Opinion Amid India-Pakistan standoff, a test for parents, teachers
How can they guide children through their anxieties, hold space for their fears?
For parents, teachers, and caregivers, the question, therefore, is no longer whether to speak to children about what’s happening, but how to hold space for their fears, and guide them gently through it. For a generation of children, the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan could turn out to be not just an oppressive lesson in regional geopolitics, but also a bewildering personal experience. It is the unease in a primary student’s voice, worried about looming standoff she doesn’t fully comprehend. It’s the silent fear in a seven-year-old’s eyes after a school mock drill. The anguish of a teenager whose parent is called to the border to defend the nation. Too young to grasp the tangled history between two nations, and too tender to process the consequences of conflict, these are moments of childhood interrupted — by fear, by uncertainty, by a world that suddenly feels less safe. The upheaval in the Subcontinent is unfolding in real time — not just across and around the Line of Control, but on news feeds and television screens, in classrooms and at dinner tables. For parents, teachers, and caregivers, the question, therefore, is no longer whether to speak to children about what’s happening, but how to hold space for their fears, and guide them gently through it.
It is a task that requires not just sensitivity but also compassion and honesty. While older children may know of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict or the impasse in Gaza, this is the first such moment of turmoil that has directly intersected with their daily lives, and made a reckoning with it inescapable. Children need to be spoken to about the world around them, its complexity and even its darkness. Rather than shield them from unpleasantness, it is important to break it down for them in a measured and age-appropriate manner. Drawing from UNICEF’s guidelines on discussing conflict and war with children, for instance, it is crucial to create safe spaces that validate their emotions; where young people can ask questions and talk about what they have seen, heard, feel or believe, cutting through their confusions and misinformation and placing in perspective the drills and blackouts and other rituals of escalation.
In October last year, speaking at the 19th East Asia Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said “this is not an era of war”. He was underscoring the need for diplomacy over posturing or provocation. For parents and educators trying to guide young people coming of age in an era of post-pandemic flux and sharp political schisms, there is a tip there: That nations have the right to defend themselves against violence, but that even in a fractious world, it is peace, hard-earned and fragile, that remains the goal and end-point.
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