STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Some parents and caregivers around Los Angeles have noticed their kids behaving differently since the Los Angeles fires. From LAist News, Libby Rainey reports.
(CROSSTALK)
LIBBY RAINEY, BYLINE: It’s a typical morning at the Children’s Center at Caltech in Pasadena. Four- and 5-year-olds are playing with Legos and whispering to each other. Their teacher, Jose Osorio, spots two kids playing with a pile of colorful blocks and scarves and asks what they’re up to. We’re not naming them because of their young ages.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: We making a house.
JOSE OSORIO: A house. Okay. And can you tell us about the scenery? What’s happening here? Where are you guys?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: There’s the ocean, and that’s fire.
RAINEY: That’s fire. This has been pretty typical in the classroom since the LA fires burned through thousands of homes.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: The fire will go away when the blue ocean will meet there later.
RAINEY: Some of the kids in this classroom have been displaced, and they’re processing what happened in part through playtime. People who work with young children who have trauma say they use play because they might not yet have the words to express how they’re feeling. Melissa Brymer is an expert on children’s response to disasters at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
MELISSA BRYMER: That’s their way of kind of processing what’s been happening for them. We use our words. They use their play.
RAINEY: This fire play also happened after the Tubbs fire destroyed thousands of homes in Northern California in 2017. In the aftermath, the nearby Children’s Museum of Sonoma County hosted a fire truck exhibit. Museum founder Collette Michaud was brought to tears recounting the experience of one young boy who had lost his home.
COLLETTE MICHAUD: And he was standing on the fire truck, he had this big smile on his face and he looks at his dad and he said, Dad, I’m calling 911. They’re coming to save our house.
RAINEY: According to child trauma experts, one reason play can be so transformative is because it puts children in the driver’s seat. In playtime, they get to determine the outcomes, even if the bigger world around them is full of changes they might not yet comprehend.
For NPR News, I’m Libby Rainey in Los Angeles.
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