Talking politics at Thanksgiving

0:00 is Fox 31 news should be popular if we could just please get back to the original question could someone please pass the salt I'm with Wolf on that one let's just get back to the original question I want some salt I mean listen the issues in our country makes everyone a little tense right now it's very divisive bringing up politics at the Thanksgiving table could lead to a debate so heated

0:30 you'll need Wolf Blitzer to calm things down sometimes there are guests at the feast that just don't seem to want to give it up they want to talk politics we've got family psychologist dr. Cheryl Ziegler here joining us always a pleasure to have you thanks for having this is a real problem I mean this actually does happen and as much as we joke about it I mean many families have very different political views would you suggest just trying to avoid it

0:52 altogether I really would as you can I really would I think particularly this year this is a really heated topic and so if you want to have a nice time with your family and usually extended family that can have differing views just really find some other commonalities to talk about instead of going there so if you've got that one family member that just seems to want to bring it up and want to talk about it maybe a preemptive strike is

1:17 that how you do that talk to him before the dinner and say listen we just don't want this to go there I think that would be great I think if you can use humor to try to deflect it great if you need to have a side conversation but I think you kind of have to make an agreement especially maybe the host makes an agreement that says like ding ding ding by the way this holiday will be a no

1:35 politics talking holiday let's talk about all the other things that we could you know good stuff yeah the good stuff a lot of good stuff to talk about and you focus on families and kids so much I mean do you worry what kind of an impact it would have on kids to basically remember Thanksgiving is a day when Uncle Bob stormed out and dad and Uncle Bob argued for an hour absolutely I love Uncle Bob don't get me wrong absolutely

1:56 and we also know that Thanksgiving in the holidays in general are paired with alcohol so the combination is yeah so for kids they're seeing maybe maybe parents or family members acting a little bit differently and then the stress of there's other issues besides politics that are stressful at a big table and then throw in something that's easy to argue about and yeah it's not very pleasant for anybody yeah it's like throwing a bomb in just letting things

2:23 blow up I say take a deep breath right I mean and and and probably should if you're the host think about how you're gonna deal with it ahead of time have a plan absolutely I really think so I think if if you're watching this right now and you're going oh I know who that is in my family then come up with a plan maybe call them ahead of time even or again try to make light of it if

2:40 possible because I think that that will work much better than I like a really serious conversation because we all have an Uncle Bob I think every family has I'm pretty sure an Uncle Bob yeah thank you so much thanks dr. Ziegler always a pleasure you have great advice great common sense kind of things we can do to help with some of these problems let's get over to meteorologist Greg Dutra he's the uncle Bob oh thank you

3:00 very much I appreciate that I remember we're talking yesterday Megan asked what happened