That finding, detailed in an article published July 30, 2018, in the Journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, is the latest in a series of longitudinal studies by Tuppett Yates, PhD, a clinical and development psychology professor at the University of California in Riverside, and Ana Marcelo, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. The report is the first to confirm that children under age 10 perceive and suffer from prejudice. But it also offers a positive prescription for change. Youngsters who enjoy a strong ethnic or racial identity (ERI) within their community, it notes, may be buffered from some of the damage inflicted by racism, which, the study also notes, is widespread. “More than one-half of the children we studied had pretty clear experiences of discrimination,” Dr. Yates says. “It’s something I wish I could say is surprising. But it’s not.”
Resilience to Chronic Stress in Children Hinges on Identity
As founder of UCR’s Adversity and Adaptation Laboratory, Yates and Dr. Marcelo, a collaborator, study adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resilience, which they define as being able to adapt and function in a competent way despite threats to the ability to do so. Resilience, they emphasize, is a developmental process, not a trait of the child. The researchers have been tracking a group of 250 children for nearly 10 years. The latest report, completed when the youngsters were 8 years old, highlights that even young children experience discrimination and suffer its negative effects on their socio-emotional adjustment. RELATED: United States of Stress “Kids who experienced higher levels of discrimination showed more anxiety, depression, and behavioral difficulties as reported by the examiners who worked on the project,” Marcelo says, “and these experiences of discrimination predicted increased internalizing and externalizing of behavioral problems.” She adds that the negative effect of racism extends beyond children’s problem behaviors to influence their health, well-being, and adaptation to different environments, including school. The current study examined a subset of 172 children, divided evenly between boys and girls. Fifty-six percent were Latino, 19 percent were black, and the remainder were of mixed parentage. Examiners assessed whether the children felt excluded or targeted because of the color of their skin, their language or accent, or their culture. Although the questions were posed as multiple choice, several children openly shared their experiences. “One youngster said that another child wouldn’t play with her because they said that ‘black was ugly,’” says Marcelo. One year later, the children were retested to determine their level of individual ethnic and racial identification. The results suggested that children who felt strongly connected with their ethnic and racial heritage were protected from some of the negative effects of discrimination.
Children Finding Strength in Themselves Through ERIs
“When an overwhelming experience has rendered a child lost, their ERI — ethnic or racial identity — allowed them to be found, by helping them understand who they are, who they can talk to, and who can help them work through their experiences,” says Yates. Arline Geronimus, ScD, a professor of health behavior and health education at the University Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor and a member of Everyday Health’s Wellness Advisory Board, warns that without the mitigating power of strong ERIs, youngsters endure “weathering,” a physical and emotional wearing-down roughly akin to the accumulation of rust on a deteriorating building. “Mitigation through ERI is important for several reasons,” Dr. Geronimus says. “It provides those youngsters with a positive approach to coping with discrimination, and it enables them to know — within themselves — that racial stereotypes are not true and that, for example, being black is good rather than bad. It empowers them to challenge negative beliefs, rather than to accept or internalize them.”
Building Positive Messages In Schools, Communities
Yates and Marcelo argue that schools and communities can help cultivate strong ERIs by paying close attention to everyday messages. Offering many and diverse kinds of classroom literature; portraying heroes of every color and ethnicity; ensuring that teachers are drawn from varied backgrounds; guiding youngsters through challenging but critical discussion topics; and ensuring that schools display posters and signage that advances pride and inclusion can help fortify strong ERI. Such strategies also potentially diminish real physiological threats. Bruce McEwen, PhD, the Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and head of the neuroendocrinology laboratory at The Rockefeller University in New York, coined the terms “allostatic load” and “allostatic overload” to describe the cumulative damage wrought by repeated or prolonged chronic stress; a risk that youngsters born into poverty, deprivation, or other adverse childhood experiences fall inordinately prey to. Dr. McEwen points to the Strong African American Families (SAAF) program, subject of a recent study, published July 2017 in the journal Preventive Medicine, as an example of a successful attempt to build ERI. SAAF trains parents and caregivers to provide preteens with ongoing emotional support and honest communications. The study found that young people who completed the program with an adult partner not only maintained a strong sense of purpose and control for many years afterward, but they also managed to avoid chronic stress’s most toxic damage: the increased likelihood of developing prediabetes or suffering chronic stress-induced brain shrinkage.
Learning to Self-Regulate, Show Resilience
“The program showed what can be possible when someone learns to self-regulate, accept their identity, and develop tools for success,” says McEwen, who coauthored The End of Stress as We Know It and is a member of Everyday Health’s Wellness Advisory Board. “Some people might call these tools for self-esteem, but they are just the skills needed to handle problems and show resilience by building an internal locus of control.” The sooner such interventions begin, say Yates and Marcelo, the greater the chance for success. As they continue to track their youthful subjects throughout their school experiences, the researchers say they hope to uncover new ways to replace negative experiences with positive ones. “Development is cumulative, and the longer you are exposed to negative influences, the harder it is to change their effects,” Yates says. “If we can plant the seed to participate in positive racial and ethnic communities early, it will make it easier to achieve success throughout life.” It is possible that those young children who are better able to assign meaning to their racial or ethnic group may be advanced in other cognitive capabilities — such as so-called executive functioning — that have been shown to protect against the damage of chronic stress. And while the study was longitudinal, it was for one year, and only in one age group, which was largely Latino, so there is some limited ability at this time to generalize.
