War children: What psychological problems to overcome
And how to help a child live through the lost of parents in the course of war
Many children have lost their parents since 24 February. They get severe psychological traumas because of war, deaths of their relatives, and difficulties with rehabilitation in war conditions. About how many children need help so far, what psychological issues they face, and how they can be helped Mind was told by Marta Bilyk, a psychologist at the Children of Heroes Charity Foundation.
Children of Heroes Charity Foundation takes care of such children – there are over 600 of them and roughly 5000 kids will fall under care till the end of the year. Among primary vectors of work of the Foundation are: financial and legal support, education, health care, socialisation, mentorism, and psychological help.
Family stories are various and unique, while troubles faced by both children and adults are often similar.
How many anxieties and consequences of a child’s experience there going to be depends on a number of aspects:
- how long his/her stay in the midst of traumatic events was;
- what exactly the child experienced and saw;
- how many losses and anxieties have layered (loss of a relative, home, friends);
- the child’s age;
- who of adults stayed with the child in critical moments;
- in what circumstances the child has found him/herself now.
Speaking of the families and children who are taken care of by the Children of Heroes Charity Foundation, the dominant questions addressed by parents or relatives to psychologists are “How should we tell our child about a loss?” and “How to help cope with it?”
How do children experience bereavement of a relative?
Children take and experience the deaths of relatives in different ways. Some grieve, others become introverted and keep silent and seem like they do not want to mention the loss. There are children whose feelings show themselves as change in their behaviour, disobedience, aggression, protesting against the rules and norms. The fear of losing another intimate person often appears in children.
Parents and the child’s entourage are often in the process of their own grievance and do not have enough knowledge and resource to support the child.
Where does the help begin?
The longer children are at a distance from hostilities and all that is connected with them, the more they become calm, adapt and start to fill their lives with new impressions and emotions. But nevertheless, some children feel further anxiety, react more acutely to loud and unexpected sounds similar to the sounds of war.
In working with such children’s feelings, psychologists have a fine “arsenal” (of methods) that not only help children release or overcome current fears, but also learn how to manage themselves (to take care of) in future.
What is the change in family relationship after the loss?
Reshaping the relationship within the family is another complex process tightly connected to the war, often accompanied by conflicts and misunderstandings.
Each family develops over years its own hierarchy, rules of communication, boundaries, approved and “automatically clear” rules, traditions. The child was raised amid them, they have become natural, giving him/her a sense of stability and safety (we are not speaking here of destructive, toxic families). And then, in virtually one day, everything has changed.
Some children used to live in large families, with grandparents and close relatives. They were used to active interaction, distribution of family roles and chores, mutual help, some way of spending their leisure. But suddenly they found themselves together with their mother abroad.
The mother is forced to work, manage many present-day matters, the child gets new duties, faces new expectations and demands to himself, has to stay long at home on his own or goes to a new school or infant school.
Other children who always used to live as an independent family had, by contrast, to move to their relatives or live in shelters with many various families.
There are already settled rules and customs, habits and norms. And it seems like the child is expected to know them, understand and undoubtedly follow. And what if there was more than one removal and people and communication were regularly changing around?
Adults themselves do not always understand this or have any resource on their own, and the child turns in on himself or rebels – so then they go to psychologists complaining about losing contact with their child, quarrels, vernability, aggressive behaviour.
How to recover social connections after traumatic events?
Along with reshaping usual family/kindred relationships, children face the loss of usual social connections (communication with relatives, classmates, impossibility to continue going in for favourite sports or develop a hobby or passion, some kind of isolation in the new space where their family has moved). Their recovery needs time, strength, various external opportunities and certain persnal bravery and initiativeness.
As of now the relevant subject for most children becomes adaptation to a new school or infant school. Some children have already had time to be moved to new educational institutions and partially meet their classmates in person/at a distance (at second hand), but most will face them only with the beginning of the school year.
In the course of school years each child develops his stable friendly circle, certain social status, certain perception of teachers by the child. And now he has to start everything from scratch. And while when the school is just changed, the child has other stable relations outside the educational institution (under normal circumstances), now it is often the beginning of classes on which big expectations from both the child and parents are placed.
“Now my son/daughter will go to school, start going out to have a good time, stop being silently glued to his/her gadget etc, my kid’s behaviour will change.” Sometimes such expectations (especially if they are exaggerated) increase the child’s anxiety. Children remember their previous negative experience at school and expect it to occur once again.
How do children react to traumatic events in their lives?
For some children, changing the country of residence is an additional challenge. When everything around you is new, strange and unclear, new language, traditions, basic rules of social interaction.
Children react another way than adults do in stress or crisis situations. These reactions often depend on the age and the extent of disturbance of children's basic safety feeling. Generally, children can be more quick in managing themselves concerning changes in their lives and accommodating to new circumstances, than adults.
But there are also those to whom such changes come harder due to various reasons:
- their usual behaviour may change;
- other emotional reactions may appear;
- they become introverted;
- they keep silent;
- drift apart from their environment;
- escape to the world of games and gadgets.
And not everyone manages to cope with the whole whirlpool of inner emotions.
It is often in the first period after the loss or life change when adults near the child last out only fulfilling basic duties (feeding, dressing, washing, taking the child here-there etc). Children are left alone with their feelings and see that their attempts to talk and share are often ignored or cause parents or adults’ aggression or tears.
In the midst of such communication the child shuns or conversely starts to actively draw attention by changing his/her behaviour, mostly to negative one. Adults also need some time to come to their senses, regain any control over their lives, and start to financially support themselves and their children again. And in this case their resources are not enough for the child’s feelings.
What are the ways to help a family in going through the loss?
If we want to give infants high-quality help, we should not forget to provide assistance to adults. Psychologists of the Children of Heroes Charity Foundation counsel not only children, but also parents, guardians on their side, help with finding inner resources, maintain communication with children, understand and reduce non-constructive displays of children’s behaviour, restore trustful relationships..
The more grown-up people there are around children ready to help, support, explain, share their feelings and passions, the faster our children will recover and the probability of remote consequences will decrease.
It is so lovely to watch as children smile again, their anxieties reduce, plans for life return, they dream again and believe that everything is going to be alright because of the support by psychologists of the Children of Heroes Charity Foundation. And with such belief it is fairly easier to cope with all life challenges.
You can support the Foundation via the link. Reports on the children who lost their parents and need help may be submitted here.
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