“No matter the outcome of the election,” Bobo wrote, the school “will create space to provide students with the support they may need.”

To create a safe space for children, the school did not hand out homework on Election Day, the email said. Students will also not be considered absent if they choose not to attend school on Wednesday (or the day results are announced).

Many people disagreed with the school’s decision, including comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who had previously withdrawn his youngest son from Fieldston over his discontent with the school’s culture.

“That’s why the kids hated him,” Seinfeld he told the New York Times. “What kind of life have these people led that makes them think this is the right way to treat young people? To encourage them to bend. This is the lesson they are giving, in exchange for ungodly sums of money.”

The media was quick to mock the comedian, including vanity fair, who dubbed the former sitcom star the “spokesman for the world’s grumpy old men” and he said that “Seinfeld doesn’t understand why kids might find these elections disturbing.”

This last line, however, is nonsense and shoddy journalism.

Nowhere in his comments to the Gray Lady does Seinfeld say that he can’t understand why people would be upset about the election results. It doesn’t suggest it either. In fact, his statement implies the opposite: that children should go to school even if they feel upset that their candidate lost.

The reality is that there will be many people, children and adults, who will be unhappy when the dust of Election Day settles.

People are deeply invested in these elections, for better or worse. Some high profile people say They will consider leaving the country. if former President Donald Trump wins, while others say they are red states should consider secession if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.

Many would agree that these are extreme responses to a presidential election. And it is likely that they will turn out to be the typical inactive threats people do during election season.

That said, the data indicates that the United States is experiencing historic levels of election anxiety. A new survey from the American Psychological Association found that 77% of those surveyed say they feel a “significant source of stress in their lives” about the future of the nation.

“We’re seeing the highest levels of election-related stress,” said Vaile Wright, senior director of the American Psychological Association’s office of health care innovation. told NBC News.

The data shows that stress affects Democrats (79%), Republicans (80%), and independents (73%) roughly equally.

Bryan Sexton, a psychologist and director of the Duke Center for the Advancement of Well-Being Science, offered a simple explanation for the high numbers.

“Our brains are basically threat detectors,” he told NBC.

This means that a larger percentage of the country now sees the political opposition as a threatening force, which is no doubt why tens of millions will feel crushed when this election is over and they see that threatening force in power.

Seinfeld’s point, however, was not that people shouldn’t be upset. His point was that we shouldn’t teach children to “bend” when adversity comes or stay home and wallow when they’re upset.

This is no small matter. Learning to overcome it, even when we don’t feel like it, is one of the keys to success in life.

Going to practice when you’re sick, going to the audition when you’re terrified, getting up and going to work when you’re tired or hungover, having the courage to have that difficult conversation you’re terrified of having—these are the habits and choices that build our mental toughness. or they destroy it, and by teaching children to stay home if “their” candidate loses, we are teaching them emotional fragility.

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It is largely an example of what psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls the culture of “securityism” that now affects young people, who he defines as “an obsession with eliminating threats (both real and imagined) to the point where people become reluctant to make reasonable concessions demanded by other practical and moral concerns.”

No matter who wins the presidency, there will be anger, tears and indignation. This is unfortunate but inevitable in a country as divided as the United States in 2024. What we must strive to avoid are the emotional crises witnessed in 2020 and 2016which resulted in widespread choice denialism, protests, unrestand massive advice for “traumatized” students.

Jon Miltimore is a senior editor at the American Institute for Economic Research. Follow him on Substack.