N.J. doctors say immigration enforcement is raising anxiety in young children. Here’s how parents can help

With increased activity by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continuing across the region, pediatric clinicians in New Jersey say they’re seeing more young children exhibiting signs of trauma, stress and anxiety.

To help allay those fears, the nonprofit organization Reach Out and Read is working with health clinics across the Garden State, encouraging parents to read aloud to their babies and young children every day.

Helping children feel safe

Shaniqa Williams started reading to her 1-year-old son, Sincere, after visiting the Henry J. Austin Health Center in Trenton. The nonprofit serves as the city’s Federally Qualified Health Center and aims to give families the tools they need for wellness.

“Sometimes during the day, he might be overstimulated, so we’ll take some quiet time out to read, and that helps him to be calm and get back to a good space,” she said.

Dr. Rachael Evans, chief medical officer at the Trenton health center, said that when a parent brings their baby or young child in for an appointment, they are immediately given a book from the Reach Out and Read program and encouraged to read it out loud every day.

“At a time when maybe families are feeling stressed, maybe children are feeling that stress, it’s wonderful to give a family a very concrete way to say you can make this child’s experience better, and that positive childhood experience leads to better health outcomes,” she said. “It becomes a wonderful tool to both conduct the visit, but then also to support the parent reading to the child.”

Maurice Elias, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University, said it’s not surprising that more children are showing signs of anxiety these days.

“Even if young children aren’t aware of what’s going on they can sense greater anxiety in their loved ones, they may not be able to pick up on the news or what’s really happening,” he said. “But they do know what’s going on, so I think this is a real phenomenon.”

Elias said reading aloud to young children is beneficial for them because it occupies them completely, and they are usually next to the parent, or on their lap.

“That physical contact is also very reassuring to young children, and it helps to alleviate other anxieties that they have without them even being aware of it,” he said.

He added that it’s important for adults to be as reassuring to children as possible, even if they don’t really feel that way, and reading aloud to them is a way to offer that reassurance.

“Especially before their bedtime, it will help them be more ready for sleep,” he said.

Elias said he frequently reads out loud to his own 4-year-old grandchild.

Multiple benefits

Kim Byam, executive director of Reach Out and Read in New Jersey and Delaware, said reading to young children is beneficial in multiple ways.

“It helps them relax and the more they hear the more their brain is building,” she said. “We know that children that have been exposed to Reach Out and Read for the first five years of life enter kindergarten with higher vocabulary scores.”

“Sometimes our parents don’t know how to read, they’re afraid of the idea of trying to read a book, so we encourage them to create stories,” said Kathryn Moffat, program manager of the early development programs at the Henry J. Austin Health Center. “Just point to pictures in the book and create an interaction between them and their child, it’s the same concept as actually reading the words in the story.”

“Your baby’s favorite sound in the whole world is your voice,” Byam said. “If you’re not comfortable reading you can talk about the pictures, tell stories and the more you do that, your baby’s brain will grow.”

Libraries have read out loud programs

Most libraries across New Jersey and the U.S. feature reading out loud programs for young children.

Erica Bess, the assistant director of the Princeton Public Library, said storytimes are offered twice a week for babies and toddlers, and three times weekly for children ages 2 and up.

She said every month library teams will visit public preschools in Princeton, offering reading aloud programs and visits are also coordinated with private area preschools.

She said exposure to language through hearing books read aloud is extremely helpful for building a child’s word bank.

“When our librarians sing and recite rhymes, they are slowing down language so that children can more easily hear the sounds that make up the words they will eventually read on the page,” she said. “And, with finger play and movement, children build coordination and dexterity, which are essential for holding and turning the pages of a book, and for understanding the concept of reading left to right.”

Bess said the library has two programs that promote parents and caregivers reading to children.

Williams said she has four other children, but Sincere is the first one she has read out loud to on a regular basis, and his favorite book is “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss.

“I feel like reading to him every day helps with his development,” she said. “I’ve noticed he’s started to pick up a lot of words earlier than the others did.”

Reach Out and Read provides more than 200,000 books a year for 80,000 New Jersey families in more than 100 clinics serving lower-income populations.