This is a difficult time for everyone. Israel is under attack in the most brutal way. But what makes this even tougher is that we all have children to care for, to protect, and to reassure.
 
The Jewish Federation of Ottawa wants to provide you with some resources for talking to your children about current events. The experts advise that being truthful about the situation while making sure the conversation is age-appropriate, is important to build trust and to reassure.
 
Many of our children don't often have opportunities to be in exclusively Jewish spaces, so please make sure that they have opportunities to talk about their feelings with you, with friends, while at supplementary school, or in other safe spaces. 

Jewish Family Services is offering free single-session counselling for those who need help processing the events. Support is available in English, French, Hebrew, and Russian. Please reach out to The Counselling Group at https://thecounsellinggroup.com/. 

To help support you through these challenging conversations, please see the resources below:

1) Talking to children about war - Written to help kids understand the war in Ukraine, but very relevant now.
talking-to-children-about-war.pdf

2) An Instagram post from Dr. Becky Kennedy - Talking to your kids about the Israel-Hamas War

3) Resources from PJ Library. They summarize some of their books and give the key takeaways.
 
4) Protect your kids from images on social media from Prizma: Center for Jewish Day Schools.

5) A resource from School Mental Health Ontario about identifying distress and supporting kids in school (will also help parents at home.)
Ways to support students in response to world events

6) A resource created by three local, Jewish, child psychologists
 
The community is here for you and for them!

Am Yisrael Chai