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Children absorb adult stress, even without understanding events, which impacts their behavior and emotions.

Shared reading helps regulate stress, building emotional security and stronger parent-child bonds.

Stories give kids language for big feelings, supporting emotional awareness and healthy coping.

In recent months, many parents have come into the exam room asking some version of the same question: Could my child be affected by everything going on in the world right now? Sometimes, it’s even more direct: Could my child be affected by what our family is experiencing?

The answer, in many cases, is yes.

Even if they’re too young to follow headlines about political conflict, community tension, or global events, they are paying close attention to something else: the adults around them. Children, even the youngest ones, are quite observant and often use their “spidey senses” to pick up on the mood or emotional state of their parents. Changes in tone, heightened stress, and disruptions to routine rarely go unnoticed. Instead, children absorb these cues, often without the words to make sense of them.

In many cases, that stress shows up indirectly, through sleep disruptions, behavioral changes, increased clinginess, or emotional outbursts that seem disproportionate to the moment. According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 1 in 5 children ages 3–17 (21 percent) have been diagnosed with a mental, emotional, or behavioral health condition. And for many, those challenges begin early, as children’s developing brains respond to stress and the environments around them. Repeated stress, even........

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