Psychological features of the manifestation of traumatic experiences associated with war in primary school children

The article highlights the concept of traumatic experiences and their specific manifestations in younger school-age children. It characterizes the levels of manifestation of traumatic experiences in the cognitive-reflective, emotional-affective, motivational-behavioral, and physical-somatic spheres. A correlation has been identified between the indicators of traumatic experiences in younger school-age children caused by war. Specifically, changes in the cognitive-reflective sphere, associated with the child’s return to traumatic experiences under the influence of life events, affect the indicators of the physical-somatic sphere, primarily reflected in the deterioration of the child’s physical well-being. Concurrently, changes in the motivational-behavioral and emotional-affective spheres are observed, manifesting as pessimistic outlooks, negative future orientation, and a lack of plans and dreams. Conversely, improvements in the physical-somatic sphere are related to the positive characteristics of the aforementioned spheres of traumatic experiences in younger school-age children. As a result of cluster analysis using the K-means method, three types of traumatic experiences related to war in younger school-age children have been identified: adaptive-positive, sensitive, and moderately-reflective. Children exhibiting the adaptive-positive type of traumatic experiences are less likely to return to war-related traumatic experiences. These children demonstrate lower impact of adverse life circumstances and reduced severity of experiences. They are more future-oriented, dreamier (with positively tinged dreams), show a readiness to talk about the traumatic event, receive and provide emotional support, and have fewer stress-induced physical problems. The sensitive type is characterized by more frequent and destructive returns to traumatic experiences, negative future orientation, short-term planning, less personal activity to overcome traumatic situations, higher levels of anxiety, aggression, loneliness, low control over behavioral reactions, and poorer physical well-being. The moderately-reflective type is characterized by a desire to find resources to overcome difficult situations, discuss and understand their experiences, realistic assessment of situations, emotional balance in experiences, and a balance between sensitivity and adaptation to difficult life circumstances