If you shot a silent video of street life in Kyiv, this big city might seem completely normal. Life would go on in a similar way to any large city in Europe. Only, at some point, you will notice that the pedestrians stop for a moment and stop their ears with sad faces. The behavior betrays that they have heard a siren announcing the imminent danger of Russian missiles and drones.
Kyivans then leave the streets and walk quickly to a safer place. Mothers and children run to bomb shelters or subway stations. In these places it is easier to wait for the attack on the capital of Ukraine to happen.
Sometimes mothers are forced to sit for hours with their children in an air raid shelter. It is these shelters, the sound of explosions and the wail of sirens that today’s children will remember when they think of childhood in the middle of war.
Ukrainian mothers understand this perfectly, and what hurts them the most is how their children perceive and experience the war. More and more discussions are heard about how war affects the psyche of children and their perception of life.
More and more, mothers wonder how their children’s experiences – the periodic explosions and the hours spent sitting in bomb shelters or on subway platforms – will affect their behavior as adults.
At the same time, mothers of children are looking for information on how to talk to them about war and death, how to calm a child’s nerves during a bombing, how to distract them from feelings of fear and anxiety.
Several children’s books on these topics have appeared in bookstores and are perennially popular. Columns in newspapers and magazines written by child psychologists are no less in demand, and mothers gladly share what they have learned on social networks.
Although I hope moms in Barcelona or Madrid never need these tips, I will share some of them with you.
If you and your child are in an air raid shelter, you hear explosions and your child is huddled next to you, make sure they are breathing normally. You can bring a bubble blowing game to the air raid shelter and try to get your child interested in blowing bubbles. When a child does this, it activates the lungs and breathes more deeply. You can have your child play “imitate sounds”: blow out air to make it sound like a balloon falling or a motorbike starting up. You can ask him to sing songs. This will simultaneously relieve stress and help restore proper breathing.
With very young children you can play elephant. The boy closes his ears tightly with the palms of his hands and then opens them again with a big gesture. You can play “mosquitoes”: the child imagines mosquitoes spinning around his head and starts moving his hands to scare away the imaginary mosquitoes.
When strong explosions are heard, it is important to maintain tactile contact with the child: massage his ears and caress his cheeks. From time to time, ask him to pretend that he is very tired: to give a big yawn and lie down.
When the alarm goes off, congratulate the child for bravery. You can tell him: “It’s over! We are no longer in danger! Thank you for being so brave and strong! We heard many explosions, but we survived! We were not afraid.”
After these words, invite the child to propose what he wants to do in the next few hours. Making plans for the future is the best way to distract children from war. In fact, making plans for the future also distracts adults from war. Only the reality of war prevents adults from thinking about the future.
I also find it difficult to focus on the future. Of course, there are plans for this year, but there are no guarantees that they will come true. When I think about the future, I look to the sky. These days, the sky in Kyiv is bluish gray. Sometimes snow falls from the sky on the streets and you can hear the usual noises of the city and the cawing of crows.
In fact, the crow is the unofficial symbol of the city. The crows do not disappear in the winter, as if they assume the responsibility of frequenting the city all year round. His scream cannot be defined as music. Their cries are more like warnings of danger.
In times of peace, crows seemed to warn each other of something with their cries. Now it seems they are warning the people of Kyiv. A couple of days ago, a few crows in Lviv Square were calling so loudly and excitedly that other passers-by and I stopped and looked for a long time into the bare tops of the winter trees, from where large black birds were darting the loud speeches.
Some time ago, before the war, the cries of Kyiv crows irritated me, but now, when I hear them, I listen to them with pleasure. They let me breathe. They distract me for a while from the reality in which I live, from the reality in which the whole of Ukraine lives today.
I’m probably like a child too, and I hope someone tells me: “It’s over! We are no longer in danger! Thank you for being so brave and strong! We heard many explosions, but we survived! We were not afraid.”
