By Evelyn Rappaport, Psy.DPC
A five-year-old man talks about war with amazing clarity. He distinguishes between different types of missiles and describes the current escalation of Iran’s war as “smaller” than Iran’s 12-day war in June 2025. His tone is calm and almost observant. But under his words a nervous system you’re already learning to track threats, compare severity, and understand the meaning of risk.
Twelve-year-old Amy moves quickly when the siren sounds. As he gathers his siblings and heads for the shelter, he stops to collect two items that don’t belong to him: his little sister’s blanket and a stuffed animal. He is not at home, but he brings them anyway. “These are her love objects,” she explains, the objects she always carries in the shelter. In her absence, he becomes the protector of her comfort and cares even when she is not present.
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 fighting; it is a living expression of secure attachment under stress.
Attached as an internal shelter
Attachment theory has long emphasized that children develop a sense of security through being connected and coordinated care (Bowlby, 1969/1982; Ainsworth et al., 1978). When caregivers respond to a child’s emotional needs with presence and trust, children internalize a powerful expectation: I’m not alone. Someone is coming for me.
This inner sense of safety in many ways becomes a psychological refuge that can be transported even in physically dangerous environments.
Securely connected children are not protected from them fear. They hear sirens. They feel the tension in the air. Their body signals danger. But along with this heightened awareness, they also have an embodiment memory to protect, gather, soothe and join.
From a neurobiological perspective, these repetitive coordination experiences help shape the developing nervous system. When a child is comforted in times of distress, their physiological arousal changes through attachment. Over time, this has more potential for self regulationeven in chronic conditions stress (Porgs, 2022; Feldman, 2020).
In this sense, secure attachment does not eliminate fear. It changes the child’s attitude towards it.
The paradox of security within insecurity
An interesting paradox occurs in the lives of many Israeli children. They grow up in one of the most insecure environments in the world, marked by sirens, shelters and constant awareness of threat. However, many show remarkable abilities for connection, empathy, and compassion stability.
Their nervous systems are shaped by dual forces: vigilance and defense.
On the one hand, they develop a fine-tuned sensitivity to danger, a kind of embodied vigilance. On the other hand, they often feel trapped within family systems that are quick to mobilize for protection and comfort. Families gather in safe rooms. The brothers look at each other. Parents try to maintain an emotional presence in any way they can.
It is within this tension between fear and attachment that resilience is built.
Resilience, in this context, is not a trait that children possess or possess. It is a communication process that emerges through repeated experiences of support, understanding, and companionship (Masten, 2014).
Memory in the body
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As I listen to these children, I realize how their experiences match my own 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 more emotional pieces than stories. I remember it as a pajama gathering: families huddled together, blankets draped around us, candlelight softening the edges of dread.
What remains most clear is not just the danger, but the solidarity within.
These are what I think are paranormal or somatic memory experiences encoded in the body, not in language. Early communication environments shape how the nervous system organizes itself, often before we have the words to describe them (van der Kolk, 2014; Siegel, 2020).
They become the template for how we respond to stress, how we seek comfort, and how we relate to others throughout our lives.
Children as persistent carriers
Adam and Amy’s stories are not unusual because they are rare. They are unusual because they are so common.
Children are oriented towards connection, even in the face of threats. They take care of their brothers. They keep rituals. They carry the emotional bonds that bind families together.
Amy bringing her sister’s cherished belongings to the shelter is more than a thoughtful gesture. This expression keeps the other relationship in mind even when she is not there. It reflects an internal map of care: it’s important to him, therefore it’s important to me.
This is where sustainability is conveyed not only through words, but through action, presence, and embodied cognition.
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 communication.
Keep fear and attachment together
It can be tempting to think of resilience as the ability to “overcome” fear or remain unaffected by adversity. But the children I listen to tell a different story.
They are afraid. They are awake. They influence.
And they are connected too.
So resilience is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to maintain a relationship with oneself and others while moving through it.
A secure connection enables this coexistence. It creates a context in which children can feel fear because they are not alone in it.
What children teach us
In their own quiet and unique ways, children offer wisdom which is both simple and deep.
They remind us that safety is not just a physical state, but a relational experience – even in environments of uncertainty, the existence of a coherent connection can determine the metabolism of fear. And this stability is not something that we call for individually, but something that is found among us.
In a world that often feels unpredictable and unstable, children show us that what endures is not the absence of danger, but the persistence of connection.
Biography:
Dr. Evelyn Rappoport, Psy.DPC is a licensed NYS Psychologist, Relationship and Somatic Psychologist. Trauma A practitioner who integrates body/mind techniques for healing. He has a private practice in New York and Jerusalem where he sees individuals, families and groups. He is a member of the American Psychiatric Association Division 56 Medicine and Addiction Task Force and Chair of the NYSPA Trauma Special Focus Group. He is a respected colleague, former head of the department Psychoanalysisand currently serves as president of the NYSPA Trauma Special Interest Group.
