Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, requests for private counseling of children with a psychologist have increased significantly.
Traumatic experience, fear of death, loss of loved ones, loud sounds of an air alarm, not understanding why one had to leave one’s home – these and other factors have a negative impact on the child’s psycho-emotional state. It is important to detect and provide support in time, to help the child overcome the consequences of the acquired experience – the tasks that adults are facing now.
According to psychologist Olga Burda, parents notice adaptive changes in children.
“When we come to places of compact living, parents come in with behavioral disorders. The child studied well and felt well, but after the family changed the place of residence, the environment, the child began to avoid studies, run away from studies, often cries, she does not want to do certain things that she used to do easily.”
In such situations, the support of parents, relatives and relatives who could share their warmth and attention, talk with the child, and discuss his feelings is very important. In such stories, it is dangerous to devalue the child’s feelings, forcing him to do some work with the words “Do something useful.” Perhaps the child does not fully understand the whole situation, however, he still feels fear. Children often show empathy and often transmit to the world those emotions, that behavior, those narratives that they hear from adults.
And regarding children from residential institutions: how did their behavior change during the war? After all, unfortunately, they don’t have close people around…
“Children from institutions of institutional care, like children in families, know general information. And very often at various therapeutic classes they draw tanks and Ukrainian flags. The only thing is that they do not have such access to information, and often hear what is happening from the words of the educator. If there are younger children, they hear from older children. Sometimes information can be distorted. Children in boarding schools know that Ukraine is fighting russia, and they depict it in pictures,” says Olga.
It is also worth mentioning that since the beginning of the war, there have been boarding schools from the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson regions that have moved to relatively safe areas of Ukraine for the sake of children’s safety. However, it does not change much, because the children want to go back home, and if local children keep the things they hear inside them, then children from other regions live it in their games, pour it into art therapy.
“Educators who came with children from other regions noticed changes in the children, in particular in their behavior. They have become more aggressive, absent-minded, do not want to study, there is an appearance of apathy in behavior. If we are talking about adult children, then in addition to the previously mentioned factors, there is also the fact that older children quite often take all the experiences of their teachers on themselves,” Olga shares.
At such a time, a qualified psychologist who has a psychotherapeutic education and would convey useful information, could interpret the results of the tests he conducts for children and would be a support to the same children and teachers is needed.
“A psychologist is very important, both for children and for educators and teachers. Because in working with children, where they are 24/7, educators and teachers experience emotional burnout, which leads to a decrease in the quality of work. In residential institutions, assistants are needed who will accompany the child, support him and, together with the teachers, adapt education to the child’s capabilities,” the psychologist notes.