The Need
In today’s world, where technology is affecting our way of life, our children and adolescents need to be provided with the appropriate skills that will enhance their ability to cope with the challenges posed by the digital era. More students are lacking social skills. Among children with learning disabilities and ADHD, this reality is even more severe.
Today’s generation has many friends on social media, but often they cannot point to a single true friend that they can trust, share experiences with and feel close to. They are preoccupied with self-comparison with others and are in endless competition searching for their place in relation to their peers. The gap between the levels of intelligence, thinking and creativity and the emotional and social part, is growing fast.
In the past, children learned the skills of life in the street and in their neighborhoods. There they acquired the skills for cooperation, leadership, empathy and how to be friends. Today, the playground is gradually moving into the virtual world, and social networks are replacing human discourse. Children tend to text more than they talk to each other and thus face-to-face interaction, which is an essential component of personal development, is declining. In virtual interaction everything happens very fast with no time to think before responding in a personalized manner.
Our Response
This important program deals with challenging social situations from children’s daily life and helps them understand various situations from different perspectives, while strengthening their sense of ability and self-image and developing empathy for others.
Nitzan - The Israeli Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities -
is the leading organization in Israel for individuals with learning disabilities and ADHD. Nitzan was Established in 1964, by parents and volunteers and has grown steadily ever since, operating 40 branches throughout the country. Nitzan is the leading non-profit organization in Israel providing professional assessment and other services to people with learning disabilities.
Nitzan’s mission is to enable individuals with learning, adaptive and functional disabilities to realize their potential and become contributing members of society.
During this unique program the children are asked to take the role of spectators, participants and victims. In each role, the children explain their emotions, thoughts, behavior and reactions. These activities teach the children to better understand the choices that they make and learn to develop effective coping tools for exploring the difference between emotions and reactions, as well as moderate their impulsivity, so that they can improve their reactions to daily situations with greater flexibility, sensitivity and understanding.
It is our hope to create as many groups as possible and especially in the social and geographical peripheral regions in Israel where it is most needed.
We would like to thank you in advance for your consideration. We will be more than happy to answer any questions or provide any additional information.
