Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children
- Main things that Jewish thinkers are crucial to raising children
- Accept that your children are both unique and ordinary
- Teach them to honor their parents and respect others – family, friends, teachers, and the community
- Teach them to be resilient, self-reliant, and courageous
- Teach them to be grateful for their blessings
- Teach them the value of their work
- Teach them to make their table an altar – to approach food with an attitude of moderation, celebration, and sanctification
- Teach them to accept rules and exercise self-control
- Teach them the preciousness of the present moment
- Teach them about God
- The Blessing of Acceptance
- Your child is not really “yours,” he or she is God’s. Created for their own path.
- Boys and girls are equal, but different.
- Remember the Hasidic teaching: keep two pieces of paper in your pocket: “I am a speck of dust” and “The Universe was created for me.”
- Allow differences and natural endowment to reveal itself
- Each child is unique. Don’t treat them all the same way.
- Accept yourself. This is you being a role model.
- Accept “good enough.”
- See your child’s teacher as an ally and remember that they are an expert on their age range while you are an expert on your own child. Take their feedback and make them feel appreciated.
- The Blessing of Having Someone to Look Up To
- Remember that the sages say “Better than someone should forsake me and obey my laws than forsake my laws, than believe in me but not observe my laws.”
- Engage your own parents and acknowledge their unique contributions. Ask them for things they can do for you and want to do. Make them feel needed and wanted. Give them something to do.
- If one has a parent that is unable to be a good parent, he should leave the parent and find someone else to care for him – adopt other people who want to help care for your family. An abusive parent is a bad example. Turn your back completely.
- Some indicators that you’re not teaching your child to honor you:
- they interrupt you
- they sit in your designated place at the table
- contradict our words in the name of lobbying for their cause
- talking back to you in public
- don’t give them opportunities to help you
- they don’t offer to share food with you or get some for you if getting it for themselves
- they don;t respect your privacy
- talk too loudly
- Kids don’t want to be equals. They want authority. (Like dogs to dog trainers)
- “because I said so” is a perfectly reasonable response
- Young Jewish child “always” rules:
- speak to parents in a gentle manner
- do not contradict their words in front of others
- respect privacy of parents and others
- do not sit in parents’ place at table
- honor stepparents
- Basic etiquette:
- Eye contact
- Greet using the other person’s name
- Smile.
- Tolerate small talk with grace.
- Honoring guests, according to the Talmud
- Greet guests at the door and escort inside
- Make an effort to remain cheerful during the visit
- Offer food and drink
- Ask guests about themselves
- Escort them to the door when they leave
- Do not make negative comments without taking action.
- Blessing of a Skinned Knee: don’t overprotect your child
- Your job is to raise your child to leave you
- Teach them to swim
- Tzar gidul banim: pain of our children that allows them to grow
- Worried?
- Put faith and sense first
- If you are spending more than 20 min a day worried, you are not letting your child live
- Keys to Independence
- Having specific goals in mind for your child (like swimming)
- Know when to insist on independence
- Help them get in the habit of solving their own problems
- Allow them to exercise their free will
- Don’t panic over pain
- Let them experience the world, warts and all
- Blessing of Longing: Attitude of Gratitude
- They yetzer hora will help develop a strong yetzer tov (bad desires vs good desires)
- Handling their desire for stuff
- Describe their position
- Explain the reason clearly why you’re saying no
- Don’t go overboard or it will come off patronizing
- Aim to get the 100 blessings a day. Do the morning blessings. Show them you mean it.
- Send God gratitude at the Shabbat table and at night
- Longing is also a gift. Allow kids to work for something.
- Blessing of Work: Holy Sparks in Chores
- Learn by doing – chores allow kids to become self sufficient
- Teach kids to see chores as gifts to the household and to God
- By age 4 or 5, they should have mastered self-care chores
- Next is family and household
- Don’t underestimate your child – let them try and learn.
- Grant authority with responsibility. If they try, let them be. Don’t point out flaws. Just keep teaching.
- Offer choices to resistant children with consequences.
- How to make the chore list:
- Imagine your child as a part of a larger family – what would you need help with
- Make a wish list of child appropriate chores
- Introduce these responsibilities gradually
- Don’t tell them how to do it unless they are thoroughly clueless
- Give them the tools they need to succeed
- Devise a system of rewards, punishments, and consequences that fit the scenario
- Blessing of Food: Sanctifying the Table
- We must enjoy our food and eat it consciously. Talk about it.
- Sit with others during meal time
- If your kid has bad eating habits, check that you do not:
- Eat leftovers from your child’s plate
- Eat standing up in front of food storage
- Eat in the car
- Monitor food intake all day and then unwind without doing so once kids are asleep
- Tzedaka (Charity) for at least the amount you’re about to eat at Shabbat and Yom Tovs to Mazon.
- Use the blessings as a conscious-raising tool
- Use kosher as a conscious-raising tool
- Blessing of Self Control: Harnessing the yetzer hara
- If your kids are ‘normal bad’ examine yourself, are your crazy things encouraging it?
- See your child’s worst behavior as his/her greatest strength
- Remove stumbling blocks before the blind (identify causes of poor behavior and beat it at the pass so they have more positive experience than negative)
- Allow for intentional havoc
- The proper rebuke:
- Do it in private
- Speak gently and tenderly
- Remember you are speaking for the wrong doer’s benefit
- Put it in context of the high regard you hold for the wrong doer
- If a gentle rebuke is not enough:
- Punish only if they’ve been forewarned and clearly know what to expect
- Try not to announce punishment and then defer it
- Don’t up the ante in the face of the kid rebelling (three days? I MAKE IT A WHOLE WEEK)
- Punishment should fit the crime.
- Everything is a privilege – EVERYTHING, use that
- Incorporate making amends into the deal
- Blessing of Time: Value of the Present Moment
- Honor Shabbat and make use of it to sanctify downtime
- Don’t make everything super efficient. Let home time be home time
- Don’t be too wired
- Don’t keep busy to ward off despair
- Help your child be efficient with homework and lobby on their behalf if they are and its too much
- Make sure to stop EVERY day and notice and pay attention to your child wholly for at least two minutes
- Let your child dawdle sometimes
- Don’t do things you hate
- Let your children get bored
- Let them be their age
- Marriage first, then children
- Blessings of Faith and Tradition
- Do and you will understand – perform the mitzvot, talk about God and learn