Blog

The State of the Union is supposed to be a ritual of reassurance. The president enters the chamber of the United States Congress, lawmakers rise and applaud, and for one choreographed evening, we tell ourselves a story about who we are. We are strong. We are resilient. We are advancing.

However, on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump delivered a sprawling, raucous narrative about economic revival, border tightening, partisan battles, and a vision of America in a “golden age.”

As I watched the speech’s cadence — the applause lines, the assaults on political opponents, the relentless assertion of national triumph — a question kept rising in me, a question that is rarely spoken but always present: What does this mean for our children? As I listened, I found myself thinking less about gross domestic product and more about their interior lives.

For adults accustomed to political combat, this is familiar terrain. But for children — particularly those in immigrant families, children of color, or children whose identities have been politicized — the message can register differently.

When leaders describe certain groups as dangerous or burdensome, children who see themselves reflected in those groups internalize subtle but corrosive questions: Am I safe here? Do I belong?

Research on childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences tells us that chronic exposure to fear — even secondhand fear — can activate the body’s stress systems. Elevated cortisol, persistent hypervigilance, difficulty concentrating: These are not ideological reactions. They are biological responses.

A child who hears repeated warnings of danger in their community, or who worries that a parent could be detained or deported, does not experience politics as theater.

In her landmark book Trauma and Recovery, psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman writes that trauma is “an affliction of the powerless.” It arises when people are subjected to overwhelming forces and deprived of control. Trauma is not merely a bad experience; it is an experience that shatters the basic assumptions of safety, trust, and meaning. It reorganizes the brain around vigilance and fear.

Herman was writing about survivors of war, domestic violence, and political terror. But the framework she provides is disturbingly relevant to our civic culture. Trauma flourishes in conditions of sustained unpredictability, humiliation, and threat. And for many children in America over the past several years, unpredictability and threat have not been abstractions. They have been ambient conditions.

Consider the moments in the speech when the president highlighted crimes committed by undocumented immigrants to justify harsher enforcement. Or the policy of family separation at the southern border — a decision that, whatever one’s views on immigration enforcement, resulted in children being forcibly separated from their parents. Developmental psychologists have been unequivocal: abrupt separation from primary caregivers activates the body’s stress response at extreme levels. Prolonged activation can alter brain architecture. The child does not interpret the experience as a policy dispute.

The child experiences terror.

Or consider the speech’s emphasis on rooting out ideological enemies within institutions — universities, federal agencies, the press. When authority figures repeatedly signal that institutions are corrupt or hostile, children can lose faith in the very structures meant to protect them.

Herman writes that trauma often involves a “betrayal of trust” by systems that are supposed to provide safety. When public discourse paints schools, courts, or civic bodies as fundamentally illegitimate, children absorb that distrust.

When leaders speak in ways that categorize certain groups as threats or burdens, children who identify with those groups absorb the message. Even children who do not belong to those groups learn something about how power operates: that dignity is conditional.

For some viewers, Trump’s anecdotes reinforced the case for stronger borders. For others — including children in mixed-status families — they reinforced a sense of collective suspicion. Trauma researchers note that when individuals feel stigmatized or collectively blamed, it can produce what psychologists call “identity-based stress,” a chronic strain associated with anxiety and depression.

None of this is to deny the president’s right to advocate his policies. Nor is it to suggest that only one party’s rhetoric carries emotional consequences. But the tone and themes of this particular address — siege, dominance, humiliation reversed through force — echo dynamics that trauma science has long identified as destabilizing when internalized by the powerless.

Children are, by definition, powerless in the civic sphere. They do not vote. They do not shape policy. They rely on adults and institutions for stability. When those adults present the world as perpetually on the brink, the child’s sense of baseline safety erodes.

There is also the matter of modeling. Children learn not only from what leaders say but how they say it. When applause lines are built on mockery or derision of opponents, when strength is defined primarily as crushing adversaries, children receive lessons about conflict resolution. If politics is portrayed as a zero-sum battle between good and evil, compromise looks like betrayal. Empathy looks like weakness.

Herman’s framework suggests that healing from trauma requires three stages: safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection. Safety comes first. And safety, at its core, is relational. It is built through consistent, attuned caregiving and through trustworthy institutions. This is where parents face an immense challenge.

How do you cultivate a child’s sense of security in a culture that often amplifies alarm? The first task is to build a counter climate at home. When children hear rhetoric about invasions or enemies, parents can contextualize without dismissing. “The president believes these policies will make the country safer,” one might say. “There are different views. What matters here is that you are safe, and we are together.” Research on co-regulation shows that children borrow calm from steady adults. The parent’s tone becomes a neurological anchor.

Second, parents can help children develop narrative competence. Trauma fragments experience; it turns events into isolated flashes of fear. By inviting children to talk about what they heard in the speech — what confused them, what worried them — parents help integrate those fragments into a coherent story. “What did you notice?” “How did that make you feel?” Such questions restore a sense of agency.

Third, parents can double down on belonging. In a speech that emphasized insiders vs. outsiders, strength vs. weakness, it is vital that children experience inclusive communities. Faith groups, sports teams, neighborhood networks — these are not luxuries. They are buffers. Studies consistently show that a single stable, supportive relationship can dramatically reduce the long-term impact of stress.

Fourth, parents can model moral steadiness. If adults respond to polarizing rhetoric with rage and contempt, children learn that the world truly is at war. If adults respond with firm but measured disagreement, children learn that conflict can be navigated without annihilation. Moral clarity does not require hysteria.

The deeper issue, however, extends beyond individual households. When a president frames national life primarily through threat and triumph, he shapes the emotional climate of the country. Emotional climates matter. They influence how children perceive their future, their neighbors, and themselves.

The State of the Union is often measured by applause, polling bumps, or market reactions. But there is another metric — harder to capture, yet profoundly consequential: the degree to which our public discourse expands or contracts a child’s sense of safety.

A nation can declare itself strong. But if its children are chronically anxious, if they feel stigmatized or uncertain of belonging, that strength is brittle.

Herman reminds us that trauma is not destiny. Recovery is possible. Human beings are resilient, especially when supported by love and connection. The same is true for societies. We can choose rhetoric that rallies without terrorizing, that fortifies without dehumanizing, that inspires without humiliating.

The real state of our union is written not only in economic reports but in the bedtime questions children ask. “Will we be OK?” “Do we belong?” “Is this place safe?”

If our politics cannot answer those questions with a steady yes, then all the declarations of greatness ring hollow.

The task before us is not simply to win arguments, but to cultivate a civic culture in which children can grow without chronic fear. That is not a partisan project. It is a moral one.

Jack Hill is a diversity consultant, child advocate, journalist, and writer.