My dilemma about my team of young heroes and child soldiers...
So for a long time, I've been creating a story about a team of 7 young heroes, like the ones we've seen many times in our childhood. However, ever since I learned about child soldiers and how the characters in the shows we used to watch as kids are effectively child soldiers, I became very uncomfortable writing it, and I don't need to explain why.
So my young heroes cause is saving the environment. Their powers are shapeshifting into animals that reflect their personalities, they join an organization that helps train in spiritual martial arts to use their powers, and they travel around the world to save an endangered animal or an ecosystem and stop a bad guy that's destroying the environment and killing the animals. They aren't chosen ones, they're many other people who help with the cause.
But with how I realized this, I began second-guessing if these young heroes should fight physically or if there's something else they can do because I don't want to perpetuate that child soldier trope that it would accidentally fall into. And I'm thinking what should the structure of the organization look like, cause I feel if it were militarized, the heroes would be child soldiers. What do you guys think?