Table 2. Key Themes Arising from Focus Group Discussions.
| Theme | % of Youth Focus Groups in which theme was discussed | % of Caregiver Focus Groups in which theme was discussed | Examples/Quotes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Question #1: Stressors and Resource Loss | |||
| Identity: Insider/outsider issues | 100% | 100% | “… being in a Somali household, when you step out the door it's different, then when you step in the door that's different…it's like, the outside world's the outside world, and when you enter the household, it's…Somali…” - Male youth, age 24 “I think the parents still want you to be Somali, they don't want you to act any different, they don't want you to look different. But I think it's harder for the kids cause then they see … people their own age like looking different, acting different.” - Female youth, age 16 |
| Acculturative stress: Language barriers, cultural adjustment | 100% | 100% | “If you look our kids, they don't have our culture and they don't have our religion. we are mothers and fathers, of course we are worried about that…But this environment is stronger than us. We'd love to take our kids to Somalia …so they can learn the culture and everything. Because of the war and the financial [situation] we cannot.” - Mother of 5 girls |
| Communication problems between youth and parents | 100% | 100% | “A mother who comes here with 7, 8 children – she hasn't got time to sit down and talk to them like me. She might be like going round saying “Do this. Don't do this”, yelling and telling them things to do, but that's all she has time to do.” - Grandmother raising 3 grandchildren “Youth will get peer pressured or like for example they'll start doing stuff in school and then they won't tell their parents but then the parents will find out when the issue is too big…and then they can't do anything but explode. But then parents at the same time they like lack…being understanding to their children.” - Female youth, age 18 |
| Changing power dynamics between parents and children; gender dimensions to effects on parents | 20% | 75% | “The kids now are speaking the language and the parents don't speak the language. So the kids have a confidence; they do…the phone machine, they translate for them. So they think their parents are ignorant. Just because they don't speak the language…So, kids are taking the power instead of the parents being in power.” - Male youth, age 18 “When we were kids, we were afraid. We respected because we knew there were consequences…But for our children, there is nothing like that. Our children are told that people cannot touch them, people cannot talk to them, that their parents cannot do anything.” - Mother “Traditionally the mother's role was nurturing and caring. And a father's role was discipline. The mother keep her role -it is still nurturing. The father's role has been rejected, because the kids don't want to be disciplined anymore. So that is why there is a tension.” – Grandmother “One thing is that men, after coming here, no longer have this thing – the power that they had. Now everything has gone to the mother's side… There are even some fathers who may decide to go back to Somalia, because of that, because of this disempowerment.” - Mother of 5 daughters |
| Parental and familial trauma | 60% | 75% | “We are talking about parents, who one day woke up and lost everything. They came out of their lives, their homes – everything they had known – with only the clothes on their backs- do we really think they are going to be the same?” - Grandmother of 3 “A lot of the parents do not wanna tell the kids what's happening in the country because they don't want them to feel the pain of it, they don't want them to experience it.” - Father of 3 |
| Research Question #2: Resources and Resilience | |||
| Individual sources of resilience | 100% | 100% | “I also think the religion brings us through hard time. Because when someone is going through the worst of times…Somalis are known to go back to God at that time…” - Female youth, age 15 “It's like--when you're thinking negative, negative things happen. But when you think positive, positive things happen….Getting lost once or twice is only gonna help you, you know, get better at it. So, there you go: positivity.” - Female youth, age 18 |
| Family connectedness/unity/communication | 60% | 75% | “In Africa or Somalia, the parent strategy was to tell the kids…what to do. That was it… there was no negotiation or working together…Here it is working together… So here it involves with the parent understanding the issues the kids are facing, the problems, the social issues, all of those things that the parents have to understand the child and hear what are the issues for the child.” Father “…all Somali families love each other. And that loves brings them through hard times…love is a part of our religion.” - Female youth, age 15 “Somali people, Somali families, they love their kids, they love their families….That's why we are where we are today…the sake of our kids. We came here, we ran away from a gunshot. We came here to their safety… We came here to raise our kids, their safety and their education.” - Mother |
| Community support | 100% | 100% | “…our Somali community, we like stick together…If something tragic were to happen like a death or something… groups would come together to try to help that family.” - Female youth, age 17 “As a mother we support each other, we give moral support to each other, if someone cry we try to help them to cry also, we all cry…we don't call when we are going to visit, we just knock the door. We eat together, we laugh together, we cry together.” - Mother |