Recent evidence points at the importance of childhood aspirations for our understanding of poverty and development. But how are these affected by the exposure to violence? This paper employs a logistic framework to study this question for Burundi, a conflict-affected, fragile state. Using data from a new nationwide survey with a panel component we distinguish between four types of armed violence and find that (i) Children exposed to armed violence aspire more to work outside the agricultural sector; (ii) but these same children have a lower probability to realise their aspirations; (iii) We find evidence that exposure to armed violence increases the internal locus of control and the belief in occupational happiness.