Minnesota parents look for ways to help kids cope and process ICE trauma and chaos
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Raighn Hudson’s two-and-a-half year old son is too young to understand the boiling tensions in Minnesota over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. But as a member of the Tsimshian Eagle Clan from Ketchikan, Alaska, the 25-year-old Hudson said he worries he and his family could be targeted by federal agents.
"It’s pretty scary, because I'm Native, so just not knowing if they're going to come knocking at our door or asking for, you know, American paperwork or anything like that,” Hudson said. “It’s just scary right now because they’re stopping people at stop lights and just like coffee shops too.”
“But, we’re just trying to take it one step at a time right now. I feel like that’s all we can do. Just take it one step at a time and just kind of hope that nothing bad happens to our family,” Hudson added.
Hudson said he isn’t deliberately letting his young son see videos of immigration arrests and federal agents’ confrontations with observers and protesters, but he’s not going to completely shelter him from them, either.
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“He’s growing up in this world,” he said. “I think he definitely needs to know what’s happening. He’s a little young now, but in the future, we could always talk about it saying like ‘hey, Minneapolis, Minnesota, there was a group called ICE. …and it was scary not knowing what would happen.”
The aggressive, daily immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota and the three shootings by federal agents, which killed U.S. citizens Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, and wounded immigrant Julio Sosa-Celis, have sent tremors of anxiety through many families across the state, leaving parents wondering how to help their children process what’s happening in an age-appropriate way.
Jenny Hammes, 35, of Mankato, Minn., has four kids who are 6, 4 and twins that are 2. She said she wants to limit the news and images her young children see.
“I’m just discerning what to share and what their little minds can process right now,” Hammes said. “I feel like as they get older, their eyes will be open to just see and hear more things, and we can talk about those things as they ask questions.”
‘Don’t ignore it. Talk about it’
Child mental health experts say that there are no simple ways to navigate the troubling events children may be seeing and parents will need to take a nuanced approach as families are being affected by the traumatic events to varying degrees. Some children are relatively distant from seeing or hearing about the actions of immigration agents, while for others, the chaos is happening right on their block and outside of their schools.
For children who do witness these events unfolding in person, or seeing dramatic video of it, parents should not pretend it didn’t happen.
“When any kind of traumatic thing happens to a child, you don't want to ignore it, you want to talk about it,” said Dr. Sarah Jerstad, medical director of outpatient mental health services at Children’s Minnesota in the Twin Cities. “It’s important to be honest with a kid, if they’ve seen something going on and they want to talk about it. It’s absolutely critical to talk about it with that child, to acknowledge what they’re seeing and hearing.”
Jerstad added that while it’s important to provide kids with an outlet to ask questions and talk about their feelings about what they’ve seen, she said it’s also important to keep up the family routines.
“A good way to deal with it once those questions have been asked, is to just keep going with the kids’ life. It’s a lot for them to process, talking about it and dealing with it all the time,” Jerstad said.
“But you do want to build normalcy,” added Jerstad. “That is one of the things that keeps kids feeling most safe and comfortable is still doing the things that they want to be able to do,”
Since it’s unclear how much longer these federal enforcement operations will continue, mental health experts say it’s important to keep family routines as consistent as possible, as prolonged exposure to trauma and stress can lead to more serious mental health problems such as anxiety disorders and depression.
“I think being able to connect with other people or get out into the community in whatever way a family feels safe is really critical for kids,” she said. “Whether that's even a play date, or something with other kids or getting out into the community to go find activities, organize things or places to go and visit, I think that helps a kid feel like they’re doing the things that they should be doing and just finding a way to be together.”
And that’s the role that Kim Kleven, the new CEO of Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota, said spaces at the museum can provide during times like these.
“We want this to be a safe space, and a space of peace,” Kleven said. “Children see a lot and they hear a lot, and their little brains can’t really comprehend what they’re seeing and hearing in the world around them, because there’s so much noise. …they know there’s a lot of anxiety, and it’s hard for them to understand how to take that in and how to comprehend it.”
Through play, Kleven said kids can build resiliency in a safe and peaceful place.
“When they come here, they know what to do,” she said. “Having a predictable space where the children can walk through the door and they can tell their own story, they can create their own experience, this is just what they need.”
And it’s not just for kids, Kleven said, but for parents who might just need someone to talk to and to not feel so alone—especially with how the current landscape may shape how their children engage the world around them.
“I see parents standing together and talking, they’re able to have the space also to just be in community,” Cleave said. “And whether you know each other, or you’re just meeting a new mom as you’re playing together, that’s what we want people to understand. Everybody’s coming here from different backgrounds, different ages and stages of development. But we can come here and all be one.”
Parent Jenny Hammes agreed, saying that the museum is a place where she and other parents can come together, find common ground, and process what’s happening all around them.
“In this place, there’s people of all different backgrounds and everything, and you’re in community,” Hammes said. “Community is so important, and I think people sometimes want to hide from that right now, or they just feel isolated. And I feel like it’s very grounding just to be with people and among the kids and to be learning and for our kids to be playing alongside other kids, no matter where they come from.”
And Raighn Hudson emphasized the importance of giving his young son moments of joy while he tries to keep living life as normally as possible, and not fall into despair.
“Just keep moving forward, keep hoping that it will hopefully get better,” he said. “It’s a scary situation we’re in right now, but I think it will get better in time. But, I think we just got to keep moving forward and take one step at a time every day.”
