How to help a child adapt after evacuation?

A new place, a new country, strange people, a foreign language. All this against the backdrop of stress from the experience. The confusion and helplessness of the fugitives is not of their own free will.

How to help a child adapt after evacuation?

• When you are already safe and have the opportunity to arrange your life, remember: a child is still a child and his or her childhood should continue.
• At the new place, buy or ask for at least some toys. For adults, these are not necessities. But for a child, play is a vital necessity. Through play, he or she will be able to bounce back, grieve, win, and visit the future.
• Try to return to your normal routine: breakfast, a walk, lunch, dinner, reading a book, watching cartoons.
• When moving, it is important to go outside and familiarize your child with the environment.
  Talk to her about your plan for the next day or week. Take back control of the areas of your life that you can.
• Enroll your child in a kindergarten or school. Communication with peers will help him or her socialize faster in any country.
• If there is a language barrier, explain to your child that immersion in the language environment will make it easier to learn the language. Sign up for courses as well.
• If you have a father or other relatives in Ukraine, explain that you are still one family. If you have the opportunity, call them and keep in touch. Offer to draw a picture, write a letter to a loved one, make a sketchbook and send it to them later.
• Be sure to emphasize that life goes on. Notice the good things that have happened to you in your new place. This way, the focus shifts from the negative to the positive.

Remember, parents are the child's world. What this world will look like depends on the adults.

Take care of yourself and your children!

Psychological support hotline from "Zaporuka" at 0 800 4000 23 is working:

free
throughout the territory of Ukraine
from all mobile operators
for calls from abroad +38 050 493 03 07
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