Helping kids and teens cope with witnessing war and disaster in the media

“My students are on edge everyday”, one teacher told me this week. 

“She’s weepy and wants the news on all the time, almost compulsively”, a parent commented.

"He’s zoned out, he’s blunted himself to it all”, from another parent.

The invasion of Ukraine and other global conflicts in Yemen and Somalia. The global pandemic. Global warming. Natural disasters like the current floods in Australia. These events are all adding strain on kids and teens at a time when they are already distressed and depleted. 

We are compassionate beings at heart and it hurts us to witness others suffering. Psychologists have coined the term ‘remote exposure trauma’ to explain the psychological impact of witnessing trauma - war, violence, terrorism, disaster - from afar.

According to Research Professor Marie Leiner, from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, indirect exposure to traumatic events through the media “affects the mental health of children, in both short- and long-term ways that differ completely from the effects in adults. Children’s vulnerability, immaturity, and developmental state change their perspective.”

Reactions you might be seeing in your students and your children include: 

• Hyper-vigilance: being alert all the time, not being able to switch off
• Rumination: constantly thinking about the negatives
• Restlessness: fidgety and trouble sleeping
• A heightened stress response: little things that wouldn’t ordinarily upset them are now getting to them. 

Alternately, some of your students and kids might shut down and turn inwards, what the psychologists have recognised as a hypo-arousal trauma response, akin to a system shut down.

What can you do to help diminish or prevent remote exposure trauma?

Watch for their cue

At home or at school, tune into the conversations that kids are having. Take their lead as to how much or how little they want to know. In conversations with your students and kids, provide age-appropriate details, you want to inform them without overwhelming them.

Allow time when they bring up the topic. If you can’t talk in that moment (you’re racing out the door, you have an upcoming zoom meeting, your class time has ended) then acknowledge you have heard their need to talk and let them know that you will set aside time a bit later on: “I can see you have questions, let’s plan to talk about this straight after dinner tonight”. Or, as a teacher, “let’s set aside time in the next class”.

Finally, it’s okay if you don’t have all the answers, be honest about that as it will help them see that you too are living with uncertainty. Just the mere act of the conversation itself, regardless of having all the answers, will help your students and children feel seen and safe.