The world is a pretty scary place at the moment. How do we give our children an explanation as to why Ukraine is experiencing such atrocities? Understandably, we know parents are avoiding touching upon the subject with their preteens. It’s a difficult conversation but it’s one they need to hear. Otherwise, Tiktok and social media will fill their information void with greater fears and anxieties.
So these are our top tips to approach this tricky conversation…
Hold the perspective
Children need you to paint the bigger picture for them. With their brains still developing, children lack the cognitive skills and knowledge to process information surrounding the crisis. They also need help with using this information to assess risk- so keep them informed but grounded. It’s important to know about the state of the world but we must remember that we can’t possibly take on every battle or injustice that comes our way.
Manage their stress
Emotions are running high for everybody at the moment and children will pick up on the distress and anger that we are putting out into the world. We shouldn’t suppress these emotions but instead, explain to our children what purpose they serve and how to regulate them. Anger gets a bit of a hard time as an unwanted emotion in our society but one of our clients put it perfectly “We need anger to know that something isn’t right. If we didn’t have anger, the Ukrainians would just let the Russians come into their country and say I don’t mind, go ahead”. Insightful, right?
So, talk through these feelings with them and perhaps teach them this trick using the four elements for when their emotions are a bit too much to handle.
Work out their role and responsibility
As parents we have little control or power over the state of the world. But we can help our children to work out how they’d like to take an active role. Perhaps your child values knowledge and therefore they may want to watch a documentary on the history of war and different types of political system. Or perhaps they’d like to raise charitable funds for a certain demographic of people they share similarities with ( a friend of mine posted a fundraising link to help diabetics who are unable to get medication from chemists- it’s a problem I’d not yet considered!).
Tolerate the uncertainty
Reassure your child that as an individual, family and community, you can cope with unpredictable and scary things. Worrying about what we can’t control is futile.
Click here for a free preview of our course ‘Taming your lion’ which aims to help children regulate their big emotions such as anger and anxiety. Children learn to befriend their big emotions, understand why we need them and learn some techniques to control them too!
As always,
Take care
Pocket Family Psychologist
