Dennis Prager gives advice on how to raise a politically conservative child:

In a nutshell, American parents who hold traditional American values — such as belief in small government as the basis of liberty, or a God-based moral code, or American military strength as the greatest contributor to world peace and stability, or American exceptionalism, not to mention the man-woman definition of marriage or the worth of a human fetus — are at war with almost every influence on their children’s lives. This includes, most important, the media and the schools. …

First, non-left-wing parents need to understand that if they do not articulate their values on a regular basis, there is a good chance that after one year, let alone four years, at college, their child will adopt left-wing views and values. Do not think for a moment that values are automatically transmitted. A hundred years ago they may have been — because the outside world overwhelmingly reaffirmed parents’ traditional values — but no longer.

You have to explain to your children — repeatedly — what America and you stand for. …

Second, they need to know what they will be taught at college — and now in many high schools — and how to respond. When they are told from Day One at college that America and its white citizens are inherently racist, they need to know how to counter this libel with these truths: America is the least racist society in the world; more black Africans have immigrated here of their own volition than were brought here forcibly to be slaves; and “racist” is merely one of many epithets, such as “sexist,” “intolerant,” “xenophobic,” “homophobic,” “Islamophobic,” and “bigoted,” that the Left uses instead of arguments.

Third, when possible, it is best that your child not go to college immediately after high school. One reason colleges are able to indoctrinate students is that students enter college young and unworldly. It is very rare that adult students are convinced to abandon their values and become left-wing. Why? Because they have lived life and are much less naïve. For example, someone with life experience is far more likely than a kid just out of high school to understand that the best formula for avoiding poverty is personal responsibility — get a job, get married, and then have children — not government help.

Teenagers who spend a year before going to college working — in a restaurant, for a moving company, at an office — will mature far more than they would after a year at college. And maturity is an inoculation against leftism.

If your home is Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or Mormon, another option for the year after high school is to have your child devote a year to studying religion in some formal setting. The more your child knows, lives, and adheres to the principles of any of these religions, the less likely he or she will convert to leftism, which has been the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years. For example, it is a fundamental belief of each of these Judeo-Christian religions that the root of evil is within the evildoer. But it is a fundamental belief of leftism that people murder, steal, and rape overwhelmingly because of outside influences such as poverty and racism. The moment your child understands that people who commit evil — not poverty or racism — are responsible for it, he or she cannot be a leftist.

Fourth, don’t be preoccupied with instilling high self-esteem in your child. It is the Left that believes that self-esteem is a child’s right, something that parents and society owe children. Conservatives believe that everyone, including children, must earn self-esteem. Indeed, the belief in earning — rather than in being given — is conservative.

Fifth, teach character. The Left has essentially defined a good person as one who holds progressive social positions — on race, the environment, taxes, health care, etc. That is why the Left, including the feminist Left, could so adore Bill Clinton, who regularly used his positions of power to take advantage of women: He held progressive positions.

If your child recycles, or walks five or ten kilometers on behalf of breast cancer, that is lovely. But if your child refuses to cheat on tests or befriends an unpopular kid at school, that is character. And teaching that definition of character is more often done in a conservative (usually a religiously conservative) context.

I guess I agree with most of Prager’s five points more than Prager’s overall aim. Parents need to teach character, though as with classroom teaching it’s more about showing than telling. Similarly, parents should teach their values, including religious values. (Parents are, after all, their children’s first teachers, and they teach their children far longer than they’re in school.) Prager is absolutely correct about the bogus nature of the self-esteem movement. I’ve heard more than one opinion about whether taking time off between levels of education is a good thing. (Those in adult education will tell you that older students are more focused on the educational aspects of college than the social aspects.)

I’m guessing, however, that most readers know of siblings who grew up in the same house with the same parents and yet have different political beliefs. If you believe Prager, that’s not possible, and yet it happens. (Some people may adopt the opposite political beliefs of their parents merely to oppose their parents.) Parents have difficulty getting their children to do their homework, clean their rooms, take out the garbage and go to bed; convincing them of the correct position on the political fight du jour seems uncertain at best to  succeed. (For one thing, if you elevate politics, you inevitably elevate politicians, and you should not elevate politicians.) I think Prager also underestimates the ability of people to change their political beliefs when their beliefs collide with facts or experience. (As the saying goes, if you’re not a liberal when you’re 20 you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 30 you have no brain.)

I should not be giving parenting advice, but I don’t believe it should be the goal, or is the job, of parents to teach their children a particular political worldview. (For one thing, it places excessive importance on politics, which should be less important than  it is.) I can think of many more things — the need to work hard and well and not be lazy or settle for less than your best, for instance, and the need to think for yourself, not merely parrot the official line — that are more important for our children to learn than, say, whom to vote for in the next election. My political beliefs were obviously shaped by my parents (in part because they taught me to think for myself), but I believe what I believe because I thought it out. That should be the goal of conservative parents — to get their kids to think for themselves. (And that should be the goal of liberal parents, moderate parents and politically uninterested parents too.)