When it talks about how screwed up these kid soldiers are, it loses something because instead of showing you directly necessarily, it's mostly Miller telling you about it. None of the kids are real characters beyond Eli, and the one who is kinda is defined pretty much by his wooden horse talismen. Even when they are showing them, there's not much to them besides "they're kids and they're soldiers, but they should be kids".
Does it have any meaningful component in the game beyond that one story event?