Donald Trump: Children grapple with what new president means for America.

By Zoe Daniel

Donald Trump’s victory has provoked fear and concern for some children as they try to understand what his presidency means for America, and if or how it will affect them and people that they know.

My own children have grown up mostly as expats. We moved to South-East Asia when Pearl was a tiny baby and Arkie was two.

They witnessed first-hand political unrest in Thailand, for example when Red Shirt supporters of the populist exiled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra took over central Bangkok

Back in Washington DC after spending much of the year on the road covering the election, I asked them what they were thinking as they watched the election coverage on Tuesday night.

Arkie, 9: ‘Holy crap, he’s going to win’.

Arkie is almost 10 and has paid close interest to the election campaign, staying up late into the night to watch the coverage of the primaries and caucuses earlier this year.

“I may disagree with Trump’s opinions,” he said.

“But that’s what he thinks is right for America so I think you should give him a chance.”

Arkie never declared a preference for any of the candidates as far as I know, and obviously not being American, we are not members of any party.

But it is important to note that Washington is an almost entirely Democratic city, so it is likely that most or all of his friends come from Democrat families.

“I think [what friends at school don’t like about Trump] is the racism, the sexism, the assaults to the gay people, and Latinos, and all those people who have done nothing in their life for Trump to hurt their feelings that way,” he said.

Arkie thinks most of the stuff Mr Trump said in the primaries and caucuses will not happen, as even Republicans think “some things are too over-the-top to actually happen”.

Like many Americans, he was shocked when watching the election on Tuesday night.

“I thought ‘holy crap, he’s actually going to win!'”

Pearl, 8: ‘Clinton was trying to say don’t give up’.

During the primaries process Pearl did declare a liking for Bernie Sanders — funny how an elderly man connected so well with young people.

But she said if Mr Trump was kicked out it, “we would be more mean than he is right now”.

Pearl has been worried about the wall between the US and Mexico, a cornerstone of Mr Trump’s campaign.

“If you’re a Mexican or anything like that you’ll get kicked out, and some of people’s friends are Mexican,” she said.

“Like at school, some people are Mexican, so they would get kicked out and have to go back to Mexico.

“That would just be mean because then, when they’re grown up, they have to say to their kids, ‘my best friend moved away because of the president’.”

She too watched the election coverage and I asked her what she thought about Hillary Clinton’s concession speech

“She was trying to say ‘don’t give up’, and no matter what people say you should just keep going to what your goal is.”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.