Children's Reported Communication With Their Parents About War

Abstract

There is increased interest by parents in communicating with their children about political violence. However, limited attention in the scholarly literature has focused on parent—child communication about war and terrorism. In response, the purpose of this study is to assess, within their respective ecological contexts, American and Northern Irish children's ( n = 97) reported communication with their parents about war. The results provide support for the presence of developmental differences, with age being a stronger predictor than gender and country in the frequency and content of parent—child discussions about war. Children ages 7 to 11 are more likely than younger children to report talking to their parents about war, and they address more topics than do the younger children in their reports of what their parents said about war. The contents of the children's reported conversations with their parents are discussed, as are implications for parents, parenting educators, and researchers.

Keeping mum: The mediation of military conflict in the everyday mothering of middle-class Israeli Palestinian and Jewish women

“…The relatively young age of many of the children meant that the women shared the desire to shield them from what was deemed harmful knowledge and painful feelings. This finding fits those revealed by a study of American and Northern Irish children's (aged 3-6 and 7-11) reported conversations with their parents about war and political violence which found that age was a stronger predictor than gender and country in determining whether or not children discuss war with their parents (O'Malley et al, 2007). Yet, the mothers were well aware (sometimes taken aback, sometimes proud) that even their very young children were not only exposed to, but could also formulate a stand regarding the military conflict.…”

“…Yet, to the best of our knowledge, there are surprisingly few studies that address communications between parents and young children about political violence in Israel, or elsewhere (cf. O’Malley et al, 2007).…”

From the Mouths of Babes: Exploring Families' Career Socialization of Young Children in China, Lebanon, Belgium, and the United States

“…Whereas they neither exhibited signs of anxiety and other negative outcomes nor mentioned any family Downloaded by [The University of Manchester Library] at 09:21 22 December 2014 discussions about political conflict (as might be expected, see O'Malley, Blankemeyer, Walker, & Dellmann-Jenkins, 2007), it was striking how often and to what extent Lebanese children discussed their desire to help Lebanese people in their careers. They talked about becoming soldiers to fight "the bad guys" and to protect the Lebanese people but a military career was one of many that would involve protecting, helping, and restoring communities.…”

“Parenting About Peace”: Exploring Taiwanese Parents' and Children's Perceptions in a Shared Political and Sociocultural Context

“…A structured interview procedure with open‐ended questions was selected to collect data. The interview questions used in this study were developed by a research team and have been used for collecting data in other research projects to study children's and parents' perceptions about peace‐ and war‐related concepts and issues (Deng, 2008; Deng & Shih, 2009; Myers‐Bowman et al, 2003, 2005; O’Malley et al, 2007). For this study, parents' and children's responses related to the research questions were used and analyzed.…”

“…The most common theme in parental descriptions of peace to their children was identifying “what peace is not.” The authors reported that many parents in their study did not talk to children about peace and war using developmentally appropriate techniques. Regarding parent‐child communication about peace and war, O’Malley, Blankemeyer, Walker, and Dellmann‐Jenkins (2007) reported that older American boys were more likely than younger ones to report talking to their parents about war. This developmental difference, however, was not found among Northern Irish children in the study.…”