Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

The understanding of catastrophes, like thedeath of father, has littleto do with reasoning.In these cases children meet the usual psychologicaldifficulties of grasping the significanceof death at such an early age. Their attitudeto the happening is completely a matter ofemotion.We may, of course, be often wrong inassuming that children "understand" the happeningsaround them. In talking, they onlyuse the proper words for them but withoutthe meaning attached. Words like "army","navy", "air force", may mean to them strangecountries to which their fathers have gone.America, for the children, the place whereall the good things, especially all the parcelscome from, was discovered the other dayto mean to one child at least "a merry car".The word "bombing" is often used indiscriminatelyfor all manners of destruction ofunwanted objects. "London" is the word usedfor the children's former homes, irrespectiveof the fact whether the child now lives inEssex or still in Hampstead.Several of our children in WedderburnRoad used to say in talking: "When I was."still in London . .And one boy of four once explained ina London shop, to the shop assistant's greatastonishment: "I used to live in London, but18