יום שישי, כ״ד אב תשפ״וFriday, August 7, 2026
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An acclaimed educator and social skills specialist, Mrs. Rifka Schonfeld has served the Jewish community for close to thirty years. She founded and directs the widely acclaimed educational program, SOS, servicing all grade levels in secular as well as Hebrew studies. A kriah and reading specialist, she has given dynamic workshops and has set up reading labs in many schools. In addition, she offers evaluations G.E.D. preparation, social skills training and shidduch coaching, focusing on building self-esteem and self-awareness. She can be reached at 718-382-5437 or at rifkaschonfeld@gmail.com.
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The brain scans of people who solved the puzzle with a flash of insight showed a burst of activity in the right temporal lobe in the moment of realization.
Siegel argues against timeouts saying that they teach children that when they are struggling they are on their own and do not have parents to help them.
If your child is upset, he will most likely not want you to ask him lots of questions or give him a lot of advice about the problem right away.
Write about your feelings. Keeping a journal can help you express exactly what you are feeling, and force you to be honest with yourself.
Unfortunately, for some children, social learning does not happen naturally, especially those with Asperger’s or other disorders on the autism spectrum.
The eight stages are usually by age (though in some cases the ages are fluid).
Each part of the brain does its own job and together they generate a coherent whole.
How often do you worry? I can’t stop worrying. I don’t really worry much at all. Not constantly, but occasionally. Pretty frequently. You might call me a worrywart. What is your typical night’s sleep like? What’s sleep? There is no way I could sleep with bills to pay and locks to check, I’m up […]
I’ve put together some of the most frequently asked questions regarding bullies, friendship and learning disabilities.
“Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength – carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” – Corrie ten Boom I’ve been thinking a lot about worrying. Anxiety is an issue close to my heart – […]
All of us wish to act in kind, compassionate and intelligent ways. We all wish to build character.
They are habits. And though each habit means relatively little on its own, over time, the meals we order... have enormous impacts on our heath, productivity, financial security, and happiness.
I've been getting a lot of questions, so I thought I would answer a few of them in this week’s column. Keep those questions coming!
What’s the difference between the first and second ten-year-old?
So, what do we do about grammar? Should we do grammar drills? Should we hope that the students pick it up from reading?
Most experts agree that with specialized coaching, a person’s social “intelligence” can be significantly raised.
Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Executive Function Disorder (EFD) have trouble keeping themselves organized and on-task.
We never cease to be students, even when we are no longer in school. Therefore, everyone can learn from these elements of thought.
The warm parenting style indicates to children, “I love you and will take care of you” and the firm parenting style lets children know, “I expect something from you.”
When we are faced with danger, our body goes into what scientists call “fight or flight” mode.
This doesn’t mean that anyone who occasionally has a piece of chocolate as a pick-me-up is an emotional eater.
To what extent is your child displaying defiance?
All of these small changes work their way into the framework of the elephant and the rider because they are helping the elephant move forward.
While indecision can stop you in your tracks, it’s important to point out that it’s not always bad.
How do we ensure that our students aren’t studying for the grade or the end-of-the-year pizza party? How can we get them to truly want to learn for learning’s sake?
But Pi Day is worst of all I want the extra credit bad But trying to remember many numbers makes me sad.
The teenage years are not about surviving. They are about thriving.
She wasn’t paying attention to what the child did when the mother was not in the room. Rather, her main focus was on what the child did when the mother returned.
When any student in the building is in danger of failing, the equivalent of tornado warning sirens should wail around the school.
“If you don’t stand straight, you’ll never get a husband.”
A lot of people have heard about dyslexia, a learning disability that concerns reading.
Because birth order can affect most children in similar fashion, there are things you can do to help your children overcome weaknesses that birth order has thrown their way.
Occasionally, a teacher will encounter a student who simply cannot be motivated to do his homework, finish his worksheet or study for a test.
There is a point that many parenting books miss: children do more for us than we do for them.
Tutor. Counselor. The doctor too, Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with you.
Pioneering authors Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, in their book Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, outline the ways that we employ executive skills regularly.
Because I get phone calls about this all the time, I have put together a quick “cheat sheet” with milestones for reading, writing, and math from first grade through high school.
The reason behind this is that when we ask our brains and bodies to make drastic changes, our fight or flight response kicks in and we become paralyzed.
Why is there such a steep learning curve for teachers? And what can we, as educators and community activists, do better in the educational system and keep first-year teachers in the job?
With so many new cases of ADHD reported each year, it is important to help children learn how to sit still.
While encouraging your child to take responsibility for bed-wetting (like asking him to change the sheets), remember that it is important not to get angry or make him feel guilty.
As we said, you cannot get rid of a bad habit, you can only change it. But, how?
In order to diagnose separation anxiety, these symptoms must not be isolated and must occur for more than four weeks consecutively.
When someone with a fixed mindset has a negative interaction with a friend or loved one, he or she immediately projects that rejection onto him or herself saying: “I’m unlovable.”
Children develop at different rates – they say their first words, take their first steps, toilet train, read their first word, and lose their first tooth at different times.
Once you understand why you are lying, you might be better able to tell the truth.
This core idea of memory is very difficult to fully comprehend; however, it is essential.
Do you love your children? Of course, who doesn’t? Maybe I should rephrase the question: Do your children feel that you love them?
“Without a high school diploma, you couldn’t work as a garbage collector in New York City; you couldn’t join the Air Force. Yet a quarter of our kids still walked out of high school and never came back.” – Amanda Ridley
Avromi often put other people’s interests before his own: he would not defend people whom he believed were guilty (even if they were willing to pay him a lot of money).
Social disabilities occur at many levels, but experts identify three different areas of learning and behavior that are most common for children who struggle to create lasting social connections.
Brown argues that this wholehearted living must extend into our parenting.
This is an important one in raising a mentsch (and maybe even in marrying off a mentsch! listening skills are on the top of the list when I do shidduch coaching).
Children with dyslexia or dysgraphia frequently have problems in social relationships.
Shame is often confused with guilt and humiliation.
Some educators today believe that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder falls into an executive function category.
Because the children suffering from this disorder generally have wonderful verbal skills, the disability can go unrecognized for many years.
People definitely had stress one hundred and fifty years ago, but it was a different kind of stress.
Time outs increases compliance and positive behavior far more than other forms of discipline
The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten defines a mentch as “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character.”
In reality, Baruch is one of many children who can be described as twice-exceptional. He is both gifted and struggling with a learning disability.
Explosive children or those with ODD are easily frustrated, demanding and inflexible.
Have you noticed that your child is doing something radically different from his cousins (even if they go to a school a block away from each other)?
“If you have Asperger’s Syndrome, you are really good in your brain and your brain is wired a different way, so you are really good at drawing or school. But your social level is not high.”
If your child is struggling with these skills, it might be helpful to seek social skills training.
However, for some children, the split between home and school can be severe and potentially debilitating.
How can we, as parents and educators, make the learning process less unbalanced for our boys? Can we move them out of the back of the classroom?
Clearly, there are multiple benefits to writing that go beyond the simply academic.
All of her friends were telling her that Chaim was just stubborn and gave her millions of suggestions of how to “nip it in the bud.” But, Zahava wasn’t sure.
It wakes us up in the morning, and gives us a jolt of energy during an afternoon slump. We add ice and milk for a refreshing drink in the summer. But, what is coffee exactly? And, should we really be drinking it?
Comprehension or “understanding” is perhaps the trickiest part of teaching students to read.
What the researchers found is not groundbreaking, but confirms what many of us in education have been noticing for years.
Regardless of age, parents play an important role in their children’s lives.
Alternative assessments are an extremely important part of understanding what students know beyond the scope of tests and quizzes.
The key to kindness and acceptance is empathy. A lot of people argue that you cannot teach empathy. While I agree that it is difficult to teach empathy, I believe it is possible.
By multiple intelligences, we mean that people have different intelligences in different areas.
Explosiveness is not confined to a type or a gender. It comes in male and female children, and in all ages, shapes and sizes. Some blow up dozens of times a day, others just a few times a week. Some “lose it” only at home, others only in school, and still others in any conceivable location.
The truth is that you never know what’s going on in a house until you live in it.
Q: What does twice exceptional or 2e mean?
Shimon quickly shoveled a forkful of rice into his mouth, while attempting to scribble the right math equations into his workbook. “(2 x 34 -11)2” he said between mouthfuls. “Mommy, I got some rice on my paper, but I have to finish this before it is time to go in the shower,” Shimon choked out.
First, it is important to establish a diagnosis for your child. Perhaps his struggles with reading are associated with ADHD or a processing disorder.
Once he thought of what he wanted to say and began to write, he would freeze. That’s why he spent the first hour after dinner doing anything he could to avoid his homework.
Anyone who has experienced a panic attack is familiar with the feelings expressed above – paralyzing fear, difficulty breathing, dizziness, and nerves. But, while panic attacks are real and extreme, everyone experiences some sort of anxiety on a daily basis. The question is: how much is too much?
A national survey reported that over forty percent of students say that they are afraid to go to a school bathroom because of bullying. One in seven children in America reports acting as a bully or being a bully victim.
Watch your weakness. Interviewers are often wary of people who answer, “What is your weakness?” with “I am a perfectionist” or “I work too hard.” Those answers seem disingenuous and often make the interviewee appear insincere.
Dr. Brian Doyle, in his book, Understanding and Treating Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, explains that “When we examine the lives of adults who struggle and fail, repeatedly, sometimes we find symptom patterns like those of children with ADHD…Once they have a proper diagnosis and full treatment, adults with ADHD can change their lives profoundly.”
Many parents are afraid to sign their children up for extracurricular activities because they believe the activities will negatively impact their performance in school. In other words, that the extracurricular activities will take the place of the curricular ones. While in some cases (which I will outline later), this may be true, in most cases, extracurricular activities can actually aid in children’s learning and retention of material.
Lately, there has been a lot of talk the “spectrum” rather than autism specifically. In order to elucidate what is meant by the spectrum, I have put together a short guide to the different categories that fall under the term.
The rebbe had told Meir and Yehudah to take turns, but that wasn’t working out so well.
Do you remember the good old days when kids were kids and there was never anything to worry about? Those days never really existed, but today there are issues kids worry about that weren’t issues for some adults. They include fear of bullying, natural disasters, divorce, and violence.
From the time we are small, we are taught to have good manners and to “be nice.” Our parents teach us that we need to exhibit kindness and be polite. When someone asks something of us, we are supposed to do our best to accommodate him or her.
One of the basic tenets of Judaism is to create self-reliant children, after all fathers are required to teach their children how to swim. As parents we are responsible for giving our children the skills they need to survive in this world.
The National Institute of Health defines dyslexia as characterized by difficulties with accurate or fluent word recognition, and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. Dyslexia is a learning disability that is neurological in origin and often runs in the family. Children with dyslexia experience trouble reading when taught through traditional instruction.
Fifth-grader Yitzi cannot speak in front of the classroom. In fact, it is a wrestling act just to get him into the classroom to begin with. He refuses to get together with friends after school and spends much of his time at home alone in his bedroom. When his parents try to speak with him to try to figure out what is wrong, he cannot answer. Instead, he turns red and starts to sweat.
“Your job is to give information,” I said, “but there are a lot of reasons why children don’t pay attention. It isn’t always about whether they ‘want’ to. Maybe they are afraid of failure, maybe they have learning disorders. As a teacher, you can motivate and inspire them to achieve.”
Picture this: A child is jumping around the room, arms flailing, and interrupting the teacher. Was the child you pictured male or female? Chances are, you imagined a boy.
We all know that kids love tattling on one another, letting you know when a sibling or classmate did something wrong. While this type of peer pressure can discourage children from misbehaving, it also creates a negative environment in the classroom and home. Children often feel like their siblings or classmates are “out to get” them.
“Mrs. Schapiro. Hi, this is Mrs. Rosenfeld from XYZ Yeshiva. I am calling you because I noticed that your son’s birthday is September 28. We have recently pushed the cutoff date at our school from January 1 to September 1. Because of that, I am afraid Yaacov won’t be able to apply to kindergarten until next year.”
Gershon got up from the chessboard and walked away slowly, pouting as he headed to the bathroom. His father watched him go and once again wondered if he had made a mistake in playing competitively against his son. Gershon hated to lose, but how could he improve if his father always let him win?
Your son has a big vocabulary test this morning. He’s really anxious and studied with you last night for over an hour. Now, at breakfast, he is talking about how nervous he feels and how he hopes he doesn’t fail. You are trying to think about what is best for him. He has ten minutes before he needs to leave for school. Should you go over the words with him one last time? Should you encourage him to take deep breaths and realize that he knows the material? Or, should you get him to take a run around the living room, ending with jumping jacks and push-ups in the kitchen?
August 7, 2026 
