- NEWS OF VIOLENCE AND DEATH AFFECT CHILDREN MOST
Recently, news of violence and death on social media and television have unfortunately become a part of our daily lives. Lifeless bodies lying on the ground, violent images, images in which even children were killed and harmed became a family thing to watch.
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Prof. Dr. Emine Zinnur Kılıç gave information about the effects of news of violence and death on children.
- When Violence Is Normalized, Children Are Harmed the Most
When children and young people grow up with the feeling that this violence is“normal”, they will no longer believe us when we tell them“violence is the wrong solution, people have to obey a justice system and rules”. When violence is normalized, the whole society, but especially children and young people, will be affected by this situation. Children begin to learn from an early age to suppress the aggression within them and to express it in the way and to the extent that society allows. Violent behaviors gradually decrease and such behaviors are expected to disappear with the start of school. During the socialization process, the child learns to use language, regulate his own emotions, wait, plan and postpone. Thus, aggression begins to be manifested in socially accepted forms.
- Children Perceive Violence as an Acceptable Solution Method
From primary school age then violent behavior; It occurs in situations where impulse control is inadequate (structural or as a result of substance use), due to insufficiency of social skills, inability to comprehend the consequences of behavior, lack of planning skills, and lack of empathy. Develop conscience and morality The healing process creates a system that suppresses violent behavior in people. When all studies on violence are evaluated; It is seen that the interaction of individual, familial and social risk factors in the developmental process plays a role in the emergence of violence. It is known that domestic violence increases violent behavior in children. Violence in the society in which the child and the family live has the same effect on the development process. In situations where violence is perceived as a part of daily life in society, children see violence as an acceptable method of problem solving. The development of conscience is impaired. This situation is reflected in people's daily lives. When the threshold of violence decreases, we begin to see that even the most unexpected people turn to violence
- Adolescents Give Up on Their Future Dreams
In addition to all this, adolescents spend their old age They begin to think that they will not live to see it. This situation causes adolescents to give up any investment they will make in their own future, and they begin to find it meaningless to make plans, read, and dream about the future.This type of thinking, which can be summarized as "There is no future waiting for me", causes behavioral disorders and substance abuse problems seen in adolescents. It paves the way for many problems such as usage disorders.
- How to Explain the Concept of Violence to Children?
When explaining such concepts It is appropriate to make explanations appropriate to the situations children encounter and the age of the child in this context. The baby's first violent behavior is usually towards people close to him. It may bite the mother, hit someone nearby, etc. Starting from these first behaviors, it is necessary to give messages to the child that this behavior is not appropriate.
For example; when the baby bites the mother, the mother should not allow this and say"no" It should state that it is a wrong behavior. Then, when the child experiences such situations with his friends, it should be clearly explained in terms appropriate to the child's age that it is wrong to use violence against others.
Children in pre-adolescent ages It is difficult for children to understand the concepts, so it is necessary to explain to the child which behavior is right and which is wrong, in age-appropriate terms, through concrete examples.
- Duties of Families
Aggressiveness and violent tendencies can occur in any child. As children grow up, they develop their skills to control this tendency with the education they receive from their families. Parents should show by example which method they will use to cope with the child's feelings of anger or frustration. For children, behavior is more important than what is said. Therefore, if parents do not show violent behavior towards each other and their children and control their own violent tendencies, the child takes this behavior as an example and learns to control himself. The influence of the family on children's behavior is always stronger than other influences. When families talk about war, they should explain the pain and negativities that war brings to people, and talk about wars as a phenomenon that brings pain, death and poverty to all warring parties, without taking sides. . There is no winner in war. Even just wars cannot be considered the most appropriate methods for solving problems. It is a more correct attitude to develop a worldview against war in children, to combine the pain it brings to people instead of integrating the concept of war with the concept of heroism, and to ensure that the concept of war is formed in the child's mind in this way. When explaining images related to war, the wrongness and evil of war should be explained. It can be discussed how appropriate Atatürk's words "Peace at home, peace in the world" are and the necessity of a peaceful problem-solving approach
Of course, it is not necessary to show war-related images specifically, but Children will inevitably encounter such images in newspapers and on television. When such images appear, it would not be appropriate to prohibit them, especially to the child, because it would cause the child to care more about this issue and increase his/her concerns. What to do is to help the child digest this information when he encounters such images; talking to him about it, sharing his ideas, letting the child know about war and violence. It is to support people to form a worldview against meat.
Normally, children are not affected by such news. If the child is already extremely anxious, has fears, and creates fear in every situation he sees around him, then war news, like all the news he watches, creates anxiety and worry in such children. The child is psychologically affected by this issue; It can be understood from the fact that he constantly talks about this issue, talks about his fears that such situations may happen to him, and shows symptoms such as sleep disturbance, fear of going to school and leaving the family. These children may be prone to developing anxiety disorders in the future and it would be appropriate to seek psychiatric help.
It is necessary to reassure the child in an age-appropriate manner that such situations will not happen to him. It would be useful to talk to slightly older children about what can be done to end the war, aiming to help them develop a cognitive approach to the issue rather than an emotional one, thus balancing the emotional load on the issue.
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