Steven Brion-Meisels is an advisory board member of Lesley University’s Center for Peaceable Schools and Director of Research and Evaluation at Peace Games, based in Dorchester, MA.

Age Appropriateness: Teacher/Adult guide
Format: Essay
Goal:

• To help teachers and adults understand how to discuss war with young children.

Introduction: Stephen Brion-Meisels offers 10 simple guidelines for how adults can help younger children deal with the prospect of war.

The prospect of war with Iraq dominates news and conversations - although there has as yet been little Congressional debate over this decision. Children both at home and abroad are already aware of the fearsome possibilities. Older children read headlines; young children read the faces of the adults around them. The threat of war brings concern, unease, questions and some fear. An actual war will increase that fear; it will also expose children in the U.S., Iraq and elsewhere to pain, loss, questions about the future — and in some cases to violence directed at children and adults who look like “the Enemy.” Many children already understand that family members will leave to fight far away, and may not return. Some children know that other children their own age will be killed as a result of that same fighting. Near at home or far away, war is a terrible experience for children.

How can adults help in this situation? How can we help explain, protect, heal and offer hope to children who look to us for guidance, strength and love?

Peace Games has spent the last 10 years working with thousands of children, teachers and families who want to learn and use the skills of peacemaking. We have learned that peace is as powerful as violence in the hearts of children. All children are willing to help us to build a community that is safe and respectful; and all children have a deep hunger for authentic conversations with the adults around them.

Here are 10 simple guidelines to help children in a time of war:

1. Be clear about our own values, questions, concerns and fears. Take a personal inventory and start from where we feel most clear and strong. Children can read our fears and unease on our faces and in our voices. Clarity will help us listen and speak.
2. Listen and watch before and while we speak. Children will tell us about their fears, concerns and questions - in their words and their actions. Try not to jump in with complex explanations that meet our adult needs but are not appropriate for children. Children at different ages need different kinds of information, guidance and support.
3. Understand children’s ideas and feelings before we try to change or fix them. As adults, we often feel a responsibility to protect, solve and fix. The first step is to understand; from that understanding, solutions and resolutions will become clear.
4. Keep the door open, but don’t force conversation. Give children opportunities to express themselves, even when their ideas are confused or troubling. Expression may take many forms: writing, drawing, good night talks, bedtime prayer, lunchroom conversation, tears and even anger.
5. Help students understand the realities of war from many different perspectives. In a time of war, complexity is often sacrificed to simplistic positions - whether these are political or more generally connected to stereotypes about “the Enemy.” Taking and holding multiple perspectives is extremely difficult in times of stress. However, life in a multi-ethnic democracy, as well as the heal- ing that needs to follow war, all depend on this ability. We can support soldiers and victims as well. This is tough ground to hold, but well worth it.
6. Stand against stereotypes, bullying and harassment. War brings demonization of those who look like “the Enemy.” The treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and of Middle Eastern people after September 11, are both powerful examples.
7. Avoid over-exposure to media. Repeated viewing of war-related violence can traumatize children. It helps to limit exposure, and to be with children when they do see it.
8. Find concrete actions that can help. Children want to help, and like all of us, actions to help can often ease our own fears. Helping can include reaching out to the victims of war, to soldiers or their families, to children and families who are targeted by ethnicity or religion, or by donations to civilian relief agencies.
9. Think preventively, maintain routines, but be alert for signs of trauma. If children around you seem especially fearful, worried or isolated, don’t hesitate to use local resources. Some of these include help hotlines, pediatricians, community mental health agencies and specialists in trauma response. This is especially true in contexts where children are closely connected to the war -- whether by ethnicity or because they are from military families.
10. Model peaceful resolutions to personal conflict. Children watch adults, including their civic leaders; they watch how we act even more than they listen to our words. And they watch us especially closely when we are upset, angry, frightened or stressed. It is crucial to model peaceful resolutions, if we want our children to help create a world where war is less likely.

Additional articles about talking to younger children about war can be found online at www.aboutourkids.org/articles.war.html.

For additional resource material in print, on video, and on online, please see the resource information compiled by the Jewish Educational Center of Cleveland.