The directness with which children can take part in the war events of the past few days is new. They follow the events in near real time as they scroll through the latest news and videos or look over their parents’ shoulders. For example, you see the face of Putin as he declares war – and the face of Zelenskyy as he says that he and his family are staying in Ukraine, even if their lives are in imminent danger. The images of rockets, dead soldiers and refugee treks flow unfiltered into our living rooms. What questions are children and young people asking these days and how are schools reacting to them? What are families thinking about at the dinner table now? Five editors of the Berliner Zeitung wrote down their experiences.
The Heini question
Images of rolling tanks, an explosion over the night sky of Kyiv – and then suddenly: a made-up mouth biting into a slice of pizza. Into a crispy pizza, as a sonorous voice announces. You can see the ingredients: tomatoes, cheese, salami – and you count the seconds until it goes on. “You have to ban advertising in a video like this,” says our daughter, ten years old. She feels exactly how indecent it feels when people move around in these cheerful and harmless product worlds while the before and after the war is being reported on. For days I’ve spent long hours, mornings and evenings, reporting on the war – and perhaps not shielding our daughter enough from what was happening. She learned a lot.
What she and her fourteen-year-old brother think about most is why a single person can have the power to tear down a country, two or more. “There’s a henchman who happened to come to power, and he can simply say: I’m sending my tanks?” asks the daughter. And my son says: “Yes, one guy can decide that because he’s at the controls. And nobody can stop him when he becomes megalomaniac because everyone is afraid that they themselves will be killed.” You have seen the young demonstrators in Moscow and in Saint Petersburg, how brutally they were grabbed by the police, loaded onto buses and taken away – and a short time later the pictures of the demonstration on the Straße des 17. Juni. The signs that were painted: Putin, burn in hell! And similar.
The next day my daughter says as she climbs the door frame: “Germany is a very free country. You can say whatever you think and you won’t be locked up.” Eva Corino
Now it’s our turn!
As a mother, I’m probably programmed to be more concerned about my children than I normally think. When war broke out in Ukraine last week, when an all-powerful Russia invaded this neighboring country of the European community, my first thought was, are my children afraid? Whether they themselves feel fear of war.
But that’s not the case – at least not in the first place. Her thoughts revolved from the beginning and still revolve around conscription. I was surprised. That has now subsided. I even find the reaction logical now, because the questions of whether conscription in the Bundeswehr will be reintroduced as a consequence of the Ukraine war in Germany and whether it would then be compulsory for both sexes has more to do with her life than that question of war and peace.
My son is 16 years old, my daughter 19. “Now it’s our turn”, my son formulated his fear of being forced into service at some point, possibly being obliged to serve in the war and becoming involved in violent conflicts. Since he hates violence so much.
Above all, he was struck by the idea that much older people would decide on this question, people who themselves would not need to do any military service or anywhere else. That is also one of his points when it comes to climate change: that those who have power and decide are not the ones who have to pay for it. The hint that young people are always like this, not only in these two questions, does not help.
My daughter is particularly concerned with gender equality. If one service, then for everyone. I can take that worry away from her. Something else would have been completely out of date. Julia Hook
Are the bombs coming to Germany too?
“A boy from our class called out that the Russians had attacked the Ukraine,” Leo says of the moment when they started talking about the war in Europe in sixth grade at the European School in Schildow. In the history lesson, the teacher showed the children’s news program “logo!” from ZDF. The film reported on Putin’s attack, sirens could be heard in Kyiv, burning buildings could be seen. A Ukrainian girl says: “It was the worst sunrise of my life.” The sixth graders saw the borders of Ukraine on a map, followed by the statements by Annalena Baerbock, Olaf Scholz, and the EU. Sanctions were explained using animated infographics.
The questions asked by the children who wanted to know on the “logo!” show whether the war and its bombs could come to Germany and what Germany was doing about it were also the questions asked by his classmates, says Leo, 11. Michael, a member of the Bundestag Roth, who is responsible for foreign policy in the SPD, tried to allay children’s fears on TV: “We’re in a team that’s called NATO. We protect each other. We can be pretty sure that President Putin will not attack us.” Germany wants to do everything to protect Ukraine and offer people a place of refuge. Leo says he noticed that everyone in the class was affected because it was very quiet during the film – and afterwards. He has concerns that Putin could also attack Lithuania “and that NATO would then become active. I trust Putin with everything.” Karin Buehler
Play “plague” in the schoolyard
“Donald Trump could be married to Putin.” Excuse me? Where did he get that from? My eight-year-old son happily writes editorials to himself. He knows Donald Trump well, not only because his parents kept saying a word about the former US President, but mainly because the children’s news program “logo!” has been reporting on him for some time and that of ZDF The program produced and broadcast on the children’s channel KiKa is also watched at school – from the beginning of the 3rd grade. The news is also discussed there, apparently it is about media and political competence.
Okay, and “Donald Trump is now saying that Putin is doing everything right,” I learn when asked. But “Trump is an idiot because he doesn’t want to admit that he lost (the election)” and Putin “is evil because he is at war with Ukraine”. Wow, and the son recited all this with a certain seriousness in his voice, yes, after all it’s politics and therefore an adult thing. But at the same time he speaks with a certain nonchalance – as if he were playfully retelling some story he has just overheard.
No sign of fear. Still, that’s a big relief. His parents don’t want to worry him either: we can’t shield him from the world situation, but we can let him know that he’s safe. With a lot of luck we got through the corona pandemic. In the schoolyard they play “plague” like we used to play catch – the virus catches the others, infects them. Mandatory masks, quick tests… Our son also deals with this naturally and without fear. Did “logo!” help? We hope so. Christian Schlueter
The football theory
Children often cannot explain exactly why they like something. It just is. For example, our son, a third grader, likes football. It’s not uncommon as almost all boys of that age like football in some way. But his preferences for certain teams are rather unusual for a Berliner. He’s not a Union fan, he likes Dynamo Dresden. Probably because he liked the logo so much when he saw a graffito of it on the roadside in Saxony. In terms of fans, it wasn’t far from there to Dynamo Kyiv and the Ukrainian national team. If he had his way, Ukraine would have liked to have won the European Championship in the summer. He also once said that he wants to be a professional soccer player; and if that doesn’t work out, maybe coach of the Ukrainian national team.
It is wonderful and amazing what children remember when they are enthusiastic. When we play floor football it’s sometimes Finland, sometimes Russia, but mostly Ukraine. He knows all the players. Roman Yaremchuk, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Andriy Yarmolenko. Above all, he likes goalkeepers.
So since our son likes football, Ukraine and also Russia, his explanation for Putin’s war also has something to do with football: Russia, when it was still the heart of the Soviet Union, had a legendary goalkeeper named Lev Lazhin. It was crucial for the USSR to become European champions in 1960. A man who was voted world goalkeeper of the century by a wide margin a few years ago. Now our son says that Putin could have started the war because he wants to get Andriy Pyatov or Georgiy Bushchan, Ukraine’s two goalkeepers, because they are really good.
Somehow he’s right: Putin wants something that doesn’t belong to him. Jens Blankennagel