Our kids are stressed out. We can help.
Political and social unrest. Culture wars. Actual wars. Mass shootings, racial tensions and natural disasters. Considering the state of the world, it’s no wonder that in study after study, survey after survey, kids are telling us they’re not OK. And grown-ups are starting to listen. In fact, in 2021 the Academy of Pediatrics declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health in response to rising rates of depression, feelings of isolation, hopelessness and suicide ideation.
A lot of things have contributed to this emergency, but among the top factors is 24-hour access to negative news cycles. As reported by The Washington Post, greater media exposure to a tragic event has been associated with higher post-traumatic stress symptoms in 11 to 13 year olds. The most harmful media? You guessed it: social media platforms, where images and video of tragic events are generally far more graphic than television.
Furthermore, experts report in the journal Nature Research that it doesn’t matter whether a child is directly affected by the tragedy. The PTSD symptoms the study reported were the same for all kids, whether they lived at or near the location of the event, or 2,500 miles away. Which means if there’s a school shooting on the east or west coast, kids in Oklahoma are as emotionally devastated by the horrific photos, video and reporting of the event as the kids who actually lived through it.
It’s not just the earthquakes, floods, fires, wars and mass shootings that are affecting our kids. The bad behavior of adults – political infighting, verbal and physical altercations at school board meetings, demonstrations of hate against certain people groups and the like – is also stressing out our children.
Why? Because our kids are watching us. They observe our stances on issues, they hear and absorb the language we use and they take their cues from us. According to Healthy Children, we know kids as young as 2 to 4 years old can internalize racial and cultural bias. Even if it’s not happening in their own families, children gain fluency in bias just by being exposed to society. And by age 12, most of them are already set in their beliefs. Which means that we as parents have about a decade to actively mold our children’s learning processes in a way that decreases bias and improves cultural understanding.
3 Ways Parents Can Foster Peace
But there is hope. Here are three peace-building actions we can take to intervene for our kids in a changing world.
- Limit and monitor screen time. If access to negative news is part of the problem, limiting that access is part of the solution. You already know to set screen-free zones and screen-free times in your homes and to be intentional about setting aside time to engage with your kids face-to-face. In addition, the folks at Heroes In Waiting, a nonprofit dedicated to the mental wellness of youth, have gathered these platform-specific tools to help you ensure that kids’ online experience is as healthy as possible:
- TikTok: Through its Family Pairing feature, you can control things like content, privacy and screen time.
- Snapchat: A limited degree of parental monitoring is available through its still-developing Family Center.
- Instagram: The Family Center allows parents to monitor content, set time limits and schedule breaks. Plus, parents can access an online education hub.
- YouTube: Through controls like YouTube Kids and the Family Link app, parents can set reminders, limit screen time and block certain types of content on kids’ devices.
- Help kids deal with big feelings. It’s not realistic to think we can shield our children from all the ills of the world. When kids do encounter difficult news and the feelings get real, Heroes In Waiting offers these three tips:
- Help kids separate themselves from the big emotion by naming it apart from themselves: “I feel fear” instead of “I am afraid.”
- Another way to separate the emotion is to write about or draw/paint it, both of which can provide release and clarity.
- Many times we feel an urgency to talk things out with our kids right away, but, like us, they may need time alone first. Offer safety by providing them a quiet space to sit, take some deep breaths and let the emotions pass through.
- Build empathy & celebrate differences. Develop a respect for diversity in your home. Help kids understand – through the books you read, the shows you watch and the behavior you model – that our differences are what help us contribute to our community, and that we can learn and grow from listening to each other’s ideas.Help your kids develop cross-group friendships, and be intentional about developing those relationships yourself. Again, our kids are watching us. Research by the Anti-Defamation League shows that children’s cultural attitudes are tied less to what we say and more to what we model.
For more information about peace-building and kids’ mental wellness, check out the FREE curriculum, videos and resources at heroesinwaiting.org.
