Ukraine: ‘We try to tell them the truth’ – parenting in wartime

In Ukraine, families have to adjust to a terrifying new reality. How do you tell little kids you’re at war?

Ten days ago, Anton Eine, a science fiction writer in the Ukraine, was supposed to release his latest book, but then the Russians invaded. Now, he says, none of that matters anymore. He is taking refuge in Kiev with his wife and his three-year-old son.

They live in a 24-storey apartment block with underground parking, where people sleep on the concrete floor. It is very cold and Anton is worried about what might happen if the building collapses, so he and his family feel safer in a square concrete shaft between the elevators. That has become his sanctuary during the constant air raid sirens. They bring toys and his son’s tablet to him and make sure he sits in the corner, which is the safest place.

Anton says that his son is worried and asks a lot of questions. “Yesterday, my wife came downstairs and when she came back he was asking, ‘Mom, did you get shot?’ and she was like, ‘No, baby,’ and he was like, ‘Will they shoot me? I don’t want them to go bang-bang.

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Anton says some parents have sewn badges with their children’s blood type on their clothes and are showing them their home address and parents’ names, in case they get separated. And as they hide in shelters or try to board trains to safety, many parents also talk to each other about how the war is affecting their children and how best to protect them from trauma.

“Some parents tell their kids it’s a game,” says Anton. “We are trying to tell our son the truth, but in a softer way, adapted to the mind of a three-year-old.

“We tell him that the bad soldiers attacked us and the good soldiers, the ones with the Ukrainian flag, are the ones who protect us, and you don’t have to worry here in this sanctuary.”

His own son’s drawings do not seem to show signs of trauma, but some of Anton’s friends have older children, and the drawings they make clearly show that the situation has affected them.

Parents and their child’s nursery staff stay in touch through the social networking app Telegram, where they share tips on how to talk to children about what’s going on. This even included a tutorial on how to explain to kids why it was okay for adults to swear now, while it wasn’t okay in normal life. “Because people are swearing right now,” says Anton.

They have also become more relaxed about other little things. “Because of this situation, he has to watch a lot more cartoons than usual and he’s eating a lot more sweets than usual. We need something to keep him busy, he doesn’t have to pay too much attention to what’s going on.”

“Psychologists advise us to be kinder to children in these times and love them much more than usual,” says Anton.

However, when it comes to security, they have to be quite strict. Her three-year-old son quickly learned that when a siren sounds, the family has to run and hide. “As soon as we hear sirens or get a notification, we yell, ‘Go to shelter!’ and whatever he does, he drops it and runs. He understands that the situation is extraordinary. It even amazes us how well children understand the need to behave.”

As the Russian bombardment worsens and the convoys draw closer, many Ukrainian parents have decided to flee their homes with their young children in tow.

Hanna, a scientist, left Kiev and traveled to Poland with her two children, aged eight and six. For days, they’d been at home hearing explosions, windows rattling, and she had to somehow tell them what was going on. She found it difficult to strike a balance between reality and how much a child’s mind can take.

“This was a challenge for me as a mother because I have to choose between how to explain the truth to them, but at the same time not scare them too much,” she says. “So I was telling them that we are under attack, and right now we are safe, but when we feel like we have to move, they have to listen.”

His parenting style also had to change: there was no room for discussion. “Normally I ask them to do something, but this is a time to take orders.”

After a few days of bombing, Hanna felt that she no longer wanted her children to hear the bombs and decided to leave Ukraine. “It was a very, very difficult decision,” she says.

His children also had to make a difficult decision: they could only take one of his toys. The oldest chose Toothless, a toy dragon from the How to Train Your Dragon series, and the youngest chose a Transformer toy car that turns into a robot. It was a big decision for them, says Hanna, perhaps as momentous as it was for her to leave her country. “I think we were in the same emotional decision-making position.”

It took them 52 hours to reach a safe place in Poland. Hanna’s ex-husband was with them for the first part of the car ride, but then had to come back to fight. Hanna says that traveling in a war zone with two children was exhausting and she can understand why many of her friends choose to stay closer to home.

They are safe now, but the children ask a lot of questions about their grandparents and especially about their father, who has stayed behind. “Heartbreaking questions, because every day I am asked if he is alive or if he still has his hands and legs. They are afraid that he will get hurt a lot.”

Hanna tells them to try to live in the present. “All we have is now. For the moment we are safe,” she says.

How much to tell your children is something every parent has to weigh. Oksana fled her hometown of Lviv in the west and is now in Poland too. Her six-year-old daughter is autistic and she hates loud noises, so air-raid sirens scared her a lot. She realized that her mother was also nervous, so Oksana told her the truth about what was happening.

“I was explaining that it’s a war and that we have to be safe, and that a lot of people are dead now because of all this,” says Oksana. “I think it’s important that when kids are old enough to understand, they don’t fall for it, because they might feel like the environment is bad.”

Iryna’s son is only two years old and she has decided not to tell him too much. After spending three nights in a bomb shelter, they left Irpin, a small town near Kiev, and headed to western Ukraine.

He told his son that they were going to stay with some friends, because he is too young to understand that they are in danger. “I didn’t tell him it’s a war. I’m not sure I have to when he’s that young, because I think it only makes this situation worse.”

As for Anton and his family, the Russian troops are closing in and they may have to evacuate soon. He is not sure where. “Nobody knows which place is the safest, so it’s gambling,” he says.