COLORADO, USA — Parenting in a pandemic has been hard enough.
Now, families in Ukraine are also trying to parent their children through a war.
Millions of people have fled the country since Russia invaded in late February. But many have stayed behind as well.
One Colorado woman got the chance to work with some of those families still in Ukraine, who are trying to safely raise children in the middle of the conflict.
Dr. Megan Cherewick is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, specializing in behavioral health. She focuses on young people exposed to concentrated stress and adversity, and has worked with children and teenagers following other global conflicts.
“A lot of work in mental health globally is focused on how to recover after you’ve experienced trauma, with less work focused on what to do in the midst of an ongoing conflict,” Cherewick said. “How do you support your children when it’s still happening? And that was really the challenge when we were talking to the parents in Ukraine.”
Earlier this month, Cherewick joined a virtual panel of experts, organized, she said, by the University of California, to speak to parents directly in Ukraine as they attempt to support their children’s mental health during the war.
“One of the main things was the complete uncertainty about what would come next. What would happen next, and a huge amount of fear,” she said.
Cherewick said parents of adolescents were struggling to answer hard questions.
“I think it was a lot of not understanding how decisions were made by adults. Why certain people left. Why certain people stayed. And a lot of conflicted [feelings], wanting to help. Wanting to fight on behalf of Ukraine. But also being intensely afraid of doing that, especially without military training,” she said.
“I think in these situations, a lot of time young people have conflicting emotions and they circulate, go back and forth, so parents have a hard time navigating outbursts of anger or sadness and how to support their children best," she said.
Cherewick previously worked with children and adolescents following other global conflicts, including in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“Sometimes when we think about conflict, we get stuck in the atrocities and forget that there is a future. There is a joyful, hopeful future. And young people, parents, everyone has to be involved in rebuilding that,” she said. “We want to remind young people that every person has agency and can contribute to a better, more hopeful future.”
Much of the same advice for parents in Ukraine could be useful to parents in the United States, trying to explain the war and its consequences to their children.
Cherewick shared the following list of tips for parents:
- Speak in a calm voice. Children are incredibly attentive to verbal and nonverbal cues of caregivers. To the extent possible, take a moment for yourself to calm yourself to help you to listen attentively and project calmness.
- Start by first allowing kids to express how they feel, what they know, and how they understand events. Their perspective and what they’ve heard and how they’ve interpreted information may be very different from what you expect. Give them space and listen attentively. Try not to interrupt or correct. First let your child express themselves. Be genuinely curious and show curiosity by asking questions. Be non-judgmental. You can validate their feelings and express your own feelings.
- Practice reflective listening. Paraphrase back to your child what you hear them saying to reassure them that you have heard them. Make eye contact. Feeling heard can be powerful to children and enhance their comfort in expressing themselves in the present and future.
- If kids do not want to talk about the war in detail, try not to force them to. Use of distraction as a coping strategy, particularly in uncontrollable situations, has been shown to be protective against psychological symptoms and promotive of wellbeing. This may include writing, reading, playing a game, or doing art or a detail-oriented craft. What is important is to provide opportunities to apply multiple coping strategies such as problem-focused coping, emotional regulation through breathing, meditation, mindfulness, connecting to peers and other adults.
- Reassure kids that they should not feel guilty about playing or doing things that make them happy, even in times of profound distress. This problem is not for them to solve.
- For younger kids, consider being careful to not over-explain. A simple explanation can be sufficient, such as, “sometimes countries fight. The fighting will stop."
- Try to hold on to important family routines to enhance feelings of safety. Consider ceremonies and traditions that are common to your culture and family as resources during this time.
- If kids do want to talk but are unable to articulate their feelings, consider having them draw, paint, journal or express themselves through another creative outlet.
- Stories can be another strategy to help children express themselves. Talk about characters in stories and what they might be feeling or thinking and drawing comparisons. Talking about a character can be easier than talking about yourself, and feel less threatening.
- Be prepared for and allow repetitive questions. Kids may need to hear your response several times and find this repetition reassuring.
- Children may feel acute stress and grief over losses (friends, family, expectations for the future). Validate their feelings and be authentic and honest in your conversations. Remind children that these feelings are normal responses to stress, but recovery, hope and joy are equally important to focus on. Intense emotions like fear and grief are valid and important, but emotions don’t define who you are. You can feel real fear and courage. You can feel grief and hope. Conflicting feelings are common. Be prepared and supportive if your child expresses conflicting feelings and/or if feelings change over time.
- In active conflict, children often feel a profound loss of autonomy and choice. Provide opportunities to enhance autonomy and choice. For example, choosing what to eat, what to wear, what game to play. In a situation where children are often hearing many “no”s, like “no you can’t go outside, no you can’t go to school right now, no you can’t be on your phone right now,” it can be powerful to hear some “yes."
- A very powerful protective asset is to provide opportunities for young people to help others. This could be a sibling, parent, grandparent, or neighbor. For older adolescents, let them come up with their own ideas of how they might be able to help others. Be sure to recognize and praise helping behavior, however small.
- Intentionally work to inject morsels of joy into your child’s life. Even a few minutes of deeply present connection can reassure children of shared love. Remind children that effortful focus on hope, small joys and shared positivity are what will fuel their resilience through this time. Play a new game, read a new book, try a new food. Most of all, be present and show that you are present. If reading a book to a young child, talk about the characters in the book. Count the objects. Let them know that for even a brief period, you are fully engaged and present in sharing this moment of levity.
- Remind young people that their story matters and encourage them to record their feelings. Wite a letter to a friend, or record your thoughts in a video. This conflict will end, and they can play an integral part in reshaping a joy-filled future. Their memories and their truth are the foundation of forming a collective memory. They matter. Their story matters.
- Avoid stereotypes and labeling of good/evil. People have the power to change, and history has shown us that even those we might want to label as “evil” can and do change. It’s important to remember that we all play an active role in building a peaceful, joy-filled future.
- Practice and model self-compassion. Parents can best take care of their children when they remember to take care of themselves.
- It will not be possible to “go back to the way things were” or fully “restore” the past. Rebuilding after conflict requires everyone’s help and will be a journey of healing. There is hope for the future, and they, along with millions across the world, want to restore a joyful, peaceful future.
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