one word that my students use when I pull them coming into my class is dread. They dread it. And, you know, I teach nurses, and nurses to some extent think, oh, I want to remain above that. You know, I just want to take care of patients. But policy drives practice. And in my class, we have one particular assignment that I call close to home, where we start to explore some of the events that have happened in our life and how events in our life were very deeply impacted by policy. We look specifically at health policy, but it is a very transformational moment where you realize that political questions touch things in our lives that we cherish and hold deeply. It impact policy, impacts how we can express and exercise our faith, what, how we interact with our family. What are the thought, what is the authority that parents have? What is the ways that we can keep our families safe? What are the ways we can exercise our freedom, the opportunity that our kids have?
Discerning News Sources and Understanding Motives Behind Media Presentations
Understanding what we fear losing, because that's really a lot of our fear. We fear we will lose some of the freedoms that we have. It helps children understand the intensity of a disagreement without also being, uncharitable about it. We need to help kids recognize the difference between conversation and performance. Now, stick with me here for a minute, because when we're interpreting the news about this, we can get good, good sources of news. But there also is some appeal to having a televised confrontation because it gets people's passions up and, and they want to do that. They want to stoke the Anger, because that's going to st your motivation to go and vote. Or it may be a provocative social media post, something that's really out there and really wild and we are just cue the outrage. And we have to understand that sometimes the outcome, like we want to be motivated and there are things to be rightly outraged about. But sometimes when we're looking at news media, they have an ulterior motivation and, and presenting things to us and the way that they present to us. And so we think, okay, we need to be discerning in the people that we're listen, listening to, thinking. Is this person trying to inform me on the issue so that then I can engage accordingly? Are they simply trying to get a reaction, trying to get a viral video, trying to get more likes and build their platform? That's a fair question to ask. But we also, on the other side of that, need to teach our kids that respectful speech can be deeply convicted. It can be very firm. We need to give our children language such as I disagree with that because, or I think that that would hurt people or I don't believe that is true. Children need to feel free to say those kinds of things. But that can be a scary thing. I, had a student not too long ago who had shared about just a very simple, a very simple post that they made, in a group text that went, that was contrary to what the, the belief was, that was on the text string and that was screenshotted and went viral. Student had death threats. I mean, that is just the kind of world that we live in. So children are feeling rightly afraid, but they're afraid generally for different reasons than their parents are afraid, than their, than their grandparents are afraid. They have a different perspective on the world because they think, am I going to be punished for speaking my mind? Am I going to go viral? Will my safety be threatened? Those are really real fears that we need to have some compassion and empathy for. And we need to recognize that, that kids are growing up at different rates and they're they're maturing at different rates. Their brain is maturing at different rates. They have different personalities. Some kids may be really comfortable in speaking their convictions at an early age, and some kids may feel more trepidatious about that. And we need to respond to kids individually. We need kids to understand that political disagreement can involve moral convictions. And most of the time that is at the root of that and different judgments about how to solve a problem. Problem. Because there's two different issues. Here we have the issue at hand. We may disagree about the fundamentals of the issue. We may agree about the fundamentals of the issue, but we may disagree about how to address it. Two people may both want, say they want a safer community. They may say they want safer schools. They may say they want few. They both want fewer families living in poverty while disagreeing very dramatically about which policies will actually help. So we can ask kids, okay, is this a disagreement about the issue or is this a disagreement about the action to fix the issue? Because those are going to direct the conversation in different areas. And both of them are really formed by values. And we can acknowledge that some disagreements involve fundamental moral questions. Some of the issues, we are not going to say we agree to disagree because you may fundamentally disagree based on your moral values, based on your. Your spiritual convictions. And so sometimes a political dispute is not just a misunderstanding. People can hold convict conflicting beliefs about their rights, about their responsibilities, about human dignity and the proper role of government. And we need to make sure that kids are empowered to speak about their values. That is the beauty of the freedom of speech that we have in America is being able to speak about those convictions. And we also know that good intentions can have negative impacts. So you may think, okay, you, you wanted to help with this policy, here's how it can be harmful. That is, that is really hard. When I come, when we come back, I know these are times things, but we'll talk about how we can treat people with honor and treat people as created in the image of God while still fundamentally disagreeing about a policy. How do we hold firmly to truth while still speaking with dignity? And, before our time is up, I'm going to give you some suggestions for how to get your family civically engaged, how to motivate your kids to exercise the rights that they have. I'll be right back on this election day. Go vote. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nursemama. did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist. And that's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.net/give that's afr.net/give
Dr. Jessica Peck up. It never runs out on me, your love love never fails it never gives up it never runs out on me, your love. And on and on and on and on it comes guess it overwhelms and satisfies my soul and I never ever had have to be afraid cuz this one fade re Love never fails it never gives up it never runs out on me Your love never fails it never gives up it never runs out on me? Your love never fails and I love gives up never runs out on me.
Dr. Jessica Peck Welcome back friends. That is One Thing Remains by Kristian Stanfill and Passion and I remember very vividly one day walking into a another state to a a surgeon's office where my husband was going to have emergency surgery and feeling so overwhelmed and so scared and hearing that song on blast in the lobby and knowing that I was going to be okay. And today is election day and no matter what happens, no matter the outcome, you are going to be okay. Because we are fighting a battle that is already won. To quote the words of the song I'm playing on repeat by Shane and Shane, I encourage you to go out and vote if you have not already voted. And whether you voted or not, I encourage you to pray today for the election. We'll do that together before our time is up. If you haven't voted yet you can use ivoterguide.com go on the Internet go to ivoterguide.com it's really easy. A little box comes up right in the middle of the page. You put in your address it will give you your ballot and the candidates positions on the measures. American Family Radio will be providing live election coverage tonight from 6 to 9pm Central Standard Time Time 9 ish depending on how things go, it may linger on a little bit just depending on the state of some of the races. But we have the power of the Senate, the power of the U.S. house of Representatives in the balance along with many state races, State senators, state legislators, state representatives, US Senators, governors, all kinds of races going on. Go out and vote if you haven't already. Today I'm not giving you political punditry. I'm really talking about application at home. How do we be good stewards of the freedoms that we've given us and how do we model those in a way that doesn't turn our kids off to anything political? And honestly I see that happening more and more where Gen Z, Gen Alpha, they just kind of disengage or they don't want to talk to their parents or grandparents about politics because they don't like what they see it does to their parents and grandparents. Ties them in knots, makes them angry, makes them start to get up on the soapbox, makes them fearful about the world. We are teaching our children how to interpret that current political state and as to how it applies to their everyday life. One of the most important things that we can do is ground dignity being made in God's image and make sure that we are talking about policy, that, that we are just saying that policy is contrary to God's word, that action is evil. That statement is untrue. This policy could cause harm where that without name calling and just losing, losing the, the values of our faith and, and the values of what scripture call. How Scripture calls us to speak and to be salt and light in a world that desperately needs, needs it. And sometimes our kids can feel responsible for like defending the family's political beliefs. And sometimes some kids are really have convictions from early age and their temperament, their personality, their situation just gradually extends themselves that they're, they're going to tell you what they think. But there's some kids who feel a little more trepidatious about that. And I think we need to give our kids permission to be learners, give them some language to say when uncomfortable political conversations come up at school, because they do even in elementary school. And you can say, you know what? I'm, I'm trusting my parents on that. I'm still learning about that. I'd rather talk about something else else. It's okay to change the subject and not to talk about it. Especially if that is at the lunch table where that is not closely moderated and there's just a little bit of uncomfort there. We need to give our kids permission and some words and some practice to say to walk away from a conversation. It's okay to protect our kids in that way. They will learn, they will grow and as they become adults will have different expectations as they'll have for themselves. But we, we need to make sure that we are, are doing that. We also don't want our kids to feel like they have to take responsibility for adult emotions. If we're really upset about how the election outcome is and we say things like, I am so afraid about what's going to happen. Our, our state is ruined, our country is ruined. Our, this is awful. This is catastrophic. I cannot tell you how bad this is going to be. I don't even know what's going to happen. That hands some really heavy emotions, especially to younger kids who feel like, okay, mommy's upset, Daddy's upset. I don't know what to do to make them feel better. And these are fears that they cannot fully evaluate, they cannot resolve. We need to be really careful in the emotions that we show to them and give them some faith Based hope, based messaging. Like you. Yeah, I'm really unhappy with how the election turned out, but I am going to choose to trust God in all of this. I am going to continue to pray for our country. I'm going to continue to engage and Mommy's okay, Daddy's okay. We need to give them some reassurance and, and, and answer their questions that they have. If they have questions about, why do you believe that? Because I've heard a lot of other people who don't believe that, who heard conflicting things, don't shame them. Sometimes we, we have fear. Like, oh, no, they're listening to other voices and their sphere, and I'm losing influence and they're going to adopt a worldview that's not ours. And, oh, no. And all of a sudden you have just run 47 miles down the road to nowhere in the future. So let's just reel it in. And just when they ask questions to say, I'm so glad you're coming to me with questions. Thank you for trusting me with your questions. These are big issues and there are lots of questions, and I am always a safe place that you can come to for questions and recogn that in their brain. This is part of the important work of stretching and growing. And when they ask questions and we're starting to explain to them why we believe what we believe, that is an important part of their development. It's not just, do what I say, adopt this. No questions, ask. They need to work that out. That is really important. And when we get it wrong, when we are upset about the things the, the state of our country, which can happen, I acknowledge. Remember, I teach policy, so I'm deeply engaged here. Just repair when you need to just go back and say, you know what? I let my attitude about what happened today spill over into dinner. Y' all didn't deserve that. I'm sorry about that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put up a boundary there. My. I know my concern is real. What happened was, was terrible, but my words were wrong. I'm responsible for handling my frustration, and I'm not going to spill that over at the dinner table. It's perfectly fine to mod. So I encourage you today on election day to start some conversation with your family to say, hey, what have you heard about the election? What do you think it means? Is anything worrying you? I did this for my kids, who are young adults and older teenagers.
Gathering Family Perspectives and Maintaining a Balanced View on Election Outcomes
Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Because every one of them had a very different perspective on the pulse of their peers, like what they're hearing what their perception is, what they're seeing on their social media feed. Very, very different. Just depending on, ah. And you may find that with your family where they are, geograph where they are, you know, what their workplace is, what their profession is, all of these things are going to impact the way that they're hearing things. But it's really helpful, I think, to hear a balanced perspective because you could talk to one person, they could say, oh, this is absolutely how this election's gonna go. And then you talk to somebody else, somewhere else else, and they say, oh no, oh no, this is what's gonna happen. And we know what happens on election day. The polls often get it wrong. And so keep a balanced perspective. That is really important. So we're going to teach our kids believe what we support and why. We're going to talk about what we oppose, why we oppose it and why we oppose it. And I just encourage you to speak with civility, with dignity, and with, with regard for other people as made in the image of God. I hope that that is something that we can all aspire to now. When our kids see our primary emotion of anger, which I see anger and fear and, and a lot of times we're angry because we're afraid that anger comes out because we are afraid. Kids can respond. What I see usually is kids responding in two ways to their, the adults in their life. When they see that anger, the first way that they can respond is just disengagement. That is uncomfortable. I don't want to be a part of that. This is consuming your life. It's making you so upset. It's impacting our family time, time. I don't want anything to do with that. So the way that they can express that is politics is stupid. I don't want to know anything about that. Everybody lies. Nothing matters. And so we need to respond to that with some curiosity. Okay, what feels what. What feels angry about it? What, where do you feel the conflict in that? And just you. We can show, an example of construction act, constructive action instead of just simmering in our own anger. We can say, yeah, I'm angry about this. Here's what I'm about it. I am encouraging people to vote. I have done that myself. I had. I, have teenagers in my house a lot of the time, and I'm asking them, hey, are you registered to vote? Let me give you some information. You should talk to your parents about going to vote. Because I'll tell you, the teenagers in my state, they were absolutely appalled that you cannot fully register online. And that's just the truth. So I'm teaching them how to make an envelope, how to use a stamp. And they're thinking this is just archaic. Well that's a good conversation to have have because that's another way that it feeds their perception that hey, this is out of touch, like do you really want me to vote? Because this is, this is wild. Now the first way that I said that kids can respond to adult anger is just being disengaged, apathetic. The second way that kids can respond is being hyper vigilant and then adopting that fear on their, on themselves. So they may just ask you that. The way that, that shows up in everyday life is asking repeated questions about danger, just constantly checking like what happened today, what's going to happen, what's going to happen, what's going to happen? Or feeling responsible somehow for what happens. So we can say, we can give messages like this election matters. It's important. The things that happen will impact our life. But God is sovereign. We trust God and God is good. Even when we think the outcome of the election is not. You can always come to me and ask your questions and I'm a safe place for you. That's important. Don't make promises about the outcomes that we can't keep. We can't promise them that they're absolutely be safe. We can promise them that we'll do everything possible, possible in our power, that we will move heaven and earth and do everything we can to keep them safe. But recognize that their ultimate safety, we have to surrender to God. Another thing you can do with kids who are feeling hyper vigilant and fearful is just be consistent, have a consistent meal time, a consistent school routine, bedtime. Just those rhythms of ordinary family life are really, really important. That is important. Another important thing, discern together the news sources that you're going to follow as a family. Talk about it and ask, you know, who, who produced this? Who supports this claim? What kind of content is it? What's missing? Can we verify it elsewhere? So this was some interesting information as I was looking to prepare to talk to you today. Some of the statistics that I was able to find. Let me share this with you because I think this gives you, this will give you some perspective on especially on how kids are digesting this. We know that digital news dominates. Most kids are most adults are getting their news from digital sources. But television and radio still matter. I'm so glad for that because I'm on the radio right now, so that is Good to hear from a selfish perspective. But the Pew Research report this year found that 88% of U.S. adults get their news from digital devices at least sometimes it's 63% from television, 43% from radio, 22% from printed newspapers are material magazines. that would probably include me. I still, I still like a good printed newspaper magazine. But here's the thing in today, in 2026, social media is a mainstream news pathway, that just over half of adults said they get news from social media at least sometimes. Now, younger adults are more likely than older adults to regular, regularly get news through social media streams. And the platform tells us where someone encountered a story, not who originally reported it or, or not it's accurate. And so that's something to think about.
The Influence of Social Media Personalities and Algorithms on Worldviews
Another thing to think about is that personalities have really become important, much more important even than they were. We used to have a very small number of personalities. Most people got their news from Walter Cronkite, like that was it. And then we had the main station nighttime news anchors. That was who you got your information from. But we see that increasingly adults are getting their news from social media news influencers. And it's about, about a quarter of adults, but, almost 40% of adults age 18 to 29. So we see that rising. Here's the most important thing that I saw what I was researching in this. Much of that news arrives not on purpose. So among adults who regularly get news from influencers, 69% percent said they just happen across it, they're not deliberately seeking it out. Now this is important to me because that means your political worldview is being shaped by an algorithm. Whether that's intentional or not, most of the time it is not. So for parents, we can see like, oh, well, my kid doesn't watch politics or the news. We're getting fed political content. And if a child is curious about something, they can start following it. And then the algorithm feeds them more and more, normalizes like, seems to like, oh, this is a mainstream view. Everybody thinks this and they are not taught. We are not yet good at teaching children digital discernment on their media sources. How do you know what source is trustworthy? Can I trust this person? And not just because they have millions of followers, not just because I see people. I trust in the followers. That can be a starting place. But we really need more questions to know who is reporting, reporting this? Who is a, who is that person? How do they know what they know? Are they reporting information or interpreting it? That's really important when you see something on social media? Are you checking the original context instead of just sharing it, not realizing it was a story from three years ago? Are you looking for independent confirmation and applying the same standard to sources that you like? Would I accept this evidence if it came from somewhere else? So, when we come back, I'll talk about some practical family exercises that you can have to discern media news sources. I'll, tell, you how to get your family civically engaged, and we'll talk about praying for the election today. Go and vote if you haven't already. I'll see you on the other side of this break. Do you believe in the absolute inerrancy of God's holy word? Do you believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to radically change lives and empower us to live like Christ? At Wesley Biblical Seminary, we believe God is raising up a movement of people across our nation and across the world who hold fast to the authority of the Bible and the hope of holiness. We are working today to equip tomorrow's pastors and Christian leaders through biblical and theological education in practical ministry that's accredited, affordable, online and highly personal. Our programs include undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees, certificate programs, and even training for laypeople. So whatever your next step is in being equipped for ministry, we're here for you. And if you believe these are the kinds of pastors we need leading our churches in the future, we invite you to learn more about partnering with us through giving. Learn more about Wesley Biblical Seminary by visiting us at wbs.edu today.
Jesus Is My Healer by Gateway Worship featuring Jessie Harris Jesus is my healer. He's everything M I need. He alone has triumphed over sickness and disease here. Where is your power? The cross is your defeat. Jesus is my he has won the victory.
Dr. Jessica Peck Welcome back, friends. That is Jesus is my healer. Gateway worship featuring Jessie Harris and Jesus is our healer. He can heal us as people and we are praying for him to heal our land. I encourage you today on election day to go and vote. If you haven't already voted, get somebody else to go vote with you. Take your family to vote with you. If you haven't voted yet, you can go to ivoterguide.com and you can see the ballot that is in your area. You just put your address in and it will give you information on all the candidates. And American Family Radio will provide election coverage to tonight from 6 to 9pm Central Time and whether you have voted or not. I encourage you to pray about the election. And today we're talking about how politics impacts families and how we can really be careful stewards of our worldview. And when we're looking at our worldview, it's much influenced by the information that we get, much of which comes to us. As I shared before the break, unsought. We don't seek it out. The algorithm is seeking to find us. So I encourage you to have conversations with your family about, who are you following and how do you know that they are trustworthy. So maybe a practical family exercise. Just choose one election related headline that you see, have everybody bring one that they have, that they've seen, that they've heard and investigated it together. Look at who reported it, what evidence is available about it. Does the full story support the headline? Are they trying to feed you information or are they trying to influence your worldview? Sometimes it's both. What remains unknown? What is the discernment that is needed? How does it compare to the biblical values we want our children to become discerning? We want them to know that information can be tested and then not everything you hear on the news is accurate. That is really important. So some practical family boundaries you can have for news coverage is just check in, occasionally. Know when you're going, what news program you're going to watch. Maybe there's a specific program you watch, a specific social media channel that you check every day instead of kind of having it playing continuously in the background and feeding that feeling of urgency and anxiety. Review troubling stories together before younger children encounter them alone. This is something that's really important. When I hear something disturbing on the news, I do tell my kids about it. Even when they're younger. I don't tell them all of the gory details. And sometimes I'll tell them something like this. I'll say, hey, there was something scary that happened in the news today. Somebody got hurt, and it happened at this. You know, you could say it happened at this school, it happened at this state. If you start to hear kids talking about it at school, it's not something I really want you to hear about from them. So I want you to feel very free to walk away from the conversation. You can say, oh, my mom told me about that. I'm, just going to talk to her about it, change the subject, walk away, and if the situation is out of their control, come and talk to me about it and I'll answer your questions. Because I find that kids are very, very exposed to news stories today. And most of the time my kids have heard about it before I even picked them up from school. That's Important. And during coverage, you know, really talk about what you're looking for, what you're hoping for, what you're praying for. And when you feel fearful, turn that into being faithful to go to prayer. So tonight, no matter what the election results are, let your children, no matter how old they are, I don't even care if they're adult children. You can model this well in your family. Let them know that you care a little, a lot, but remain steady. Remain committed to your faith that God is in control, truth matters, elections matter. But fear does not have the final say in our house. That is a really powerful message that we can have.
Civic Engagement as Service and Modeling Research and Humility
So how do we move our family to action? Just, we don't want to just watch the news and simmer it in and just simmer in our own emotions. We want to show them how to civically engage, that voting is an important responsibility, that civic life life includes service. And children are learning how to be good citizens by watching how we treat our neighbors, how we act as employees, how we interact with people who, with whom we disagree. Those things are important. We are preparing our kids for more than did my side win? We want to say, okay, how can I engage to help for the best of my community? Help my community flourish. Where, where does my voice matter? Where can I engage? Let them see you model what it looks like to prepare. Research the candidates, research the issues to know and be fully informed. Teach them characteristics like humility, saying, hey, I need to know more about that before I have an opinion. I want to learn a little bit more, do a little bit more research or you know, I had an opinion on this, but after researching a little bit more, I've changed my mind on this particular issue. This is, this is something that I feel like because some of those, some of the issues are very, very clear, some of them not so much. Some of those can be really difficult to wrestle with. We can model integrity by applying the same standards of honesty and conduct to leaders that we support. We can really support a leader and really, like the policies that they have and still call out bad behavior or bad decision. We can demonstrate respect by listening to others without interrupting and challenging ideas, without humiliating people. We can show a life of certain by engaging, rolling up our sleeves. We can show accountability by supporting. Explain that supporting a leader doesn't mean approving every decision. We still leaders are still held accountable for those decisions. And I think most importantly, conviction, staying firm to your values despite pressure from outside sources that you might get. So here's some practical ideas for ways to Engage for younger kids, explain to them what an election is, take them to the voting booth with you. Talk about, you know, you can have even kids books that you talk about civic engagement, that that's really important for school age kids. They can start to learn about which responsibilities belong to the mayor. Who's the mayor in your city, who's the school board, who's the governor? How are their decisions impacting your life? Find you might write a respectful question or a thank you note to a public official or attend part of an appropriate public meeting together and take them with you. See the city council or the school board. For teenagers you can really have some great discussion about what they believe and why and help them to prepare to learn to vote, to register to vote, how to vote, where to vote. Some of those rules are pretty confusing if I'm being really honest. So and, and maybe as a family challenge, you can just choose one issue and, and learn who's responsible for it, have a family discussion about it. Maybe you even have a mock debate that can be really fun. Maybe you even have a mock election at home and that might be really fun. Now you don't always have to start this about politics. You can just start this from another issue and then translate that to politics because sometimes kids will be less willing to engage. But if you say, hey, we're going to research an issue of where our family vacation is going to be this year, we're going to research where we should go. And you know, what are, what are all of the things that we should consider? Maybe even it's something more altruistic than that, like what family service project should we do? Let's let each kid come up and make a pitch about this is the family service project that we do. You vote about it. But it would be really fun to do that for an election. I've done that before for presidential election. I actually do that for my policy students. It's a lot of fun. Establish the rules, research the choices, let every candidate give a brief presentation, give those private ballots, count them transparently, practice the response. Do you see how so our kids can learn about the processes and we can teach them so much about the principles of that that, but just having a fun family activity at home and so then ask some questions afterwards. Hey, did everybody have a fair opportunity to participate?
Making Civic Education Relational and Serving Neighbors with Conviction and Love
What, how was that experience for you? You know, what were the rules like? How do you feel about the outcome? How do we respond to that? This teaching our kids citizenship is going to be most effective when we make it relational when we don't make it legalistic or fear based, when we make it engaging and relational. Where we're serving alongside our neighbor, we're seeing real people alongside policy discussions, where we're talking about how do we live in community with people with whom we very, very strongly disagree, how do we still serve our neighbors, how do we still share our faith with people who disagree with us, how do we treat them, how do we engage, how do we hold firm to our convictions and not compromise on truth at all, but still love the people around, around us? Those are things that you can really think about being intentional about, modeling at home. And that's going to go over much better than kids just watching in the background seeing their parents glued to the election coverage and saying oh no, every time a result comes in, or even cheering, you know, yes, like just seeing, seeing a teaching perspective. Much more than just that emotional engagement. So ultimately the most important thing that you can do with the concerns that you have about the election today is to bring those concerns before your loving Heavenly Father, to acknowledge that before the Lord, that He already knows what you feel about today's election.
Bringing Election Concerns to God and Trusting His Sovereignty
Whether you feel hopeful, you feel anxious, you feel disappointed, you feel uncertain. Whatever that emotion is, really bring that before the Lord and recognize that these issues are deeply important. They do matter. They do impact our lives. There are policies and leaders enacted who will act contrary to our values. That is a fear inducing, bring that to the Lord. But also remember that our hope as Christians does not rest in election results ever. It rests in the character and nature of God. Our hope is a person and that, is the person of Jesus Christ. God's sovereignty gives us the courage to act faithfully. It doesn't guarantee that every action of a winning candidate has God's approval. It doesn't guarantee the outcome of the election. But it does guarantee that God is sovereign and he is in control. And ultimately he will work all things together for good for those who, who love him and are called according to his purpose. We don't yet know, as I'm sitting here right now, we don't know what the outcome of tonight will be. It could, if you listen to the news, it is certain to go in opposite directions. And each, each group is very, very certain about that. And there is also a lot of uncertainty in the middle. But God is not uncertain. Our future is not uncertain in his hands. We may not know what the future holds. We know who holds the future. And he is a good, good Father. He is trustworthy. He will carry us through. And if he allows trials to come into our lives, he will give us the strength that we need to, to get through them. So I encourage you to take some time to pray for the election today. I want to give you some specific prayer prompts and I invite you just to join me. Me and going before the Heavenly Father even now and just praying, just opening a conversation with God and continuing that conversation, not even to be closed when the election results are done or when you finally decide to give up and go to bed and see what it is in the morning. I encourage you to pray and give your request to God. We are have been talking about gratitude. We're going to talk about that tomorrow on the show. I can't wait for that. But that is such an important posture to come before the Lord not just with our needs first, but with thanks and gratitude for the ways that he has already met our needs even before we need them. Thank God for opportunities to participate, to serve, to speak and seek the common good. Thank God for the freedoms that we have in this country, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion. Thank God for the neighbors and churches and families that he has given. Thank those who are serving in the election process. That's one of my favorite things to do is to thank the election workers, workers for engaging in helping us to exercise our rights. That is something that is worthy to be celebrated. Those are volunteers and they deserve to be treated with respect. And we can also be grateful for the things that maybe our anxiety has just pushed out of you. ask God to open your eyes to the gifts that he has already given you and for forgiveness for missing out on those and for not being grateful for the ways that he has already already provided. Go to the Lord with an honest heart of gratitude and just give yourself an honest self examination show. Ask God to show you where your words, where your actions, where the expression of your emotions needs to change. Ask God to help us to seek truth patiently, to respond with integrity. Pray for our leaders at every level. Pray for wisdom, for justice, for accountability, for truth to prevail. Fail. Pray for the leaders you support. Pray for the leaders you oppose. Pray that our leaders would make wise decisions. Pray for the kids who are absorbing adult anxiety. Pray for the homes that are fractured by political division. Pray that God would restore relationships and ask God to make your home a place of love that holds firm to truth but also loves others well. Pray and ask God to give you faithfulness after, after the results, no matter what the results, graciousness and victory, comfort and disappointment, endurance and uncertainty. Pray as we receive those results where those of you who are disappointed by tonight, who are waiting, any anyone, I encourage you to go before the Father, the and and really to think about how we are communicating to our kids. When the results come in tonight, no matter what happens, our calling continues. We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and love our neighbors as ourselves. We are called to speak the truth in love and to walk faithfully into tomorrow, no matter what the future holds. If you haven't gone and voted, go vote. Call somebody else, remind them, call them, text them, Take your kids and as you do, I pray so fervently. The Lord would bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. I'll see you tomorrow. We'd like to thank our sponsors, including PreBorn. PreBorn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion and has seen over 100,000 commitments to Christ. Will you join PreBorn in continuing this good work? supporting young moms in crisis? Save a life today, Go to preborn.com/AFR
Jeff Chamblee the views and opinions expressed in this program broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Dr. Jessica Peck We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com/AFR $28 may not sound like much, but to a scared mother considering abortion, it can help provide something incredibly important. A real opportunity to pause and see her baby for the first time. Today, a woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can reach for her phone, search for abortion pills, connect with a provider online and have the pills delivered directly to her home. She can move from fear toward abortion incredibly quickly. But your gift can help create another opportunity. For just $28, you can help provide a free ultrasound through a preborn Network clinic. There, a woman can see her baby, talk with people who will listen to what she's facing, receive compassionate support and consider another choice before abortion becomes her answer. And when women see their babies through an ultrasound at a PreBorn Network clinic, 80% choose life. $28 can help provide one ultrasound. $280 can help provide 10. Reach her before the pill does with your strongest gift today, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound250 baby. Or visit preborn.com/AFR that's preborn.com/AFR all gifts are tax- deductible and PreBorn is a five star rated charity. preborn.com/AFR hello and welcome to the Doctor Nursemama show prescribing hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day. And today is a very important day. If you have not heard, which I'm sure you have because it is everywhere today. Today is, election day in our country and there are all kinds of different races on the ballot no matter where you live. But today is election day. This is really important for us. Before you cast your ballot, if you have not already, I want to make sure that you know about ivoterguide This is a resource that is supported by American Family Association. You can go ivoterguide.com now this is a voter education resource that helps you research candidates candidates through a biblical worldview. So to get started just Again, go to ivoterguide.com it is so easy to Use. I used it when I voted. I voted in early voting. I went to ivoterguide.com I put in my address and it brought up my exact ballot, like all of the local races, everything that I was going to vote on. And it helped me to see the research that was done on, where the candidates stand on the issues. So all you do, Again, go to ivoterguide.com Put your address in Select View my voter guide, and you can see the races that are covered in your areas there. You can click on anybody's profile, things that you'll see there are, all of the available research that was done on that candidate. Now, I will say some of the candidates don't respond to requests for information. And that in itself is a little bit of information as well, isn't it? It gives you positions on the issues, their voting records, endorsements, campaign contributions, if that information was provided, so that all of the possible information that's there. Coverage varies by state. So you can use the guide as a starting point, you can examine the supporting information and most importantly, most importantly, prayerfully apply your own discernment as you prepare to vote. Pray before you vote. That is so important. And tonight, here on American Family Radio, they will have live coverage of the election results. That'll be from 6pm to 9pm at least, depending on how things go, how the races shake out, you know, how that can go. That's Central Standard Time. So they will bring you election results live. And I really want to encourage you to go out and vote. If you have children at home, if you are raising grandchildren, take them with you to the polls, let them see what that looks like. And that's what I'm going to talk about for the rest of today, because you're going to hear a lot of political punditry today. And I'll tell you, we have some excellent commentary. There's some excellent options on that. I encourage you to engage. But today, for this hour that I'm with you, I want to talk about something I don't hear people talking about. I really want you to encourage. I want to encourage you to consider how elections and how civic engagement affect your family. How we steward our civic engagement, how we steward our vote, how we communicate about that to our families through our facial expressions, through our, shall I say, potential tirades on issues we feel really passionate about. How do we lead our families? Well, with truth and hope at the same time. Because if you open the news today, it can be really scary and really overwhelming and you can get sucked into A fear cycle really, really quickly. The truth is that election day brings very real questions about leadership in our country, about the good of policies, about the freedoms that have, the freedoms that are at risk, how we exercise our freedoms. And honestly, today's elections will be consequential in determining our, country's future. That alone should bring us to our knees and stop to pray. And we're told in scripture to pray for our, our leaders, and we should do that. Christians should care very deeply about those matters. But how we carry that fear into our homes can really set the tone for pessimism or for hope. And it shapes our family's worldview, especially for the children in the world today who are generations that are born post 911 who believe that the world is generally not safe, who have all of the world's bad news delivered to them in microseconds and live unfiltered coverage. They are looking to the trusted adults in their life on how to interpret these cultural messages.
Children Observe Parental Reactions to Politics and the Importance of Trusting God
And the truth is, children notice our volume when we talk because sometimes when we start talking about things we're passionate about, we get really loud and we start talking like this. And children don't interpret that as, oh, my parents, my grandparents, wow. Their passion inspires me. They think, oh, that scares me a little. I, I don't know if I like that. They notice our facial expressions. They notice our conversations that we're having with other adults around them. The constant checking of our phones are constantly being gl to the news feed, which most of the time things don't. We don't need 24. 7 news coverage to be informed about an issue. We can be really thoughtful about that. So I want to ask you a really reflective question. If your child, if their only understanding of politics was came through watching you this week, if that was their only exposure in the world, I want you to really think about what would they learn about truth? What would they learn about God? What would they learn about how to see the world? If their filter is you? Because the truth is their primary filter is you. And they're learning like, oh, this should scare me. I should be worried about this. I, I should think pessimistically about this. I it that that is, that is a reality. And our children may not fully understand a ballot measure or the intricacies of the policy issues, but they for a slammed door, a, nasty nickname that we throw around a parent who cannot put down the phone and doom scrolls for days, they understand getting off that phone, grumpy and frightened. We are teaching Our kids in this moment how to respond to uncertainty. And my hope is that our kids will look to us and see, no matter the outcome, that God is sovereign, that God is on his throne, that he is not pacing the throne room of heaven saying, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen in these elections? This is such a nail biter.
Navigating Political Disagreements with Civility and Understanding Policy's Impact on Life
I can't. I can't wait to see what happens. That is not the character and nature of our God. And when we see a world today where people disagree strongly about what our country needs and which leaders are going to help, some conversations not only become really unkind, they become really uncivil really quickly. We have strong convictions which we should absolutely hold to, but our children are looking to the language that we. We use, the tone that we use. And we can be passionate, we can be forceful, we can be steadfast in our convictions, but there is no biblical justification for cruelty, for using bad language in our speech. And that is a tough truth. I know. And because politics does feel very personal for me as a policy professor, the number one word that my students use when I pull them coming into my class is dread. They dread it. And, you know, I teach nurses, and nurses to some extent think, oh, I want to remain above that. You know, I just want to take care of patients. But policy drives practice. And in my class, we have one particular assignment that I call close to home, where we start to explore some of the events that have happened in our life and how events in our life were very deeply impacted by policy. We look specifically at health policy, but it is a very transformational moment where you realize that political questions touch things in our lives that we cherish and hold deeply. It impact policy, impacts how we can express and exercise our faith, what, how we interact with our family. What are the thought, what is the authority that parents have? What is the ways that we can keep our families safe? What are the ways we can exercise our freedom, the opportunity that our kids have?
Discerning News Sources and Understanding Motives Behind Media Presentations
Understanding what we fear losing, because that's really a lot of our fear. We fear we will lose some of the freedoms that we have. It helps children understand the intensity of a disagreement without also being, uncharitable about it. We need to help kids recognize the difference between conversation and performance. Now, stick with me here for a minute, because when we're interpreting the news about this, we can get good, good sources of news. But there also is some appeal to having a televised confrontation because it gets people's passions up and, and they want to do that. They want to stoke the Anger, because that's going to st your motivation to go and vote. Or it may be a provocative social media post, something that's really out there and really wild and we are just cue the outrage. And we have to understand that sometimes the outcome, like we want to be motivated and there are things to be rightly outraged about. But sometimes when we're looking at news media, they have an ulterior motivation and, and presenting things to us and the way that they present to us. And so we think, okay, we need to be discerning in the people that we're listen, listening to, thinking. Is this person trying to inform me on the issue so that then I can engage accordingly? Are they simply trying to get a reaction, trying to get a viral video, trying to get more likes and build their platform? That's a fair question to ask. But we also, on the other side of that, need to teach our kids that respectful speech can be deeply convicted. It can be very firm. We need to give our children language such as I disagree with that because, or I think that that would hurt people or I don't believe that is true. Children need to feel free to say those kinds of things. But that can be a scary thing. I, had a student not too long ago who had shared about just a very simple, a very simple post that they made, in a group text that went, that was contrary to what the, the belief was, that was on the text string and that was screenshotted and went viral. Student had death threats. I mean, that is just the kind of world that we live in. So children are feeling rightly afraid, but they're afraid generally for different reasons than their parents are afraid, than their, than their grandparents are afraid. They have a different perspective on the world because they think, am I going to be punished for speaking my mind? Am I going to go viral? Will my safety be threatened? Those are really real fears that we need to have some compassion and empathy for. And we need to recognize that, that kids are growing up at different rates and they're they're maturing at different rates. Their brain is maturing at different rates. They have different personalities. Some kids may be really comfortable in speaking their convictions at an early age, and some kids may feel more trepidatious about that. And we need to respond to kids individually. We need kids to understand that political disagreement can involve moral convictions. And most of the time that is at the root of that and different judgments about how to solve a problem. Problem. Because there's two different issues. Here we have the issue at hand. We may disagree about the fundamentals of the issue. We may agree about the fundamentals of the issue, but we may disagree about how to address it. Two people may both want, say they want a safer community. They may say they want safer schools. They may say they want few. They both want fewer families living in poverty while disagreeing very dramatically about which policies will actually help. So we can ask kids, okay, is this a disagreement about the issue or is this a disagreement about the action to fix the issue? Because those are going to direct the conversation in different areas. And both of them are really formed by values. And we can acknowledge that some disagreements involve fundamental moral questions. Some of the issues, we are not going to say we agree to disagree because you may fundamentally disagree based on your moral values, based on your. Your spiritual convictions. And so sometimes a political dispute is not just a misunderstanding. People can hold convict conflicting beliefs about their rights, about their responsibilities, about human dignity and the proper role of government. And we need to make sure that kids are empowered to speak about their values. That is the beauty of the freedom of speech that we have in America is being able to speak about those convictions. And we also know that good intentions can have negative impacts. So you may think, okay, you, you wanted to help with this policy, here's how it can be harmful. That is, that is really hard. When I come, when we come back, I know these are times things, but we'll talk about how we can treat people with honor and treat people as created in the image of God while still fundamentally disagreeing about a policy. How do we hold firmly to truth while still speaking with dignity? And, before our time is up, I'm going to give you some suggestions for how to get your family civically engaged, how to motivate your kids to exercise the rights that they have. I'll be right back on this election day. Go vote. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nursemama. did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist. And that's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.net/give that's afr.net/give
Dr. Jessica Peck up. It never runs out on me, your love love never fails it never gives up it never runs out on me, your love. And on and on and on and on it comes guess it overwhelms and satisfies my soul and I never ever had have to be afraid cuz this one fade re Love never fails it never gives up it never runs out on me Your love never fails it never gives up it never runs out on me? Your love never fails and I love gives up never runs out on me.
Dr. Jessica Peck Welcome back friends. That is One Thing Remains by Kristian Stanfill and Passion and I remember very vividly one day walking into a another state to a a surgeon's office where my husband was going to have emergency surgery and feeling so overwhelmed and so scared and hearing that song on blast in the lobby and knowing that I was going to be okay. And today is election day and no matter what happens, no matter the outcome, you are going to be okay. Because we are fighting a battle that is already won. To quote the words of the song I'm playing on repeat by Shane and Shane, I encourage you to go out and vote if you have not already voted. And whether you voted or not, I encourage you to pray today for the election. We'll do that together before our time is up. If you haven't voted yet you can use ivoterguide.com go on the Internet go to ivoterguide.com it's really easy. A little box comes up right in the middle of the page. You put in your address it will give you your ballot and the candidates positions on the measures. American Family Radio will be providing live election coverage tonight from 6 to 9pm Central Standard Time Time 9 ish depending on how things go, it may linger on a little bit just depending on the state of some of the races. But we have the power of the Senate, the power of the U.S. house of Representatives in the balance along with many state races, State senators, state legislators, state representatives, US Senators, governors, all kinds of races going on. Go out and vote if you haven't already. Today I'm not giving you political punditry. I'm really talking about application at home. How do we be good stewards of the freedoms that we've given us and how do we model those in a way that doesn't turn our kids off to anything political? And honestly I see that happening more and more where Gen Z, Gen Alpha, they just kind of disengage or they don't want to talk to their parents or grandparents about politics because they don't like what they see it does to their parents and grandparents. Ties them in knots, makes them angry, makes them start to get up on the soapbox, makes them fearful about the world. We are teaching our children how to interpret that current political state and as to how it applies to their everyday life. One of the most important things that we can do is ground dignity being made in God's image and make sure that we are talking about policy, that, that we are just saying that policy is contrary to God's word, that action is evil. That statement is untrue. This policy could cause harm where that without name calling and just losing, losing the, the values of our faith and, and the values of what scripture call. How Scripture calls us to speak and to be salt and light in a world that desperately needs, needs it. And sometimes our kids can feel responsible for like defending the family's political beliefs. And sometimes some kids are really have convictions from early age and their temperament, their personality, their situation just gradually extends themselves that they're, they're going to tell you what they think. But there's some kids who feel a little more trepidatious about that. And I think we need to give our kids permission to be learners, give them some language to say when uncomfortable political conversations come up at school, because they do even in elementary school. And you can say, you know what? I'm, I'm trusting my parents on that. I'm still learning about that. I'd rather talk about something else else. It's okay to change the subject and not to talk about it. Especially if that is at the lunch table where that is not closely moderated and there's just a little bit of uncomfort there. We need to give our kids permission and some words and some practice to say to walk away from a conversation. It's okay to protect our kids in that way. They will learn, they will grow and as they become adults will have different expectations as they'll have for themselves. But we, we need to make sure that we are, are doing that. We also don't want our kids to feel like they have to take responsibility for adult emotions. If we're really upset about how the election outcome is and we say things like, I am so afraid about what's going to happen. Our, our state is ruined, our country is ruined. Our, this is awful. This is catastrophic. I cannot tell you how bad this is going to be. I don't even know what's going to happen. That hands some really heavy emotions, especially to younger kids who feel like, okay, mommy's upset, Daddy's upset. I don't know what to do to make them feel better. And these are fears that they cannot fully evaluate, they cannot resolve. We need to be really careful in the emotions that we show to them and give them some faith Based hope, based messaging. Like you. Yeah, I'm really unhappy with how the election turned out, but I am going to choose to trust God in all of this. I am going to continue to pray for our country. I'm going to continue to engage and Mommy's okay, Daddy's okay. We need to give them some reassurance and, and, and answer their questions that they have. If they have questions about, why do you believe that? Because I've heard a lot of other people who don't believe that, who heard conflicting things, don't shame them. Sometimes we, we have fear. Like, oh, no, they're listening to other voices and their sphere, and I'm losing influence and they're going to adopt a worldview that's not ours. And, oh, no. And all of a sudden you have just run 47 miles down the road to nowhere in the future. So let's just reel it in. And just when they ask questions to say, I'm so glad you're coming to me with questions. Thank you for trusting me with your questions. These are big issues and there are lots of questions, and I am always a safe place that you can come to for questions and recogn that in their brain. This is part of the important work of stretching and growing. And when they ask questions and we're starting to explain to them why we believe what we believe, that is an important part of their development. It's not just, do what I say, adopt this. No questions, ask. They need to work that out. That is really important. And when we get it wrong, when we are upset about the things the, the state of our country, which can happen, I acknowledge. Remember, I teach policy, so I'm deeply engaged here. Just repair when you need to just go back and say, you know what? I let my attitude about what happened today spill over into dinner. Y' all didn't deserve that. I'm sorry about that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put up a boundary there. My. I know my concern is real. What happened was, was terrible, but my words were wrong. I'm responsible for handling my frustration, and I'm not going to spill that over at the dinner table. It's perfectly fine to mod. So I encourage you today on election day to start some conversation with your family to say, hey, what have you heard about the election? What do you think it means? Is anything worrying you? I did this for my kids, who are young adults and older teenagers.
Gathering Family Perspectives and Maintaining a Balanced View on Election Outcomes
Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Because every one of them had a very different perspective on the pulse of their peers, like what they're hearing what their perception is, what they're seeing on their social media feed. Very, very different. Just depending on, ah. And you may find that with your family where they are, geograph where they are, you know, what their workplace is, what their profession is, all of these things are going to impact the way that they're hearing things. But it's really helpful, I think, to hear a balanced perspective because you could talk to one person, they could say, oh, this is absolutely how this election's gonna go. And then you talk to somebody else, somewhere else else, and they say, oh no, oh no, this is what's gonna happen. And we know what happens on election day. The polls often get it wrong. And so keep a balanced perspective. That is really important. So we're going to teach our kids believe what we support and why. We're going to talk about what we oppose, why we oppose it and why we oppose it. And I just encourage you to speak with civility, with dignity, and with, with regard for other people as made in the image of God. I hope that that is something that we can all aspire to now. When our kids see our primary emotion of anger, which I see anger and fear and, and a lot of times we're angry because we're afraid that anger comes out because we are afraid. Kids can respond. What I see usually is kids responding in two ways to their, the adults in their life. When they see that anger, the first way that they can respond is just disengagement. That is uncomfortable. I don't want to be a part of that. This is consuming your life. It's making you so upset. It's impacting our family time, time. I don't want anything to do with that. So the way that they can express that is politics is stupid. I don't want to know anything about that. Everybody lies. Nothing matters. And so we need to respond to that with some curiosity. Okay, what feels what. What feels angry about it? What, where do you feel the conflict in that? And just you. We can show, an example of construction act, constructive action instead of just simmering in our own anger. We can say, yeah, I'm angry about this. Here's what I'm about it. I am encouraging people to vote. I have done that myself. I had. I, have teenagers in my house a lot of the time, and I'm asking them, hey, are you registered to vote? Let me give you some information. You should talk to your parents about going to vote. Because I'll tell you, the teenagers in my state, they were absolutely appalled that you cannot fully register online. And that's just the truth. So I'm teaching them how to make an envelope, how to use a stamp. And they're thinking this is just archaic. Well that's a good conversation to have have because that's another way that it feeds their perception that hey, this is out of touch, like do you really want me to vote? Because this is, this is wild. Now the first way that I said that kids can respond to adult anger is just being disengaged, apathetic. The second way that kids can respond is being hyper vigilant and then adopting that fear on their, on themselves. So they may just ask you that. The way that, that shows up in everyday life is asking repeated questions about danger, just constantly checking like what happened today, what's going to happen, what's going to happen, what's going to happen? Or feeling responsible somehow for what happens. So we can say, we can give messages like this election matters. It's important. The things that happen will impact our life. But God is sovereign. We trust God and God is good. Even when we think the outcome of the election is not. You can always come to me and ask your questions and I'm a safe place for you. That's important. Don't make promises about the outcomes that we can't keep. We can't promise them that they're absolutely be safe. We can promise them that we'll do everything possible, possible in our power, that we will move heaven and earth and do everything we can to keep them safe. But recognize that their ultimate safety, we have to surrender to God. Another thing you can do with kids who are feeling hyper vigilant and fearful is just be consistent, have a consistent meal time, a consistent school routine, bedtime. Just those rhythms of ordinary family life are really, really important. That is important. Another important thing, discern together the news sources that you're going to follow as a family. Talk about it and ask, you know, who, who produced this? Who supports this claim? What kind of content is it? What's missing? Can we verify it elsewhere? So this was some interesting information as I was looking to prepare to talk to you today. Some of the statistics that I was able to find. Let me share this with you because I think this gives you, this will give you some perspective on especially on how kids are digesting this. We know that digital news dominates. Most kids are most adults are getting their news from digital sources. But television and radio still matter. I'm so glad for that because I'm on the radio right now, so that is Good to hear from a selfish perspective. But the Pew Research report this year found that 88% of U.S. adults get their news from digital devices at least sometimes it's 63% from television, 43% from radio, 22% from printed newspapers are material magazines. that would probably include me. I still, I still like a good printed newspaper magazine. But here's the thing in today, in 2026, social media is a mainstream news pathway, that just over half of adults said they get news from social media at least sometimes. Now, younger adults are more likely than older adults to regular, regularly get news through social media streams. And the platform tells us where someone encountered a story, not who originally reported it or, or not it's accurate. And so that's something to think about.
The Influence of Social Media Personalities and Algorithms on Worldviews
Another thing to think about is that personalities have really become important, much more important even than they were. We used to have a very small number of personalities. Most people got their news from Walter Cronkite, like that was it. And then we had the main station nighttime news anchors. That was who you got your information from. But we see that increasingly adults are getting their news from social media news influencers. And it's about, about a quarter of adults, but, almost 40% of adults age 18 to 29. So we see that rising. Here's the most important thing that I saw what I was researching in this. Much of that news arrives not on purpose. So among adults who regularly get news from influencers, 69% percent said they just happen across it, they're not deliberately seeking it out. Now this is important to me because that means your political worldview is being shaped by an algorithm. Whether that's intentional or not, most of the time it is not. So for parents, we can see like, oh, well, my kid doesn't watch politics or the news. We're getting fed political content. And if a child is curious about something, they can start following it. And then the algorithm feeds them more and more, normalizes like, seems to like, oh, this is a mainstream view. Everybody thinks this and they are not taught. We are not yet good at teaching children digital discernment on their media sources. How do you know what source is trustworthy? Can I trust this person? And not just because they have millions of followers, not just because I see people. I trust in the followers. That can be a starting place. But we really need more questions to know who is reporting, reporting this? Who is a, who is that person? How do they know what they know? Are they reporting information or interpreting it? That's really important when you see something on social media? Are you checking the original context instead of just sharing it, not realizing it was a story from three years ago? Are you looking for independent confirmation and applying the same standard to sources that you like? Would I accept this evidence if it came from somewhere else? So, when we come back, I'll talk about some practical family exercises that you can have to discern media news sources. I'll, tell, you how to get your family civically engaged, and we'll talk about praying for the election today. Go and vote if you haven't already. I'll see you on the other side of this break. Do you believe in the absolute inerrancy of God's holy word? Do you believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to radically change lives and empower us to live like Christ? At Wesley Biblical Seminary, we believe God is raising up a movement of people across our nation and across the world who hold fast to the authority of the Bible and the hope of holiness. We are working today to equip tomorrow's pastors and Christian leaders through biblical and theological education in practical ministry that's accredited, affordable, online and highly personal. Our programs include undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees, certificate programs, and even training for laypeople. So whatever your next step is in being equipped for ministry, we're here for you. And if you believe these are the kinds of pastors we need leading our churches in the future, we invite you to learn more about partnering with us through giving. Learn more about Wesley Biblical Seminary by visiting us at wbs.edu today.
Jesus Is My Healer by Gateway Worship featuring Jessie Harris Jesus is my healer. He's everything M I need. He alone has triumphed over sickness and disease here. Where is your power? The cross is your defeat. Jesus is my he has won the victory.
Dr. Jessica Peck Welcome back, friends. That is Jesus is my healer. Gateway worship featuring Jessie Harris and Jesus is our healer. He can heal us as people and we are praying for him to heal our land. I encourage you today on election day to go and vote. If you haven't already voted, get somebody else to go vote with you. Take your family to vote with you. If you haven't voted yet, you can go to ivoterguide.com and you can see the ballot that is in your area. You just put your address in and it will give you information on all the candidates. And American Family Radio will provide election coverage to tonight from 6 to 9pm Central Time and whether you have voted or not. I encourage you to pray about the election. And today we're talking about how politics impacts families and how we can really be careful stewards of our worldview. And when we're looking at our worldview, it's much influenced by the information that we get, much of which comes to us. As I shared before the break, unsought. We don't seek it out. The algorithm is seeking to find us. So I encourage you to have conversations with your family about, who are you following and how do you know that they are trustworthy. So maybe a practical family exercise. Just choose one election related headline that you see, have everybody bring one that they have, that they've seen, that they've heard and investigated it together. Look at who reported it, what evidence is available about it. Does the full story support the headline? Are they trying to feed you information or are they trying to influence your worldview? Sometimes it's both. What remains unknown? What is the discernment that is needed? How does it compare to the biblical values we want our children to become discerning? We want them to know that information can be tested and then not everything you hear on the news is accurate. That is really important. So some practical family boundaries you can have for news coverage is just check in, occasionally. Know when you're going, what news program you're going to watch. Maybe there's a specific program you watch, a specific social media channel that you check every day instead of kind of having it playing continuously in the background and feeding that feeling of urgency and anxiety. Review troubling stories together before younger children encounter them alone. This is something that's really important. When I hear something disturbing on the news, I do tell my kids about it. Even when they're younger. I don't tell them all of the gory details. And sometimes I'll tell them something like this. I'll say, hey, there was something scary that happened in the news today. Somebody got hurt, and it happened at this. You know, you could say it happened at this school, it happened at this state. If you start to hear kids talking about it at school, it's not something I really want you to hear about from them. So I want you to feel very free to walk away from the conversation. You can say, oh, my mom told me about that. I'm, just going to talk to her about it, change the subject, walk away, and if the situation is out of their control, come and talk to me about it and I'll answer your questions. Because I find that kids are very, very exposed to news stories today. And most of the time my kids have heard about it before I even picked them up from school. That's Important. And during coverage, you know, really talk about what you're looking for, what you're hoping for, what you're praying for. And when you feel fearful, turn that into being faithful to go to prayer. So tonight, no matter what the election results are, let your children, no matter how old they are, I don't even care if they're adult children. You can model this well in your family. Let them know that you care a little, a lot, but remain steady. Remain committed to your faith that God is in control, truth matters, elections matter. But fear does not have the final say in our house. That is a really powerful message that we can have.
Civic Engagement as Service and Modeling Research and Humility
So how do we move our family to action? Just, we don't want to just watch the news and simmer it in and just simmer in our own emotions. We want to show them how to civically engage, that voting is an important responsibility, that civic life life includes service. And children are learning how to be good citizens by watching how we treat our neighbors, how we act as employees, how we interact with people who, with whom we disagree. Those things are important. We are preparing our kids for more than did my side win? We want to say, okay, how can I engage to help for the best of my community? Help my community flourish. Where, where does my voice matter? Where can I engage? Let them see you model what it looks like to prepare. Research the candidates, research the issues to know and be fully informed. Teach them characteristics like humility, saying, hey, I need to know more about that before I have an opinion. I want to learn a little bit more, do a little bit more research or you know, I had an opinion on this, but after researching a little bit more, I've changed my mind on this particular issue. This is, this is something that I feel like because some of those, some of the issues are very, very clear, some of them not so much. Some of those can be really difficult to wrestle with. We can model integrity by applying the same standards of honesty and conduct to leaders that we support. We can really support a leader and really, like the policies that they have and still call out bad behavior or bad decision. We can demonstrate respect by listening to others without interrupting and challenging ideas, without humiliating people. We can show a life of certain by engaging, rolling up our sleeves. We can show accountability by supporting. Explain that supporting a leader doesn't mean approving every decision. We still leaders are still held accountable for those decisions. And I think most importantly, conviction, staying firm to your values despite pressure from outside sources that you might get. So here's some practical ideas for ways to Engage for younger kids, explain to them what an election is, take them to the voting booth with you. Talk about, you know, you can have even kids books that you talk about civic engagement, that that's really important for school age kids. They can start to learn about which responsibilities belong to the mayor. Who's the mayor in your city, who's the school board, who's the governor? How are their decisions impacting your life? Find you might write a respectful question or a thank you note to a public official or attend part of an appropriate public meeting together and take them with you. See the city council or the school board. For teenagers you can really have some great discussion about what they believe and why and help them to prepare to learn to vote, to register to vote, how to vote, where to vote. Some of those rules are pretty confusing if I'm being really honest. So and, and maybe as a family challenge, you can just choose one issue and, and learn who's responsible for it, have a family discussion about it. Maybe you even have a mock debate that can be really fun. Maybe you even have a mock election at home and that might be really fun. Now you don't always have to start this about politics. You can just start this from another issue and then translate that to politics because sometimes kids will be less willing to engage. But if you say, hey, we're going to research an issue of where our family vacation is going to be this year, we're going to research where we should go. And you know, what are, what are all of the things that we should consider? Maybe even it's something more altruistic than that, like what family service project should we do? Let's let each kid come up and make a pitch about this is the family service project that we do. You vote about it. But it would be really fun to do that for an election. I've done that before for presidential election. I actually do that for my policy students. It's a lot of fun. Establish the rules, research the choices, let every candidate give a brief presentation, give those private ballots, count them transparently, practice the response. Do you see how so our kids can learn about the processes and we can teach them so much about the principles of that that, but just having a fun family activity at home and so then ask some questions afterwards. Hey, did everybody have a fair opportunity to participate?
Making Civic Education Relational and Serving Neighbors with Conviction and Love
What, how was that experience for you? You know, what were the rules like? How do you feel about the outcome? How do we respond to that? This teaching our kids citizenship is going to be most effective when we make it relational when we don't make it legalistic or fear based, when we make it engaging and relational. Where we're serving alongside our neighbor, we're seeing real people alongside policy discussions, where we're talking about how do we live in community with people with whom we very, very strongly disagree, how do we still serve our neighbors, how do we still share our faith with people who disagree with us, how do we treat them, how do we engage, how do we hold firm to our convictions and not compromise on truth at all, but still love the people around, around us? Those are things that you can really think about being intentional about, modeling at home. And that's going to go over much better than kids just watching in the background seeing their parents glued to the election coverage and saying oh no, every time a result comes in, or even cheering, you know, yes, like just seeing, seeing a teaching perspective. Much more than just that emotional engagement. So ultimately the most important thing that you can do with the concerns that you have about the election today is to bring those concerns before your loving Heavenly Father, to acknowledge that before the Lord, that He already knows what you feel about today's election.
Bringing Election Concerns to God and Trusting His Sovereignty
Whether you feel hopeful, you feel anxious, you feel disappointed, you feel uncertain. Whatever that emotion is, really bring that before the Lord and recognize that these issues are deeply important. They do matter. They do impact our lives. There are policies and leaders enacted who will act contrary to our values. That is a fear inducing, bring that to the Lord. But also remember that our hope as Christians does not rest in election results ever. It rests in the character and nature of God. Our hope is a person and that, is the person of Jesus Christ. God's sovereignty gives us the courage to act faithfully. It doesn't guarantee that every action of a winning candidate has God's approval. It doesn't guarantee the outcome of the election. But it does guarantee that God is sovereign and he is in control. And ultimately he will work all things together for good for those who, who love him and are called according to his purpose. We don't yet know, as I'm sitting here right now, we don't know what the outcome of tonight will be. It could, if you listen to the news, it is certain to go in opposite directions. And each, each group is very, very certain about that. And there is also a lot of uncertainty in the middle. But God is not uncertain. Our future is not uncertain in his hands. We may not know what the future holds. We know who holds the future. And he is a good, good Father. He is trustworthy. He will carry us through. And if he allows trials to come into our lives, he will give us the strength that we need to, to get through them. So I encourage you to take some time to pray for the election today. I want to give you some specific prayer prompts and I invite you just to join me. Me and going before the Heavenly Father even now and just praying, just opening a conversation with God and continuing that conversation, not even to be closed when the election results are done or when you finally decide to give up and go to bed and see what it is in the morning. I encourage you to pray and give your request to God. We are have been talking about gratitude. We're going to talk about that tomorrow on the show. I can't wait for that. But that is such an important posture to come before the Lord not just with our needs first, but with thanks and gratitude for the ways that he has already met our needs even before we need them. Thank God for opportunities to participate, to serve, to speak and seek the common good. Thank God for the freedoms that we have in this country, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion. Thank God for the neighbors and churches and families that he has given. Thank those who are serving in the election process. That's one of my favorite things to do is to thank the election workers, workers for engaging in helping us to exercise our rights. That is something that is worthy to be celebrated. Those are volunteers and they deserve to be treated with respect. And we can also be grateful for the things that maybe our anxiety has just pushed out of you. ask God to open your eyes to the gifts that he has already given you and for forgiveness for missing out on those and for not being grateful for the ways that he has already already provided. Go to the Lord with an honest heart of gratitude and just give yourself an honest self examination show. Ask God to show you where your words, where your actions, where the expression of your emotions needs to change. Ask God to help us to seek truth patiently, to respond with integrity. Pray for our leaders at every level. Pray for wisdom, for justice, for accountability, for truth to prevail. Fail. Pray for the leaders you support. Pray for the leaders you oppose. Pray that our leaders would make wise decisions. Pray for the kids who are absorbing adult anxiety. Pray for the homes that are fractured by political division. Pray that God would restore relationships and ask God to make your home a place of love that holds firm to truth but also loves others well. Pray and ask God to give you faithfulness after, after the results, no matter what the results, graciousness and victory, comfort and disappointment, endurance and uncertainty. Pray as we receive those results where those of you who are disappointed by tonight, who are waiting, any anyone, I encourage you to go before the Father, the and and really to think about how we are communicating to our kids. When the results come in tonight, no matter what happens, our calling continues. We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and love our neighbors as ourselves. We are called to speak the truth in love and to walk faithfully into tomorrow, no matter what the future holds. If you haven't gone and voted, go vote. Call somebody else, remind them, call them, text them, Take your kids and as you do, I pray so fervently. The Lord would bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. I'll see you tomorrow. We'd like to thank our sponsors, including PreBorn. PreBorn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion and has seen over 100,000 commitments to Christ. Will you join PreBorn in continuing this good work? supporting young moms in crisis? Save a life today, Go to preborn.com/AFR
Jeff Chamblee the views and opinions expressed in this program broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
It's Election Day! Jessica talks about modeling civic engagement for our children and praying for our country.
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