Raising patriots

Books | It isn’t as easy in today’s cultural climate, but parents can have a huge influence on their children’s attitudes | Lynn Vincent

Mike and Virginia Fischer didn't train their kids to love America. Instead, they showed their kids America and other countries; the younger Fischers fell in love on their own. Mike was a career military man. On long drives, moving from one stateside duty station to another, the family rarely listened to the radio. Instead, Mike and Virginia talked with their son, Scott, and daughter, Kristina, about the vast panorama rolling by outside the car windows.

"For example, when passing through an Indian reservation, we would talk about the tribe and how Indians came to live on reservations—the bad and the good" said Virginia, 49, of Nezperce, Idaho. "In passing through farm country, we talked about . . . what it might have been like to travel in a wagon across what was taking us just a few days, and why people might want to do that."