Page 11 - Issue 17

This day, the kvutzah from the morning peilut had
decided to stay after their program ended, and
when the kvutzah from the afternoon peilut
showed up, they started throwing water balloons
at them. Long story short, as I’m preparing grilled
cheese on the stove top, I suddenly find myself in
the middle of an intense war between two
kvutzot. And all over water.

But it wasn't really over water was it? These were
two groups of kids at our center who don’t usually
interact. All of them come from distressed
backgrounds. All of them are food insecure. One
group has been there since the morning. They
probably won’t go home until nighttime. And they
aren’t going to eat lunch today. They may not
have eaten breakfast. They haven’t left yet
because even though their program is over, they
don’t have anywhere better to be. They have
nothing to do, they’re hungry, and they’re
interacting with another group of kids they don’t
know. So, they decide to throw water balloons.

Eventually the situation turns into an all-out siege
with the younger kids barricaded inside and the
older kids trying to throw water balloons through
the windows, and with lunch coming up and the
kindergarten next to us stuck in the middle of it all
I'm feeling stressed. I'm racing through all of the
case studies of conflict resolution I learned about
in University. I'm thinking about the tools I've
learned through re-evaluation counseling (it's a