Abstract Aim: To identify a posttraumatic stress disorder profile for the Child Behaviour Checklist. Method: Checklist item scores for 806 school‐aged children in Iraqi Kurdistan (201 randomly selected from the general population, 241 orphans, 199 primary medical care visitors and 165 hospital in‐patients) were analysed against the Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Scale for Children (PTSS‐C) scores, estimating not only stress diagnoses, but also nonstress‐related, child‐specific posttraumatic symptoms. Results: Twenty checklist items, which revealed significant correlations with the stress diagnoses, formed the checklist–stress profile with acceptable reliability and validity, and significant correlation to the PTSS‐C estimates. Conclusion: A child‐specific stress profile for the checklist is recommended for use as a screening instrument.