The words of war have reached the ears of children and adolescents in France as well as those of adults. How to react and how to act, they ask us?
Before answering these questions, a brief reminder sets the framework for communication: a message (M) is sent from a sender (E) to a receiver (R). Alternately, E becomes R and R becomes E. This is extremely important: communication is not only conceived in one direction. M does not descend unilaterally from E to R.
We do not communicate in the same way from one family to another. Here we talk a lot, a great habit of exchanges is anchored, where others do not yet benefit from a favorable ground for this type of conversation. However, it is important not to speak falsely. We cannot decree, like that, that we are going to talk about certain subjects. The conditions are to be developed to make confiding possible.
Ensuite, child, teenager
they are not homogeneous categories. Individualities influence the type of messages. Of course, we’ve already highlighted the importance of context plus age, to begin with. You don’t talk the same way with – more than talking to – a 2-year-old and a 13-year-old. It will therefore take personal time when a sibling is concerned. Next, the profile of each person. Any child or teenager they are, they are people with different character traits.
It is from this singularity that the exchange is organized. We can imagine that for some it will be easier to start a discussion indirectly, following the news for example. For others, starting from history lessons where wars are omnipresent, from geography, or because a member of the family or entourage lived in wartime, we can bounce back.
These different approaches make it possible to say what can cause concern or even anxiety.
Some will ask for details on Europe, Ukraine and Russia where others will speak directly of their terrors. Obviously it’s not the same kind of exchange… although it is relevant not to focus on the message put forward in first intention.
Talking about the constitution of Europe in 1950 because the peoples aspire to peace at the end of World War II can be a way to get out of an overflow of anxiety linked to images of crowds in exile following bombings . Thus we leave the immediacy and the invasion of affects in the face of which the psyche has a lot to do.
We are them
The war in Ukraine awakens insecurity.
The intrinsic vulnerability to life explodes in our face when we see people in absolute distress following extraordinary events. This identification is facilitated here because the Ukrainians look like us. They are our neighbours. The identification raises questions about the future: could it happen to us to lose everything, to be forced to leave everything?
.
Violence is also part of the lives of children and adolescents, they are sometimes direct and often indirect witnesses. The impact is inevitable.
The approach to the current war cannot therefore make a clean sweep of particularities. We are not in virgin territory, including with young children. And it is a force to help understand. By placing young people in a familiar context, adults show that the unknown is not totally unknown.
War is death. But death is not outside the lives of young people.
The right words are felt.
In no case should you lie, we can say I do not Know how to explain it to you. I’m going to talk about it with your teachers or someone who is from Eastern Europe or we could invite someone who lived through the war and who can testify.
It’s more reassuring than being told do not worry
while one feels one’s parent uneasy and one sees scary headlines on every newsstand in town. It’s better to say I don’t know how it will evolve. Besides, we never know the future!
than to say anything in the affirmative if, perhaps, a week later one is forced to deny it.
Deciphering information together is very productive. The horrors of war, of exile cannot be denied. On the other hand, the values of solidarity are counterphobic. Acting to help people in distress gives hope and emerges from helplessness, from the shame associated with cowardice. If you were faced with something terrible yourself, loneliness is not to be feared if you check with your family, in your closest environment, that indifference does not reign. This strength makes it possible to face the worst news.
Preserving your child is not putting it under glass. Looking together for the words to say is to assure the other in the exchange of his sincerity. It also means strengthening your self-confidence to face the difficulties of existence, and at the moment, we can clearly see that there are some… After 2 years of Covid, no child lives completely carefree.
This war in Europe is for children and adolescents to face and we are going to help them. Isn’t that the most beautiful comforting message?
–
