How do children react to news about war?
Children’s age and individual personality influence their reactions to stories they hear and images they see about war in the newspapers and on television. With respect to age, preschool age children may be the most upset by the sights and sounds they see and hear. Children this age confuse facts with their fantasies and fear of danger and can easily be overwhelmed. They do not yet have the ability to keep things in perspective and may be unable to block out troubling thoughts. School age children can certainly understand the difference between fantasy and reality but may have trouble keeping them separate at certain times. Therefore they may equate a scene from a scary movie with news footage and thus think that the news events are worse than they really are. They also may not realize a single incident is rebroadcast and so may think many more people are involved than is the case. In addition, the graphic and immediate nature of news make it seem as if the conflict is close to home –
