One in every five parents of a child aged 3 or younger has reported noticing signs of distress in their children as a result of the war, a new study found. The study, which made used of a representative sample of 500 parents surveyed over the first two weeks of July, was presented at an event hosted at the Knesset last week under the title “Early Childhood During Wartime: Challenges and Solutions.”
The most common problem facing young children is sleep troubles, which 52% of parents who noticed signs of distress reported. Other common problems reported in the study, which was conducted by Oranim College’s Israeli Institute for Early Childhood Education together with the college’s geopolitics department, include anger (50%), violence (33%), bedwetting (26%), stubbornness (25%), developmental regression (22%), and trouble eating (19%).
The event at the Knesset was held as a joint project between Oranim College and In Good Hands: The Headquarters for Early Childhood Investment. Knesset Members Yosef Taibe of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, who heads the education committee, Naama Lazimi of Labor, Naor Shiri of the centrist Yesh Atid party, and Keti Shitrit of the right-wing Likud party sponsored the event.
A study that surveyed managers of private and subsidized daycare centers found similar results. Nearly half reported an increase in signs of distress among the young children in their care, including 30% reporting anger and stubbornness, 24% reporting trouble sleeping, 17% reporting developmental relapses, 13% reporting trouble eating, and 10% reporting violence.
The survey of daycare managers was carried out in December. The similar results between it and the study of parents, which was performed seven months later, suggest that signs of distress in children have not necessarily subdued in the months since the outbreak of the war.
Gilad Amshalom, who runs a developmental play center in Tiberias for young children whose families were displaced from their homes, explained that long-term crisis situations can have serious effects on children’s development. “Young children have limited resources, and therefore during a moment of such extreme change in one’s environment—moving from home to a hotel that also isn’t appropriate for the needs of toddlers—they divert their resources toward adapting to this. Therefore they don’t have the ability to play and to explore—the things they’re supposed to do in order to develop. Besides this, there are outbursts of anger, or, to the contrary, shutting down.”
Amshalom said that toddlers in families that are displaced from their homes are easily influenced by their parents’ well-being, or lack thereof. “Some of the parents are out of work and some are serving in the reserves, and in general they’re under endless stress. Of course it effects the toddlers.”
At the event in the Knesset, Education Committee Chair Taibe noted that toddlers also face physical threats due to the war. “We know that not all daycares have shelters,” he said. “We were on a committee tour of early childhood centers in Jerusalem, and during a drill that was performed, we saw that it took the staff four minutes to take the toddlers to the shelter, when the [safe] amount of time to get there is one and a half minutes.”
The Education Committee recently passed the first reading of an amendment to an existing law that would allow online livestreaming of daycare as long as the workers are informed and all parents agree to it.
According to the 2024 early childhood report published by the Israeli Institute for Early Childhood Education, there were 20 cases of childcare workers found guilty for violence against children under age 4 between 2008 and 2023 and 42 conditional plea deals reached during that same period.
Dr. Galit Bineth, who presented the report, said that 93% of those workers cited workplace stress as a reason for behaving violently toward children. Multitasking, chronic understaffing, fatigue, frustration, and the sense of exploitation were among the aspects of workplace stress that the workers mentioned.
“I’m not justifying violence, but if these are the factors that push workers to commit crimes of this sort, we should be working on improving their working conditions and not just ramping up cameras,” Bineth said.
In recent years, following the transfer of the early childhood field to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry has developed trainings and a program of professional development guides for early childhood educators. But it’s not clear whether either of these programs will continue next year given the 200 million shekel ($55 million) cut to the Ministry of Education budget. The portion of the ministry’s budget devoted to early childhood education is 400 million shekels ($110 million).
Knesset members Lazimi and Shiri criticized the budget cut. “We saw last week that there was a budget surplus,” Lazimi said. “It’s a shame they didn’t move those 200 million shekels to what’s really important: advancement and development of programs, and beyond that, salaries for childcare workers.”
Orit Dolev, who manages Jerusalem’s education department, noted the importance of a strong budget for early childhood education. “We put into place many trainings for childcare workers at different daycares throughout the city, and we established a unit that deals with identifying toddlers with developmental delays,” she said. “Those two things depend on the state budget, and we’re waiting for budget approval for next year.”
Education Minister Yoav Kisch said, “Currently, the cut unfortunately remains in place.” He noted that hours of training that were supposed to be held during the 2023-2024 school year could be rolled over to the 2024-2025 school year.
It was announced at the event that a subcommittee devoted to early childhood would be established within the Education Committee. Keti Shitrit will head the subcommittee. “Given how important your position is, it’s necessary to train the Ministry of Education to include early childhood,” she said. “It’s not just a matter of budgets.”
“This is the third year that we salute the importance of early childhood education,” Israeli Institute for Early Childhood Education head Ofira Ben Shlomo said at the opening of the event. “This year, more than ever, its clear that the resilience of Israeli society isn’t measured just by our military strength, but no less so by the ability of civilian society to provide security and protection to its children.”
“Early childhood education centers were able to answer for physical and psychological needs, to provide comfort and security, early detection of special needs and developmental delays. The steps that the state has taken recently regarding early childhood do not satisfy the necessary conditions. Just recently, the early childhood budgets were drastically cut—women who work in early childhood education were left with a sense of despair and hopelessness,” she continued.
She noted that Israel’s childcare staffing crisis is at its worst level ever, with 1,600 early childhood classrooms left empty because of lack of teachers.
