How do you return children who have experienced anxiety to their daily routine and functioning after a war?

After a period of fighting during which we all got out of our routine, we were informed of the ceasefire and the return to schools and kindergartens.

Now the educational team faces a complex challenge: How do you return children who have experienced anxiety, uncertainty, and perhaps even trauma, to daily functioning in the educational setting?

Dr. Talia Raz, A lecturer in the undergraduate program in early childhood education at the Levinsky-Wingate Academic Center, she explains.

The messages

Preschool children need a sense of security and stability, especially after a traumatic event that disrupts their routine. This requires a "soft landing" - creating a safe space where the children can gradually process their experiences and slowly return to their routine. The team should be guided to this by a look, soft touch, and attention, and the nonverbal message is: "I am here, you are safe, we will move forward together at your own pace."

The language we use in the first few days of returning to kindergarten is critical. Preschoolers don’t understand abstract concepts like “war” or “peace,” but they do understand “it’s safe now” and “I’m here with you.” It’s important to avoid words like “it’s over” or “it’s behind us” because young children don’t understand time, and they can create expectations that, if not met, will shake their sense of trust again.

Instead, we will use language that refers to the present: "Now we are here together," "Our kindergarten is a safe place" - this language refers to what is happening in the present and gives the child a sense of control and inclusion.

Play as a healer

Play is the child's natural language for processing difficult experiences. In the early days, we will probably encounter a lot of repetitive play: "alarm" games, "Mammad" games, or children building towers and destroying them. We should not prevent them from doing this. This is exactly what the young mind needs to process the events of the recent period.

Our role as educators is to provide a safe framework for this type of play and to be available to contain the emotions that arise. We will prepare soft play areas and provide creative materials that allow for expression and also the possibility of venting aggression, such as tearing up old newspapers, hitting a clay block, and of course motor activity in the kindergarten yard. It is important to remember: play helps with emotional processing and is essential for dealing with good experiences and even more so with complex ones.

Individual pace

One of the significant challenges in dealing with complex emotional situations in early childhood stems from the fact that each child responds uniquely. The child's natural emotional range, his or her personal temperament, the way the family copes with the complex situation, and the degree of flexibility or rigidity in the daily routine - all of these create a wide spectrum of possible responses. Some children will return to functioning immediately, some will exhibit temporary regression, and some will develop new behaviors such as clinging to a parent or fears that were not present before.

As an educational team, we must recognize that there is no uniform timeline. A child who seems “strong” today may present significant difficulty tomorrow, and a child who struggles this week may flourish next week. Our flexibility and understanding will be the most important therapeutic tool.

Parental involvement

Parents have also gone through a difficult time, and many of them are experiencing feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear. Therefore, it is essential to create a connection of true partnership, update them on what we are seeing in the kindergarten, provide them with simple tools to cope at home, and remind them that they too are allowed to be imperfect during this time.

Warning signs

It is important to recognize signs that require further professional consultation: a child who returns to bedwetting after being weaned from diapers, extreme changes in sleeping or eating patterns, repeated and excessive tantrums, or complete withdrawal from social contact. It is important to note that extreme regression is uncommon and does not usually occur, but it is important to be aware of it.

As an educational team, we must understand that we are not therapists, and that our role during this period is to re-create in the child a basic sense that the world is a safe place.