Published September 21, 2019 | Version v1
Journal article Open

The Perception of God and Life in Refugee Children Who Are Wictims of War: Syrian Children Between 7-12 Years

Description

The image of God as a psychological structure is a concept of how an individual feels about God and is primarily an unconscious phenomenon. The concept of God as a different structure refers to an individual's cognitive understanding of God. The concept of God is a life-long process starting with birth. While the image of God appears in the first place together with the image of parents, it develops with the crises encountered in life later. Many theories have been put forward about the formation of the perception of God, which is a representation of the individual's cognitive and theological understanding. These theories were examined under the title of “Religious Development Theories” in our study. When these theories are examined in general, it is seen that parental attitude and social environment are very effective in God perception. In addition, because perception of God shapes the individual's religious perception also affects the perception of life.

According to the type of concept that the individual puts at the center of his/her life, his perception of religion and his/her perception and attitude towards life will develop in this way. It is possible for people to accept life as livable and to create a perception towards it and to attribute a value to life by giving meaning to it. For this reason, the perception of life has been examined on the basis of the concept of meaning and our research has been carried out theoretically and practically about how these concepts are found in the minds of children and how their perceptions are shaped in the 7-12 age range.

As a result of the war in Syria, refugees who had to leave their country and seek refuge in other countries faced many traumatic situations such as loss of life, separation from their social environment, mistreatment, displacement and economic problems during and after the war. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of the war and immigration situation on the perception of “life” and “God and the change and development processes in the lives of the disadvantaged group refugee children who were most adversely affected by the war and migration process. The study was conducted on Syrian refugee children aged 7-12 years in Konya and Bursa. The study was conducted in the form of face-to-face interviews with questions asked to measure the perceptions of “life” and “God” in order to enable participants to express themselves in the best way, also, two different schools were selected where refugees were educated with Turkish children. In the scope of the research, it was interviewed with a total of 54 Syrian refugee children, 32 girls and 22 boys. During the data collection, a voice recorder was used to record interviews with children and recorded on a computer.

According to the inferences about God’s perception of the answers we received during the interviews with the participants, it was seen that the majority of the children used the expressions of “forbidden by religion (haram)” and “sin” in their daily lives even though they were young. When thinking that they were doing wrong behaviors, it was observed that children experienced intense fear of hell and behaved shyly while choosing the expressions they used to talk about God. Although there are children who say that they love God very much and that they avoid wrong behaviors because they hesitate to upset him, it is seen that the majority’s perception of God is punishment-based and this is mostly related to family’s perception. In the questions asked to the participants about the perception of life, it is seen that the majority of children have a positive perception of life. In the questions asked to measure children’s traumatic states and mood disorders, it was seen that more than 50% of the children did not have bad dreams about war, did not play games related to war and did not experience traumatic disorder. Children’s refuge in Turkey, since in early age they sought aslyium in Turkey and have never experienced war, have reached the conclusion that this situation help them not to exposure traumatic situations.

According to the conclusions made as a result of interviews with the participants, even though usually children at an early age have arrive in Turkey or have lived several years in Turkey, many of them have language problems due to insufficient Turkish education. Even though children study Turkish in schools, they cannot express themselves very well, yet so this situation has a major impact on their life at school. Also, refugee children, who had difficulty communicating with their teachers or friends, were found to be anxious and timid as a result of their behavior and responses during the interviews. In addition, as a result of the questions asked during the interviews, Syrians generally work in jobs that generate very low income, many of them cannot do their profession and receive irregular salaries; therefore, it was seen that family members had difficulty in meeting basic needs and this situation negatively affected their coping process. Besides, due to the economic problems they have experienced, they cannot come to school neatly and regularly, because of the large number of siblings, they do not receive much attention from their families, and the presence of schoolmates and neighbors who use the phrase “Syrian” with a negative meaning makes their psycho-social adjustment process difficult and this leads to low self-esteem. It is observed that although the majority of children do not experience war trauma, migration process causes a traumatic situation for some children.

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Savaş Mağduru Sığınmacı Çocuklarda Hayat ve Tanrı Algısı 7-12 Yaş Arası Suriyeli Çocuklar.pdf