For so many of us of a certain age, Fred “Mister” Rogers remains not only an all-time favorite television personality, but a televised teacher who gently exemplified how to feel, how to be.
Just ask Ulysses Archie Jr..
“[Mister Rogers] said if it’s mentionable, it’s manageable,” said Archie, 53, who lives in the Irvington neighborhood of Baltimore. “If you can mention something, if you can put words to it, you can manage your way out of it.”
That’s especially true in the case of childhood trauma, something we often think about as specific environmental situations, like abuse or poverty. But COVID has created a unique and universal traumatic environment for kids, according to a paper published last year in the Journal of Childhood and Adolescent Trauma. And while that trauma may be part of the new normal, it is not normal.
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“The intersection between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), longstanding health disparities, and COVID-19 cannot be ignored,” wrote authors Stan Sonu, David Marvin and Charles Moore. “The accumulation of traumatic events throughout the childhood and adolescent years can cause toxic stress in the absence of supportive adults.”
Archie knows about this constant state of stress intimately, both as someone trained in teaching communities to recognize childhood trauma and as a survivor of it. He’s also the father of five sons, ages 7 to 27, and he believes that if parents recognize the potential effects of this challenging time on their kids, they can help.
“Childhood trauma was every day for me,” says Archie, who is an ACE master trainer. He and his wife Crysalinn are the founders of the nonprofit Baltimore Gift Economy, which does community building projects through schools and other organizations. “I didn’t realize until I was an adult that my entire worldview has been enveloped in trauma. It’s the gift that keeps on giving until you are aware of it.”
Archie’s own experience involves a childhood spent between Laureland North Carolina, where he absorbed the cumulative effects of poverty, racism and housing instability, shuttling between the homes of relatives. He, like many people, just sucked it up as “bad troubles, or ‘I had an issue,’ or this is just something I’m dealing with,” he said. “It might not register as trauma, but believe me, it is.”
And that’s where so many kids are now during COVID, regardless of their previous family situations. He offers a metaphor: Imagine being in the woods and seeing a bear. You’re immediately in a state of potentially toxic stress, desperately choosing “between flight, fight or freezing and playing dead. Kids have been in a toxic state of stress for two years. COVID is the bear, and their stress is ongoing, unrelenting. They do not have a break.”
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The first goal, he says, is what Mister Rogers suggested, which is mentioning and naming that stress without shame. During the pandemic, “People were home with their families without an escape,” Archie says. “Parents had to become reacquainted with themselves as a couple. You literally saw people spilling into the streets, into parks, with arguments, because there was nowhere else to go. It was all really tough on the kids.”
That confinement and stress manifested itself in everything, from feelings of hopelessness and listlessness to anxiousness. And again, it may have been common, but not normal.
Therapy can help, but Archie acknowledges that it isn’t a go-to for everyone. In the Black community, some have been historically resistant “because needing therapy indicates that there is something wrong with us.” In the meantime, Archie says that “what family really need is to build their skills in communication. Finding something outside of that stress is important. ”
Archie, who is part of an urban farming collective among his Irvington neighbors and raises chickens and goats, suggests activities like caring for animals, which gives kids a sense of their own existence in the world and something to care about. “Animals give us unconditional love, and being aware of ways in which you can help means recognizing you have something to give. These are resilience skills.”
No goats handy? Another idea: spending time with your kids in nature. “Not just the woods somewhere, but sitting on a park bench, sitting at a bus stop and watching and observing what is going on. It’s a powerful thing to realize that the world is still moving and alive, and how beautiful it is,” he says.
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Volunteering is another way to create purpose and creativity, because “giving back is empowering” and provides agency, he says. The most important thing is to reclaim the most crucial thing that our COVID isolation took from us — our sense of connection.
“There’s something about being in a relationship with a community, because it’s very important to surround yourself with people who are your cheerleaders,” he said. “Over time, when things are are opened up and communication is flowing, all these incredible things happen.”
leslie.streeter@thebaltimorebanner.com
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