Understanding Child Development

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Kids see politics and social media as tutorials on how power, attention, and winning work.

Repeated exposure to hostile, winner‑take‑all conflict is tied to more bullying and less empathy.

Public behavior that rewards personal attacks can impact how kids handle relationship conflict.

Without guidance, kids may mistake visibility and attention for credibility and success.

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably heard that social media is damaging kids’ mental health. Teens scroll through airbrushed bodies, perfect vacations, and curated friend groups, and end up feeling like they don’t measure up. That argument focuses only on one kind of social comparison.

Social comparison is an innate, automatic process that helps us understand how our world works. It goes far beyond, “Do I look as good?” or “Do I have enough followers?” It is also, “How do people act here? What gets attention and approval? What does winning look like? How do I succeed?” The potential damage from social media promoting unrealistic beauty standards pales in comparison to the larger life lesson of “how to be.” Observing others teaches kids how to solve problems, handle disagreement, and respond to conflict (Bandura, 1977).

Right now, the most visible models for how conflict works are politicians, influencers, and public figures who treat personal attacks, denial, obstruction, and retribution as winning strategies and signs of strength.

These are the life lessons our kids are learning. And unlike beauty standards, these are not superficial.

The Conflict Curriculum

Kids are not oblivious to politics, even young ones. They pick up information from media, overheard conversations, and the emotional tone of adults around them. Children as young as five often mirror their parents’ political attitudes (Patterson et al., 2019).

They draw conclusions about behavior, not policy. Children process social behavior, not tax rates or foreign affairs. They watch who wins and how, who has power, how they treat others, how they respond to challenges, and who is held accountable. Decades of research show that observing behavior and outcomes influences which behaviors are internalized as acceptable and effective.

Right now, the........

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