With three daughters, Brandon and Monica Jones have their hands full. In the mornings, their older two girls are able to get themselves ready for the most part, but it’s the youngest, 2-year-old Skylar who runs around the kitchen screaming and laughing and making a mess with her breakfast. 

It’s a bit chaotic but Brandon Jones understands it’s part of the normal process of growing up. As the executive director of the Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health, he also knows that lots of other Black children and families struggle with the pressures of racism and poverty and the long-term problems they create.

“There’s secure attachment, there’s clear communication, there’s play, there’s these things that you would assume are always already there,” Jones said of his daughters. “But in a lot of families, they’re just not. And there’s reasons for that. It’s not just because parents are negligent, and they don’t care and they’re not engaged.”

The mental health of young children is closely connected to the well-being of their caregivers — if the adults in their lives struggle, the kids may struggle, too. When adults can’t find stable housing or employment or must deal daily with the consequences of racial discrimination, it’s hard to shield children from that anxiety.

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“Black youth in Minnesota are at risk of experiencing toxic stress that contributes to depression and anxiety due to long-standing structural racism,” according to Reimagine Black Youth Mental Health, a partnership between the Brooklyn Bridge Alliance for Youth, the Minnesota Department of Health and a coalition of local governments that’s focused now on improving the well-being of Black children, particularly in the Minneapolis suburbs of Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park.

“While these impacts are not always felt directly by Black youth,” the partnership notes, “these systemic inequities have resulted in negative, disproportionate outcomes for homeownership, income, incarceration, and physical and mental health in Black populations in Minnesota.”

Kids don’t know how to say ‘I’m depressed’

There’s no doubt kids are stressed. In the 2022 Minnesota Student Survey of fifth, eighth, ninth and 11th graders, nearly one-third reported struggling with long-term mental health problems, a circumstance so concerning that the state’s health commissioner at the time described it as a “mental health crisis.” 

For Black parents and caregivers, race adds a layer of challenges atop the stresses.

“A lot of times, Black parents and caregivers feel that they’re being judged on their parenting, based on our experiences with racism, even if the judgment’s not there,” Jones said. “We’ve been socialized and conditioned to assume the teacher’s judging me, my family doctor’s judging me.”

That pressure can be heavy to bear, according to Willie Garrett, former president of the Minnesota Psychological Association. In his 43 years of practice Garrett has seen how caregivers of Black children — in most cases Black women — struggle to cope with their own mental health issues.

“So kids are struggling as a result of that,” Garrett said. “And childhood is a one-shot deal. It’s not something you do over. You have to do it right the first time. And childhood sets the foundation for adulthood.”

Skylar Jones plays peek-a-boo with her sister Zanella Jones before school on Dec. 13, 2023.

Kyra Miles | MPR News

While children may not fully understand the racism or depression their parents are experiencing, Garrett said, they do internalize those feelings and that shows up in different ways.

“Some children won’t say ‘I’m unhappy’ or ‘I’m sad,’ they might cry more,” he said. “They might stay alone more. Children don’t know to say, ‘I’m depressed.’ It’s up to a parent.”

A child having more infections than usual can also be an indication of stress. Garrett said over the years pediatricians have referred sick babies and mothers to him. He was once was referred to treat a child who was continuously sick with no apparent cause.

“When I got the history, I found out the mother had a very severe postpartum depression,” Garrett said. “And I knew I had to work with the mother, that once the mother got over her depression, the baby would be OK.”

The environment people live in also plays a role. About 30 percent of Black people in Minnesota live in poverty, according to the Department of Health. This includes areas with high pollution and food deserts. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, Black children are also six times more likely to be affected by gun violence than their peers.

‘Preparing them for a harsh world’

While the state offers social emotional well-being checks for all families with young children they don’t always address the root of these disparities.

Eva Marie Shivers founded a cultural center in Arizona for families and young children of color that centers on how racialized generational trauma in the Black community affects the way kids are parented.

“Parenting might look different from white middle class parenting,” Shivers said. “It’s not that we’re deficient. It’s that we’ve had to adapt in different ways. And the ways that we adapt, have kept our families intact and have kept our children safe.” 

These adaptive strategies of parenting are responding to structures of oppression that in some ways still endure today. 

“We believe that we are preparing them for a harsh world,” Shivers said. “We believe that we are protecting them, because we love them. And so we need them to understand when I say no, it means no, don’t question me because when you’re out there in the world, even in your little preschool class, if you get out of line here are the consequences that can happen.”

Skylar Jones kisses and hugs her older sisters Audree and Zanella goodbye before school at their home in Cottage Grove on Dec. 13, 2023.

Kyra Miles | MPR News

Shivers said she finds that white psychologists or caregivers may see stricter parenting styles from Black parents as harsh. She also said discipline disparities start in early childhood classrooms.

“This puts children on a fast track, to the preschool to prison pipeline, Shivers said. “So there is research that shows children’s exposure early or even before they get to kindergarten, their early experiences, with being suspended, with being expelled, with being constantly sent to timeout or sent to the director’s office for behavior. This impacts their internal working model, how they think about themselves as a learner, as a peer.”

Strengthening kids’ caregivers

Change can be slow and difficult, but observers see a path forward.

State agencies over the past 15 years have worked to build an infant and early childhood mental health system that partners with local groups to meet some needs.

Examples include work with the African American Child Wellness Institute to provide services for children as old as 6 who do not have insurance, and spending from the Cultural and Ethnic Minorities Infrastructure Grant to help cover the costs of getting credentials for clinicians of color.

Minnesota’s Follow Along program and the Minnesota Integrated Care for Early Childhood Initiative help to identify developmental and social-emotional areas of need in young children of color, including referrals to help identify autism, anxiety and trauma in kids.

The state Department of Human Services reports serving about 5,500 children a year, with about 35 percent of those children being children of color.

In a recent summit with 200 Black Twin Cities middle and high school students, young people spoke out about the need for family therapy and more Black educators, solutions that reach back to early childhood, said Rachel Warren, coordinator of the Reimagine Black Youth Mental Health effort.

“What we’ve learned is that young people don’t exist outside of the context of supportive adults and family,” Warren said. “And so when you think of early childhood education and elementary age students, some of the work we’re doing with our older youth really has to do with including the power that families hold and giving them space and healing and voice.”

Improving things at the youngest ages means that early childhood racial narratives need to be disrupted and Black caregivers and children have to be uplifted, Shivers said.

In the infant and early childhood mental health field, she said she’s seen more emphasis on diversity in early childhood classrooms and an increased interest in culturally conscious training for caregivers.

She’s also seen a change in affirmations for Black children.

“We do a lot of pro social racialization with our children — all the books that we have, Black is beautiful,” Shivers said. “Let’s learn about the strong people in our history and our family. Look how beautiful your brown skin (is),” she added. “That’s like tapping into our beauty, our joy, our excellence.”

Monica Jones holds her youngest daughter Skylar to watch her older sisters go to school on Dec. 13, 2023.

Kyra Miles | MPR News

That’s what Monica Jones does with her daughters. Whether it is complimenting them or taking time to do their curly natural hair in the morning.

They have a strong sisterhood modeled after their mother, grandmothers and aunt. In the Jones household, they have nightly family dinner and games to bond with their kids and social emotional check-ins. Jones herself is big on self-care.

“I’m very conscientious about making sure that I take care of my mental health so that I am able to show up better as a parent,” Jones said.

Jones said she and her husband try to adapt to each of their children and they try to model healthy social-emotional habits. She wants to give her daughters the freedom to share how they feel and and move through the world as they want.

“I’m hoping that because of their exposure, and their ability to pull on those techniques,” she said, “that can help them regulate their emotions and understand the importance of mental health down the road as they get older.”

This story is part of Call to Mind, American Public Media and MPR’s initiative to foster new conversations about mental health.