My 13-year-old says Canada is under fire and there’s no one to protect us. What’s more, she says she doesn’t like talking about this stuff – politics, Trump, Trudeau, tariffs, trade wars – with grown-ups, because all they do is rant.
Hearing all that ranting, she says, just makes the bad situations even worse.
“Teachers, parents, grown-ups – it’s annoying because the conversation always gets personal and it’s less about Trump or what we’re doing about tariffs, and more about the strong opinion of adults,” she says.
“I feel bummed, of course – no one wants to be the 51st state – but I’m more, like, annoyed. It feels like we’re screwed no matter what, and I want adults to stop saying that.”
Adolescents who have grown up through the pandemic, surging inflation and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine can now add more recent upheavals such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation and the Trump presidency to their destabilizing childhood experiences. With those pressures being compounded by the anger and the behaviour they’re seeing around them, experts say it’s up to parents and other grown ups to teach them how to navigate it all in acceptable ways.
Follow the latest updates on the Canada-U.S. tariff war here
Dr. Todd Cunningham, chair of the school and clinical child psychology program at the University of Toronto, says children absorb the emotions of their environments. When a kid at the Ottawa Senators game sees a stadium boo the American anthem, it teaches them that hostile behaviour is acceptable.
“If we allow our kids to engage in negative behaviour, it encourages hostility not only to Americans, but any group – it gives children permission to do not nice things,” Dr. Cunningham says.
Parents can use situations like a hostile crowd at a sporting event as a teaching moment – in this case, an example of how not to behave. Understandably, tensions are high, he adds, but overheated or profane language is never acceptable around children and our gravest fears should be kept amongst adults.
Dr. Cunningham says that adults should question children, listen to their responses, and then correct them gently if they feel they’re misinformed or responding in a negative manner.
“It’s natural for adolescents to have emotional reactions, but we can reframe it from negative to positive,” Dr. Cunningham says. “For instance, when the fires were happening in L.A., kids here worried and remembered the Canadian fires from 2023, and so we had kids write letters of support to their peers in California. It gives children a place to focus their worries.”
What is a tariff, how do they work and what could Trump’s mean for Canada?
Social media and the omnipresent screens go a long way toward ramping up emotions, says Cynthia Brummelhuis, a psychologist in Saskatoon busy helping her 12-year-old twins navigate the world. She says that adults, given the fire hose of aggression our kids find online, need to be conscientious in their messaging to counteract influential voices they cannot control.
“I don’t have a problem with acknowledging that things are scary, but every provocative statement needs to come with solutions,” Ms. Brummelhuis says, adding there’s a time and a place for difficult conversations. Bedtime, or as the kids leave for school, is not when you want to engage in strong feelings, but rather after school and in a calm environment, when there’s time for processing, follow-up questions or even research taken together to dig into issues.
I asked my 11-year-old how he felt about Donald Trump and the possibility of a trade war, and his response was macho and patriotic, much like that I’ve heard from parents who told me they had mixed emotions about the American anthem booing. While there was anger in their response, they said they also felt pride in their country.
“Canada has so many natural resources and if the Americans tax us, then we’ll tax them back – everyone loses, but we’ll also be fine,” he said.
Meanwhile, as we see the Canadian dollar battered and our country reacts to a confrontational, impulsive American leader, our kids struggle to know how to respond. Sometimes it takes an 11-year-old schooled in Fortnite to prepare us for whatever comes next.
“Donald Trump is a bully, but Canada can stand up for itself and we’re big and strong,” my son said.
