Palestinian children prefer war games

Social workers are needed in Palestinian schools to deal with psychological and behavioral problems facing Palestinian children, especially the games they choose to play, said Palestinian researcher Ghassan Thouqan, who conducted a study on the impact of the Palestinian uprising on children games.

Thouqan said the study had shown that 77 percent of male children tend to take military roles in the games while there was a 27.8 percent of females who shared the same preference with boys. The role of the FIDAI, Arabic for commando, who sacrifices his life, came first in the kind of roles, reaching 49 percent among boys, followed by the role of masked youths (19 percent) whose role had characterized most of the uprising activities between 1987 and 1994.

The first role girls preferred was that of a nurse (31 percent) followed by that of a teacher (five percent.)