For several days, the war in Ukraine has interfered in the daily lives of French families.
Faced with these images, children, whether they are very small or teenagers, ask themselves questions about the reasons for the conflict, its consequences or even its duration.
How to tell this event without worrying the children?
20 Minutes
collected the testimony of parents, teachers and child psychiatrist Lola Fourcade.
“It's difficult to explain to a 7-year-old child what is happening with simple words,” writes Julie.
Like most parents who responded to our call for evidence, she told her son about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I spoke to him like an adult,” she tells us.
Response from her little one: “I would like everyone to be nice and there to be no more war”.
Is there a good age to approach such an event?
Not really.
"Age is a notion, but maturity is the main one on which we must rely," says Lola Fourcade, child psychiatrist and medical practitioner at Necker Hospital.
She recommends that parents wait for questions from the child before discussing the subject with him.
Mathilde preferred not to talk about it with her 5-year-old son.
“But since I don't control what will be told next Monday at school.
I think I will ask the mistress for her opinion, ”she testifies.
Romain, for his part, discussed it with his 4-year-old daughter, telling her that her great-grandparents had lived through the war in France.
Together, they prepared a package for Ukrainians.
“Children know very well what a fight is.
Diplomacy too.
They know that when two people are arguing, a third party can be called upon.
Today this is what we are trying to do, on a national scale”, puts Dr. Lola Fourcade into perspective.
Find the “right words”
Many parents relied on everyday metaphors to describe this complex situation.
"Even if it's not easy", Magalie chose to use the term "conflict" rather than war to her 5-year-old son, with whom she listened to the news, and to take the example of "two teams who confront each other”.
There is no education model.
Christophe, a work psychologist, lets his 10-year-old daughter think about the information.
The father is available to answer the questions of the little girl, who does not understand why "the world" does not do more for populations in distress.
“You have to be comfortable as a parent.
What the children come to question are the emotions they perceive from us”, abounds in this sense the child psychiatrist Lola Fourcade.
The child, whatever his age,
Bombings, nuclear strikes, economic sanctions, civilians killed... The war is certainly not in France, but it is also difficult for parents to hide their fears, but it is by being transparent and educational that they comfort their children. , judges the child psychiatrist.
Xavier also immediately expressed “his compassion” to his 24-year-old daughter when she told him that her boyfriend had to leave for Poland.
To reassure his 17-year-old teenager, Jean-Philippe reminds her that negotiations are underway and "especially not to stigmatize anyone among the Ukrainian and Russian populations".
Claire, a mother of three boys aged 4, 6 and 16, insisted to her second that not all disagreements lead to war as well as "how lucky they are to be in France",
where democracy applies.
"The subject was briefly discussed" in her teenager's high school but a "debate" must take place, reports the mother.
In the meantime, with his dad, they showed him YouTube videos, whose sources they checked, to let him express himself.
Little stories make a big story
Talking about the war is also an opportunity for families to immerse themselves in stories, their own and that of the world.
Marcia and her husband rewatched the fighting in the East in the form of a frieze with their daughters, aged 7 and 11.
The mother, who was born in a country at war, also shared her experience with her little girls.
“I told the essential things like the fact that I was often sent to the countryside, the stress of the curfew, the armed soldiers in the streets, exile, etc.
“, she explains.
"From CP, we can show them where Russia, Ukraine and France are located on a map, explain to them what a border is", illustrates Lola Fourcade.
History-geography takes on its full meaning and its place to decipher and reassure schoolchildren.
Parents and teachers sort through the information and promote the plurality of media (videos, books, photos, newspapers) to develop the critical sense of the youngest.
From the first day of the new school year, Constance discussed it with her CM1 students, surprised at the amount of information they had already assimilated.
She returned to the reasons for the invasion, the role of NATO and the sanctions imposed, as well as their consequences.
They also spoke about the nuclear threat before doing "a tour of the emotions felt in relation to all this".
“One of my students is of Russian origin and laments the fact that for some, being Russian means agreeing with what Putin is doing.
She is also saddened for her parents, because their Ukrainian friends are 'turning on them', so they feel wrongly accused,”
says the mistress.
Aude, who works with college students with disabilities, has also faced concern and sometimes false information such as the rumor of bombings in Paris.
For an hour, she opened the debate with her young people and relied on videos from the Arte TV newspaper to illustrate the situation.
“They know that we can talk about it if necessary.
But it's not easy to reassure when we adults don't know where it's going to lead, ”she admits.
“They know that we can talk about it if necessary.
But it's not easy to reassure when we adults don't know where it's going to lead, ”she admits.
“They know that we can talk about it if necessary.
But it's not easy to reassure when we adults don't know where it's going to lead, ”she admits.
Debates in all their forms
Our readers, parents of (pre) teenagers, also wonder about the place of social networks in the war in Ukraine.
This is the case of Magali, mother of two teenage girls aged 13 and 16, exposed on TikTok to testimonies of young Ukrainians and Ukrainians, images of violence and other similar content suggested.
“The other day a teenager of their age was filming herself, in tears, taking refuge in the metro under the bombardments.
They were very destabilized in the face of the anguish and fear of this teenager, ”she says.
“The current war has a particularity, it is that Ukrainians and even young Russians share on the networks what they are experiencing”, recognizes Lola Fourcade.
Our file on the war in Ukraine
Magali and her husband have discussed the videos with their daughters, but the mother admits to being overwhelmed and does not know how to protect her daughters from the recurrence of this type of content.
"I wonder about the consequences of the violence of these images for them and the fear they generate," writes the mother.
For Lola Fourcade, banning social networks is not always the right solution, because they are part of the world in which young people evolve.
“We have to discuss it, it makes the young person active in the face of the image.
Thus, he can unsubscribe himself from content that is harmful to him, ”she advises.
Concerning the little ones, “it is not necessarily appropriate to expose children to images from media made for adults.
You always need explanations around an image.
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