War and children

War affects children. Each child in a different way: through the television screen, through the fear in adults’ eyes, through combat actions, through fleeing and the deaths of people, through violence, looting, hunger, and destruction.

Research shows that a child’s ability to cope with the stress of war heavily depends on their mother’s ability to handle war-related stress, recognize stress in their child, and provide support. Coping with the stress of war is very difficult. As a result, most children who have experienced war develop mental health disorders: post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and other issues.

So who are the children of war?

They are children who may feel betrayed. Adults whom they trusted and whose moral guidelines they believed in can suddenly behave in the opposite manner. This can lead children to lose their moral compass.

These are children who have lived for a long time in a war zone, whose personalities change. Anger and resentment fill their souls from the unending feeling of lost childhood. Some children develop a tendency towards self-sacrifice.

These are children whose sense of trust and safety has been disrupted by the unpredictable nature of war. They begin to perceive the world as an exclusively cruel and dangerous space. Many children who have experienced war become anxious and overly dependent, unable to trust themselves or others.

These are children, especially older ones, who become “students of war.” Aggression and violence become their way of expressing pain.

Children of war are those who more often make negative predictions about their future. In their minds, there is a prevailing sense of powerlessness, leading them to believe in “higher powers” rather than in themselves.

Wouldn’t it be great if the safety of our children is not a collective fantasy but a reality in which children will never have to feel betrayed by adults?

Author: Katrina Markova