In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argue that children need natural supports such as family, nutrition, and exercise rather than medicalized approaches like mandatory mental health screenings. On the surface, this call to strengthen natural sources of resilience is appealing — and many educators, parents, and health professionals would agree that healthy routines and strong relationships are fundamental to well-being.
But here lies the contradiction: the very administration that champions “natural” supports for children has pursued policies that actively undermine those supports and generate widespread trauma. To celebrate family, hope, and stability in theory while enacting policies that destroy them in practice is not only inconsistent — it is dangerous.
Family Separation and Immigration Trauma
The clearest example is immigration policy. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” approach forcibly separated thousands of children from their parents at the U.S. border. Mental health experts across the political spectrum have documented the devastating, long-term effects: disrupted parent-child bonds, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression. If strong families are the foundation of natural well-being, deliberately tearing them apart is among the most harmful things a government can do.
The ripple effects extend beyond detention facilities. Constant fear of deportation has haunted mixed-status families, including U.S.-born children. Many young people go to school each day with the gnawing anxiety that a parent may not be home when they return. That kind of chronic fear does not promote resilience — it corrodes it.
Cuts to Services That Protect Children
McMahon and Kennedy praise nutrition and housing stability as essential to health, but their administration has undermined both. During the Trump years, the number of uninsured children rose for the first time in decades. Nutrition programs were weakened, leaving families more vulnerable to food insecurity — a well-documented driver of toxic stress in children. Federal housing assistance programs were slashed, fueling instability that disrupts children’s education and erodes their sense of safety.
When families cannot access health care, housing, or food, the “natural supports” officials claim to value are already broken. Therapy may not be the first line of defense, but when government actively dismantles protective systems, professional mental health care becomes a lifeline for many.
Targeting Marginalized Communities
The administration has also advanced policies and rhetoric that stigmatize marginalized groups. LGBTQ+ youth, already at higher risk of depression and suicide, have seen their identities treated as threats rather than realities deserving of respect. Racial discrimination has been emboldened by the erosion of civil rights protections and by inflammatory political rhetoric. Research is clear: exposure to racism and marginalization causes trauma and worsens mental health outcomes.
It is disingenuous to suggest that more outdoor play or family dinners can erase the harm of systemic discrimination and targeted attacks on identity. While natural supports help, they cannot replace the urgent need for policies that affirm the dignity and safety of all children.
A Culture of Violence and Fear
Perhaps the starkest contradiction is on gun violence. McMahon and Kennedy argue that children need less medicalization and more natural resilience — yet American students are uniquely required to undergo active-shooter drills, starting in kindergarten and repeated every year. The ritual of practicing how to hide in closets, barricade classroom doors, or remain silent while imagining a gunman in the hallway is itself a trauma, baked into childhood in this country like no other.
And there’s also the violence in the streets, fueled by the illicit flow of weapons and the laxity of our gun-control laws. The policy solution? Bring the National Guard and militarize our cities. We now have a generation of children growing up in constant fear that the next school day could be their last and growing up in militarized neighborhoods. No amount of nutritious meals or outdoor play can erase the psychological toll of living under the shadow of gun violence.
The Anti-Vaccine Agenda
Equally troubling is Secretary Kennedy’s long-standing promotion of anti-vaccine views, which has now been elevated to federal health policy. Public health experts warn that discouraging vaccination will directly endanger thousands of children, leaving them vulnerable to diseases we once had under control. Parents who lose children to preventable illness or children who suffer lifelong complications will not find comfort in rhetoric about “natural health.” The trauma of unnecessary suffering and loss will be a direct consequence of federal policy.
The Core Contradiction
McMahon and Kennedy are right about one thing: children need families, healthy routines, and stability. But these cannot be achieved simply by invoking Aristotle or reviving a fitness test. They require policy choices that strengthen, rather than erode, the environments in which children grow up.
If the administration truly wants to reduce reliance on therapy, it must stop creating the very traumas that drive families and children to seek it in the first place. Policies that separate families, increase food insecurity, stigmatize identities, weaken disease protections, and force children into a culture of gun violence are not neutral backdrops to children’s lives — they are active sources of harm.
Humane policies for all
I agree with secretaries McMahon and RFJ Jr, therapy is not the solution to every challenge and prevention matters. But prevention begins with policy. A government that values natural well-being must ensure that families stay together, that children are fed and vaccinated, that communities feel safe from gun violence, and that dignity is protected for all. Anything less makes the call for “natural supports” ring hollow.