By Evelyn Rappaport, Psy.DPC
Five-year-old Adam talks very clearly about the war. He distinguishes between different types of missiles and describes the current escalation of the Iran war as “less frightening” than the 12-day Iran war in June 2025. His tone is calm, almost observant. But under his words a nervous system already learning to observe threat, compare intensity and understand the meaning of danger.
Twelve-year-old Ami moves quickly when the siren sounds. As she gathers her siblings and heads for the shelter, she stops and collects two things that don’t belong to her: her sister’s blanket and her blanket. He is not at home, but he will bring them anyway. “These are his love objects,” she explains, the things he always carries around in the shelter. In his absence, she becomes the guardian of his comfort, embodying care even in his absence.
These small, quiet moments reveal something profound. Even in the face of uncertainty and danger, children not only adapt, but they organize, protect and care for each other. What we are witnessing is not just overcoming; it is the living expression of safe connection under pressure.
Attachment as an inner shelter
Attachment theory has long argued that children develop a sense of security through stability, harmony care (Bowlby, 1969/1982; Ainsworth et al., 1978). If caregivers respond to a child’s emotional needs with presence and reassurance, children internalize a strong expectation: I am not alone. Someone will come to me.
This sense of inner security is, in many ways, a psychological shelter that can be carried even in physically dangerous environments.
Securely attached children are not protected fear. They hear sirens. They feel the tension in the air. Their body registers danger. However, in addition to this high awareness, they also have a peculiarity memory to protect, gather, soothe and accompany.
From a neurobiological perspective, repeated experiences of co-regulation help shape the developing nervous system. When a child is comforted during difficult times, their physiological arousal is modulated by communication. Over time, this will create more opportunities self regulationeven in chronic conditions stress (Porges, 2022; Feldman, 2020).
In this sense, secure attachment does not eliminate fear. This will change the child’s attitude towards him.
The paradox of security within insecurity
There is a wonderful paradox in the lives of many Israeli children. They are growing up in one of the world’s most dangerous environments, characterized by sirens, shelters and a constant awareness of threat. However, many show excellent skills for communication, empathy, and more endurance.
Their nervous systems are shaped by dual forces: vigilance and protection.
On the one hand, they develop a fine-tuned sensitivity to danger, a kind of vigilance. On the other hand, they repeatedly experience containment within family systems that are often mobilized to protect and soothe. Families gather in safe rooms. Brothers look at each other. Parents try to keep the feelings as much as possible.
It is in this tension between fear and connection that strength is formed.
In this context, resilience is not a trait that children have or lack. It is a relational process that results from repeated experiences of support, understanding, and companionship (Masten, 2014).
Remembering in the body
The main readings of the supplement
As I listen to these children, I know how their experiences resonate with my earliest memories. At the age of four, during the Sinai War, I found myself in a bomb shelter in Haifa. My memory is not linear or narrative. It comes in chunks of emotional impressions rather than stories. I remember it as something akin to a pajama gathering: families huddled together, blankets wrapped around us, candlelight softening the edges of dread.
What remains most vivid is not only the danger, but the unity within it.
These are what I think of as implicit or somatic memory experiences encoded in the body rather than in language. Early relational environments shape how the nervous system organizes itself, often long before we have words to describe them (van der Kolk, 2014; Siegel, 2020).
They become templates for how we deal with stress, seek comfort, and interact with others throughout life.
Children as bearers of resilience
The stories of Adam and Ami are not so unusual as they are rare. They are unusual because they are so common.
Children are oriented toward communication, even in the midst of threat. They take care of their siblings. They keep rituals. They promote the emotional threads that bind families together.
Amy bringing her sister’s valuables into the shelter is more than a thoughtful gesture. It is an expression of the relational continuity of keeping the other in mind, even when he is absent. This reflects an internal map of care: it is important to him, therefore it is important to me.
Resilience is thus communicated not only through words, but through action, presence, and embodied knowing.
Resilience research increasingly emphasizes the role of relationships as a central organizing force in adapting to adversity (Masten, 2014; Feldman, 2020). Children do not develop resilience in isolation. They develop it in dependence.
Keeping fear and communication together
It can be tempting to think of resilience as the ability to “overcome” fear or be unaffected by adversity. But the kids I’m listening to tell a different story.
They are afraid. They are alert. They affect.
And they are connected too.
So resilience is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to relate to oneself and others.
A secure attachment makes this coexistence possible. This creates a foundation where children can experience fear because they are not alone in it.
What children teach us
Children invite in their quiet, simple ways wisdom it is both simple and profound.
They remind us that safety is not just a physical state, but a relational experience—even in an environment of uncertainty, the presence of a harmonious connection can shape how fear is metabolized. And this resilience is not something we call upon individually, but something that arises among us.
In a world that is often unpredictable and fragile, children show us that the strength of connection is not the absence of danger.
Biography:
Dr. Evelyn Rappoport, Psy.DPC is a NYS Licensed Psychologist, Relationship Psychoanalyst, and Somatic. Trauma A practitioner who integrates body/mind techniques for healing. He has a private practice in New York City and Jerusalem, where he sees individuals, families and groups. He is a member of the American Psychological Association’s Section 56 Task Force on Medicine and Addiction and Chair of the NYSPA Trauma Special Interest Group. He is a respected employee, former president of the department Psychoanalysisand currently serves as president of the NYSPA Trauma Special Interest Group.
