Forced migration is not just a change of residence. For a child, it represents the loss of a world that was once uniquely theirs. It is a rupture of attachments, a blurring of identity, a new language, unfamiliar faces, strange rules. Most importantly, it is the loss of a sense of control over one’s own life.

A child’s psyche reacts to traumatic events depending on their age and developmental level. The younger the child, the more their body and behaviour “speak” for them. The older the child, the more complex the defence mechanisms, often masking the pain. Understanding these age-specific characteristics is critically important for providing effective support to children who have experienced war and forced displacement.

Infants and Children up to 3 Years: Trauma Before Language

Physiological Foundations of Early Traumatic Experience

At this stage, the foundation of everything is a secure attachment to an adult. The child does not yet have developed language, but their nervous system reacts sharply to the slightest changes in their environment. The body remembers stress at the cellular level. Changes in daily routines, smells, voices, new faces, an anxious mother — all of this is felt by the child physiologically.

Neuroscientific research shows that in the first three years of life, a child’s brain forms 700–1,000 new neural connections every second. Chronic stress during this period can drastically alter brain architecture, affecting all subsequent stages of development.

Consequences of Traumatic Experience

In children of this age, trauma primarily manifests through somatic symptoms:

• Sleep and appetite disturbances: The child may refuse foods they previously liked or, conversely, demand constant feeding. Sleep becomes shallow, often interrupted by crying or screaming.
• Developmental delays: There may be temporary “loss” of already acquired skills — the child may stop walking, speaking certain words, or using the potty.
• Reduced ability for emotional self-regulation: The child may become overly excitable, reacting with crying to the slightest stimulus, or apathetic, indifferent to their
• Attachment disruptions: This may manifest as excessive clinging to the mother or, conversely, avoidance of contact with adults.

Long-term Consequences

Research by M. Greenspan and D. Shore on child emotional development indicates that chronic stress in infants changes neural connection formation, affecting later developmental stages. This particularly impacts learning ability, trust formation, and emotional stability in adulthood.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system, responsible for stress response, is especially affected. Children who experience early trauma may remain hypersensitive to stress throughout their lives.

Preschoolers (3–6 Years): A World Suddenly Perceived as Threatening

 

Developmental Features and Perception

At this age, children actively form ideas about good and evil, safety and danger. They begin to understand cause-and-effect relationships but cannot yet fully comprehend abstract concepts. Migration is not an abstraction for them; it is a concrete loss: their cot, favourite toy, neighbour Aunt Lesya, the smell of soup cooked by grandma.

Preschoolers think magically — they may believe their thoughts or actions somehow caused the catastrophe. This can lead to guilt, which may accompany them for years.

Typical Reactions to Trauma

• Regression in development: The child may revert to earlier stages — bedwetting, using “baby” language, thumb-sucking, demanding constant parental presence.
• Behavioural changes: Aggression may appear — hitting, biting, destroying toys — or the opposite — withdrawal, silence, avoiding other children.
• Psychosomatic symptoms: Frequent stomachaches, headaches, nausea, especially in stressful situations or before going to kindergarten.
• Traumatic play: Children may endlessly build and destroy block houses or draw war, death, and escape. This is their way of giving form to experiences that cannot be articulated in words.

Therapeutic Value of Play

Play is a natural way for children to process traumatic experiences. Through play, a child gains control over the situation, explores different outcomes, and expresses forbidden emotions. Research shows that such play scenarios are not pathological but represent the beginning of integrating the experienced trauma. It is important not to prohibit such play but to observe, and when necessary, gently guide the child toward a positive resolution.

Younger School-Age Children (6–12 Years): Loss of Control and Learning Challenges

Cognitive Development and Social Challenges

This period is characterised by intense cognitive development. Children begin to understand social roles, rules, and construct a sense of self in the world. School becomes a crucial centre for socialisation, and academic success becomes a source of self-esteem.

Migration disrupts this framework. Losing school, friends, and familiar responsibilities is like the collapse of their own map of reality. Children lose not only their physical environment but also social roles, status, and a sense of competence.

 

Common Trauma Manifestations

• Decline in academic performance: Even highly capable children may experience a sudden drop in performance. This is not only due to language barriers but also because trauma impairs attention, memory, and concentration.
• Attention and memory difficulties: Children may “switch off” during lessons, forget assignments, or lose items. This is not laziness but a manifestation of traumatic
• Feelings of guilt or shame: Particularly in the context of war, children may feel guilty for “leaving” their country or ashamed of their “difference.”
• Social withdrawal or aggressive behaviour: Children may avoid peer contact or, conversely, display aggression as a defence mechanism against vulnerability.

Adaptation Features

At this age, children start realising that their life is “not normal.” They notice they do not understand the teacher, that their mother is constantly anxious, that other children have their own groups while they feel like outsiders. These observations may lead to a negative

self-image.

Research by the European Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry shows that

6–12-year-old migrants are two to three times more likely to develop anxiety disorders in the first year after migration. Yet this age is also marked by high plasticity — with adequate support, children can quickly adapt to new conditions.

The Role of School in Adaptation

Schools can be a source of further trauma or a powerful resource for recovery. Understanding refugee children’s specific needs, creating inclusive environments, and providing additional language support are critical for successful adaptation.

Adolescents (12–18 Years): Identity Crisis in Extreme Conditions

Psychological Features of Adolescence

Adolescence is a period of fundamental changes, not only physically but psychologically. Existential questions arise: “Who am I?”, “Where am I going?”, “Where is my place in the world?” Personal identity forms, value systems are established, and deep friendships develop.

 

Forced migration clashes sharply with these natural processes. Separation from culture, language, friends, and familiar places erodes the adolescent’s sense of self. They lose not only external anchors but internal stability.

Typical Trauma Manifestations in Adolescents

• Language dilemmas: Adolescents may reject their native language, viewing it as a “stigma,” or excessively protect it, refusing to learn the new language. Both are attempts to preserve identity.
• Depressive moods and rebellious behaviour: They may fall into depression, feeling hopeless, or display aggression and defiance against rules and authority.
• Decreased academic motivation: Many adolescents lose motivation, perceiving no link between present effort and future outcomes.
• Risky behaviour: Self-harm, alcohol or drug experiments, and unsafe sexual behaviour can be ways to “feel alive” or punish themselves.

Digital Escape as a Survival Mechanism

Adolescents often conceal their pain. They retreat to their rooms, put on headphones, immerse in games, or create “second lives” online. This is a survival strategy — when the world feels unbearable, the brain creates a different, often virtual, space where they are not refugees but ordinary people.

Social Isolation and Need for Belonging

Adolescents strongly need a sense of peer belonging. Forced migration often disrupts these connections, leaving them socially isolated. This may lead to joining marginal groups or, conversely, complete social withdrawal.

Digital Technologies: Escape or Support?

The Role of the Digital World in Refugee Children’s Lives

For many refugee children, the digital world is the only stable environment. Computer games, social networks, and video platforms can serve multiple functions: from escape from reality to maintaining connections with family and friends.

Positive Aspects

• Maintaining connections: The internet allows contact with friends and relatives left

 

• Space for self-expression: Blogs, videos, and creative online projects help process traumatic experiences.
• Learning and development: Online courses, educational resources, and language apps aid adaptation.
• Sense of control: In the virtual world, children can experience success, achieve goals, and control situations.

Risks of Digital Dependence

• Social isolation: Excessive immersion can lead to avoidance of real social
• Sleep and routine disruption: Uncontrolled device use can disturb circadian rhythms and sleep quality.
• Loss of motivation: If the virtual world becomes more appealing than reality, children may lose motivation for study, work, and real achievements.
• Cyberbullying: Migrant children may become targets due to language, accent, or cultural differences.

Strategies for Healthy Use

Psychologists recommend teaching children to use digital technologies healthily rather than prohibiting them. Time limits, alternatives like board games, art therapy, physical activity, and volunteering help restore a sense of real action and achievement.

Cultural Trauma and Its Impact on Development

The Concept of Cultural Trauma

Cultural trauma is not only the loss of physical space but the destruction of cultural codes, traditions, language, and lifestyle. For a child, culture is not abstract but concrete smells, sounds, and rituals that form a sense of safety and identity.

Language Trauma

Losing the ability to use one’s native language can be particularly painful. Language is not only a means of communication but also a way of thinking, expressing emotions, and connecting with ancestral culture. Children may feel that they lose part of themselves along with their language.

Religious and Cultural Identity

 

For many children, religion and cultural traditions are central to identity. Being unable to practice traditions, attend religious events, or celebrate familiar holidays can intensify feelings of loss and alienation.

Gender Differences in Trauma Response

Boys vs Girls

Boys often display trauma through externalised symptoms: aggression, behavioural problems, hyperactivity. Girls tend to show internalised symptoms: depression, anxiety, somatic complaints.

Adolescence

Gender differences become more pronounced. Teenage girls more often suffer from depression, eating disorders, or self-harm. Boys may exhibit aggression, risk-taking, and substance abuse.

Resilience and Protective Factors

Internal Resources

• Previous experience overcoming challenges increases adaptive
• Cognitive flexibility allows problem-solving and positive
• Emotional regulation skills enable self-soothing under

External Resources

• Stable attachment to at least one reliable adult improves adaptation
• Social support from community and
• Educational opportunities and assistance in
• Cultural continuity through language, traditions, and

 

Family’s Role in Adaptation

Parents as a Source of Safety

 

Parental well-being critically affects child adaptation. Parents experiencing traumatic stress make adaptation much harder. Psychological support for parents is essential.

Family Coping Strategies

• Open communication: Talk with the child, answer questions, do not hide the
• Maintaining traditions: Family rituals and celebrations preserve
• Creating new routines: Establishing new family routines helps

 

Educational Institutions

School as a Healing Space

Structured routines, opportunities for achievement, and social contacts support adaptation.

Working with Refugee Children

• Language support: extra lessons, translators, bilingual
• Cultural sensitivity: consider traditions, religious
• Trauma-informed approach: understand trauma’s impact on
• Social integration: facilitate interaction with peers, collaborative

 

Recommendations for Parents and Professionals

General Principles

• Safe environment: physical and emotional security is
• Routine: sleep, nutrition, and small traditions give
• Active listening: allow children to tell or act out their
• Emotional presence: quality time matters more than

Age-Specific Recommendations

Infants (0–3 years):

 

• Maintain physical contact: hugs, rocking,
• Keep routines as much as
• Speak calmly, even if the child seems not to
• Avoid leaving the child with strangers for long

Preschoolers (3–6 years):

• Allow regressive behaviour; do not punish “childishness.”
• Use play therapy — draw, model, play
• Read stories about overcoming
• Create a “memory box” with photos and items from

Younger Schoolchildren (6–12 years):

• Support learning but avoid unrealistic
• Encourage
• Include in household tasks to provide a sense of
• Share about your country, culture, and

Adolescents (12–18 years):

• Respect their need for
• Encourage connections with friends via social
• Support hobbies and
• Discuss the future and help set realistic

 

When to Seek Professional Help

Warning Signs:

 

• Persistent sleep disturbances >1
• Refusal to eat or drastic changes in
• Self-harm or suicidal
• Complete social
• Regression lasting >2
• Aggressive behaviour threatening

Preventive Consultation:

• Planned assessment of
• Family therapy to improve
• Group therapy for
• Neuropsychological evaluation for learning

 

Long-Term Consequences and Prognosis

Positive Outcomes:

Paradoxically, trauma may foster:

• Psychological resilience
• Empathy and social sensitivity
• Creativity and cognitive flexibility
• Appreciation of family relationships
• Motivation to achieve

Factors Affecting Prognosis:

Favourable: early age at migration, rapid school integration, family/community support, absence of repeated trauma, access to psychological help.

 

Unfavourable: multiple traumas, parental separation, discrimination, social rejection, family economic instability, lack of education.

Integration vs Assimilation:

Integration — adopting a new culture while maintaining connection to the native one — is optimal. Assimilation (complete absorption) or segregation (isolation within own culture) are less favourable for mental health.

Professional Support: Methods and Approaches

Trauma-Informed Therapy:

Modern approaches consider trauma’s effect on brain development and behaviour: safety, choice, cultural sensitivity, family collaboration.

Effective Methods:

• Play therapy: especially for
• Art therapy: drawing, modelling,
• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing).
• Cognitive-behavioural
• Family

Group Work:

Groups for migrant children and adolescents reduce isolation, share experience, encourage socialisation, and develop communication skills.

Long-Term Perspective: From Survival to Thriving

A child who has experienced war and migration carries unique experiences that can be both a source of strength and vulnerability. The key is helping them integrate rather than deny their experience.

Post-Traumatic Growth:

Children receiving adequate support often show post-traumatic growth: increased empathy, resilience, understanding of life’s values.

 

Signs of Post-Traumatic Growth:

• Enhanced self-efficacy
• Deeper relationships
• Greater appreciation of life
• Spiritual development
• New opportunities

Developing Resilience:

Resilience is not innate but a skill nurtured through multicultural experiences, adaptability, survival skills, and understanding human nature.

Role of Mentors:

A significant adult — teacher, coach, volunteer, relative — who believes in the child and supports recovery is invaluable.

Qualities of an Effective Mentor:

• Emotional stability
• Cultural sensitivity
• Patience and consistency
• Active listening
• Belief in the child’s potential

Every Reaction Has Meaning

A refugee child is still a child. They need love, safety, joy, and recognition. War and migration complicate their journey, creating vulnerable spots, but these are not a sentence.

Every reaction has meaning: aggression may protect, withdrawal preserves integrity, regression returns to safety. Understanding these mechanisms helps adults respond to the need behind the symptom.

Prevention and early intervention are investments, not expenses. Every penny spent on a child’s mental health saves many more in future treatment and social support. But beyond

economics, it is about human dignity: every child deserves childhood, even if interrupted by war.

With deep understanding, patience, and care, we can help children not only overcome trauma but build a new internal foundation — strong, alive, open to the world. Even amidst the ruins, new growth is possible when someone believes in them.

War ends, but childhood continues. Our task is to ensure it is filled not only with past pain but with hope for a future where every child can fully flourish, regardless of background or experience.