Dr. Emily AronoffBehavior is communication. This modern parenting mantra holds true at every age and stage, and it is one of the most useful frames a Jewish leader can carry into a sanctuary. The behavior of the kiddo in your room, and the behavior of the grown up attached to them, is information. Even, maybe especially, challenging behavior. It is telling you something about their internal state: stress, an unmet need, a developing skill, fatigue, hunger, sensory overload, emotional overwhelm. When we read behavior as information and meet it with curiosity and connection, the response changes. Punishment and shame fall away. Curiosity and support move in.
I have spent twenty-five years building Jewish music for families with young children. This is the frame I want every clergy member, ECE director, and family-services rabbi to have on hand before the next time a toddler melts down at Tot Shabbat, a kiddo asks a full-volume question during silent prayer, or a parent seems to disengage from the children’s programming, scrolling instead of singing.
Not Always About You, Sometimes It Is
Some leaders take disengagement personally. A kiddo who is not making eye contact, not singing, not joining the movement can feel like a rejection. It rarely is.
Often, what is happening is sensory, physiological, or environmental. A kiddo with mulch in their shoe will not engage with prayer. A kiddo working hard not to have a potty accident will not learn a new song well. A kiddo who is hungry, tired, hot, cold, overstimulated, or understimulated has a body asking for something else first. The same goes for the grown ups in the room. Waiting to hear whether a job is secure? They are probably going to check their phone. Just dropped a parent at hospice? They will struggle to be fully present and joyful. A regulated, comfortable participant can engage more fully. We cannot control the context our people bring, but we can design experiences that encourage them to care for their primary needs, offer empathy, and build spaces that help them be their best selves.
Expect Your Participant to Be Immature, by Design
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that handles planning, impulse control, attention, sequencing, and abstract thought. In a young kiddo, it is wildly underdeveloped. The emotional centers of the brain develop early and fast. The systems for impulse control and reasoning develop slowly, and they keep developing into the twenties. The prefrontal cortex does not fully mature until around age 25.
In practice, that means a three-year-old having big feelings and no way to express them is to be expected. So is a five-year-old who knows the rule and breaks it anyway. So is a seven-year-old who can recite what they should do but cannot do it under pressure. Knowing and doing are different skills, and the gap between them is where co-regulation, practice, and patience live.
Abstract thought, metaphor, and symbolism arrive later in childhood. Most kiddos cannot reliably work with those concepts until the upper elementary years, if then.
What You Cannot See: Kids These Days
In a sanctuary of twenty-five kiddos, ages 0 to 10:
About one is autistic.
Two to three have ADHD.
About two have an anxiety disorder.
About two have a speech or language delay.
About one has PTSD.
Roughly seven to eight have experienced at least one Adverse Childhood Experience, and two to three have experienced two or more.
Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events in childhood, such as abuse, neglect, or growing up in a household affected by violence, substance use, mental illness, or divorce. Researchers link them to lasting effects on health, learning, and behavior.
(Sources: CDC, 2025; National Survey of Children’s Health.)
The real prevalence is higher, especially for autism, ADHD, and the less visible ACE categories.
You cannot assess a kiddo’s developmental stage, neurodiversity, trauma history, sensory profile, or language processing by looking at them. None of it is visible. Some are processing a recent loss. Some have a sensory difference that makes the lighting feel loud. Some had a fight at drop-off. Some are just having a hard morning. We design the room for what we cannot see.
Remove These Stumbling Blocks
Multi-step directions. “Please come in from the lobby, find your seat, put your backpack away, set your water bottle on the table, and turn to page six” is five tasks in one sentence. For a kiddo taking in a new room, that load is too high. Give one direction. Wait. Give the next.
Expectations that were never said out loud. Unspoken rules are dysregulating for newcomers and inconsistent for everyone else. If you expect grown ups to put down the phone, say so. If you expect kiddos to take off shoes, say so. If there are attire norms, say so. Spoken expectations are how a room becomes safe to be in.
Language-heavy correction during dysregulation. When the nervous system is activated, explanation does not land. Co-regulate first.
Reading disengagement as personal. Lead the experience you planned. Adjust based on what the room needs, rather than on how the room makes you feel.
Have a Follow-Up Protocol
Complaining about it or rolling your eyes is not a plan. Pre-select a calm helper: before the experience begins, name an adult in the room who is not leading. They know the norms, they know the script, and they are authorized to intervene, supportively.
Use a three-tier escalation. Tier one is a group reminder from the leader: “Friends, a gentle reminder, let us keep our seats so everyone behind us can see,” or simply a pause until the room settles. Tier two is the pre-selected calm helper, who approaches quietly, gets low, and uses a face-saving line with an alternative built in: “Hi. Would you mind scooting back to your seat? It is tough for the folks behind you to see.” Tier three is the helper warmly walking them to the new spot, framed entirely as help.
Every redirection comes with caring connection and an alternative invitation.
Hopeful Adjustments
Most of the moves that help a room behave well are small.
- Give one direction at a time, and wait for it to land before adding another.
- Make the expectations visible: email them, provide a visual story, post a doorway sign, a welcome slide, a seat-back card, a spoken intro.
- Co-regulate first. Your steady body is the most powerful tool in the room.
- Use melodic intonation to make reminders, rules, and transitions smoother.
- Let a clean-up song replace a verbal reminder and provide routine.
- Let a welcome song and a goodbye song act as anchors that secure a session.
- Name what is coming next.
- Build in sensory accommodations.
- Greet by name.
- Slow down. The room will follow your tempo, including your breath. (I struggle with this. I process and speak fast, so I lean on the tempo of the tunes to break it up and ease my speed.)
- Protect identity while shaping behavior.
- Hold that all the kiddos (and their grown ups) are good inside, even when they present with challenging behaviors.
You do not have to finish the work, but you are not free to desist from it. This work is slow. Articulating the norms for yourself takes a draft. Getting your institution on the same page takes a season. Spreading the message to the families in your community takes longer than that. Shifting a norm is one of the most lasting things you can do in a Jewish space. Practice makes progress.
