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Home › Articles › Your Children › The Impact of War on Children

The Impact of War on Children

Soothing Kids in Tumultuous Times

By Jenn Director Knudsen

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while he (Capprin) is awake and usually playing in another room. Otherwise, we watch most news shows when he is asleep, sheltering him from the pictures of war vehicles, bombs and the like."

Sene and her 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, began keeping a journal at the outset of the war in Iraq. Sarah expresses her feelings about the war and then puts the journal on her mom's pillow each night. Sene then responds to Sarah's writings and places the journal outside her daughter's bedroom door for her to read every morning. "This is my proactive way to keep the communication open," she says. Sene, also an associate minister at Portland's First United Methodist Church, says fellow congregants have latched onto her journaling idea and find it helpful to their families, as well.

Sene's kids like many in this country have been especially worried about Iraqi children and their welfare during the war. So she and her husband, Daniel, urge their own kids to give a portion of their allowance to the United Methodist Committee on Relief that funnels donations in the form of blankets, medicines and other items to a pediatric hospital in Iraq. "I think it's important for the kids to feel empowered," she says, and not only empowered, but secure.

Sene says her family has turned inward of late, for example, inviting friends over for dinner instead of going out. The Senes also are taking more trips to the library and reading more books together rather than watching videos. "Our kids are needing a lot of reassurance," Sene says. "I'm not sure I'm doing [these activities] as much for the kids as we are for ourselves. No matter how young or how old you are, you need comfort still."

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