Good moed!
I've been invited to speak at a program after Succos, on the greatest issues in chinuch [Jewish education] of our children today.
I am going to skip the perennial items of (1) Good teaching and (2) The tuition crisis, because they are obvious and because I don't have much to add on those. But here are five items I have thought of; I'd welcome additions or comments:
1. Taking advantage of our advantages
We possess many potential advantages for modern education, including advanced research in educational methodology, greater educational technology and social connectedness, a social break (relatively) from anti-Semitism (in North America), parents who are yeshiva-educated, and access to the State of Israel.
The results of making proper use of these developments could be fantastic - but if were to attempt it without real thought and research, we would lose precious time and money on unworthy, wasteful, education-damaging projects.
2. Time
This has been a perennial issue, due to our dual curriculum, the constant push for extra-curriculars, and the need for both parents to work full-time jobs, but it is worse today.
Today, our social connectedness means we all know of great programs running in other communities, and we feel pressured to imitate them, especially as that same connectedness means that the creators of those programs come market them to us.
Today, our children have resume pressure to take on outside activities.
Today, parents are aware of research that suggests kids need down time from their programmed lives.
The result is that children have gaps in basic areas of their Jewish education - halachah, tefillah, Jewish thought, Jewish history, gemara... and they form weaker relationships with their parents and mentors.
My own feeling is that we need a longer school day, and educational extra-curriculars for kids who would benefit.
3. Independent children
Our kids have lines of communication (email, IM, Facebook, cell phones, texting) that are not subject to parental permission. Those same lines of communication give them the ability to purchase whatever they want, without parental control.
The result can be poor relationships with parents and mentors, and undisciplined approaches to learning and life. To me, there is a need for parents and mentors to combat this not by trying to impose control [although I really believe that high school students don't need cell phones], but by building relationships with kids.
4. Sophisticated ignorance
Children generally migrate toward shallow and superficial presentations of information, because those are easier to grasp and they tend to sound good. Today, those presentations are all over - blog posts (like this one?), Wikipedia articles, chat room diatribes, and so on. It's everywhere, and reading it is often encouraged through school as teachers assign kids to read Wikipedia and similarly shallow resources, rather than wrestle with more complex material.
The result is that children become cynical, and they closed to real explanation and analysis. When it comes to Judaism, they read and absorb superficial on-line atheism, thinking that they have now learned it all.
To me, parents need to spend time with kids talking through the issues they learn about on-line, and helping them learn to think and analyze on a more serious level.
5. Lack of spirituality
Our culture prizes intellect over emotion (particularly in males). Add in the fathers who are yeshiva-educated and likely to pull out a sefer during davening, and the time pressure that causes people to give short shrift to tefillah, and kids don't see a whole lot of emotion in the religion of their role models. Combine this with the academic cynicism our children will encounter in their teenage years, and religion is in trouble.
My thought would be to help remedy this by having parents work on their own spirituality, and make it visible to their children.
That's my current list. What would you add/delete? What would you change?
Showing posts with label General: Raising children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General: Raising children. Show all posts
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Movies for teens?
By the time I turned fourteen, I had seen all three Star Wars movies, Back to the Future, Short Circuit, Grease, Superman, Superman II, WarGames, Romancing the Stone, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Flash Gordon, and probably a few more movies the names of which escape me at the moment. My family didn't go to movies much, that I can recall, but I saw them in trips with my summer camp, or at birthday parties.
I won't deny that listing those titles brings twinges of nostalgia, but I can't see showing those to my kids.
First, there is the halachic issue of looking at certain things. The Torah warns us not to stray after our eyes, and that includes having a male see a female in states of undress. Even back in the sheltered 1980's, what passed for a PG in the theater would not Please Gd in halachah. This one is pretty straightforward.
More, though – Even if you could skip any given scene, a teenage boy is going to face enough of a challenge dealing with his sexuality within the bounds of halachah; do we need to feed it by promoting a world in which it's all around him, a world of strapless dresses and bathing suits, a world of jokes about appearances and sexuality, a world in which the music swells as the characters kiss?
Nope; I don't see it.
Do you?
I won't deny that listing those titles brings twinges of nostalgia, but I can't see showing those to my kids.
First, there is the halachic issue of looking at certain things. The Torah warns us not to stray after our eyes, and that includes having a male see a female in states of undress. Even back in the sheltered 1980's, what passed for a PG in the theater would not Please Gd in halachah. This one is pretty straightforward.
More, though – Even if you could skip any given scene, a teenage boy is going to face enough of a challenge dealing with his sexuality within the bounds of halachah; do we need to feed it by promoting a world in which it's all around him, a world of strapless dresses and bathing suits, a world of jokes about appearances and sexuality, a world in which the music swells as the characters kiss?
Nope; I don't see it.
Do you?
Monday, February 13, 2012
On, off and after the Derech: When Religion and Family Collide
Our Beit Midrash is hosting a panel discussion tonight on "On, Off and After the Derech: When Religion and Family Collide", with a local synagogue rabbi and a child-and-adolescent psychiatrist who is also an ordained rabbi.
[Update: The audio is now available here; the video should be available soon here.]
What are your thoughts on the following scenarios:
1. A couple after twenty years of marriage decide to become observant fairly rapidly. They have three children, a son age 17, a daughter age 15 and a son age 10. They put their children into observant Orthodox private schools, with tutors to help them catch up.
The 10-year-old takes to the change easily.
The 15-year-old has some bumps, but after effort seems to acclimate well.
The oldest, 17, is unwilling to switch schools, friends or change his lifestyle. He is somewhat willing to live within the home in an Orthodox lifestyle, but in his personal life, school and life goals he is not interested and occasionally defiant.
How should the parents help their 17-year-old, in terms of his own situation and his impact on the family?
2. An observant family has a child with learning issues, which influence personality and socialization. It is difficult for her to appropriately conform to the policies of Orthodox schools, from style of clothing to social activities. The child’s learning issues are not being addressing to the extent needed by the Orthodox school system, but are available in the public system. Further, the challenge of handling the school's policies is affecting the child’s self-image and self-respect, and she appears to be drifting away from observance.
What should the parents do to give their child an education and keep her on the path of Torah observance?
3. A family with several children finds that one of them, age 15, does not want to keep an observant lifestyle. The parents cannot determine the cause. The parents respond angrily, the siblings often fight with him, the child is becoming more sullen and distant. What can be done?
4. After 15 years of marriage, a couple with a ten-year old daughter divorces and one of the two becomes Torah-observant. Custody is shared, and the observant parent wishes to raise the chld in an observant setting, while the other parent does not agree. The child experiences drastically different lifestyles, messages, ethics and basic rules of conduct with the different parents. Leaving aside matters of family law, the observant parent is concerned that the child’s mixed messages will actually cause her to drift further away from Torah. What should be done?
[Update: The audio is now available here; the video should be available soon here.]
What are your thoughts on the following scenarios:
1. A couple after twenty years of marriage decide to become observant fairly rapidly. They have three children, a son age 17, a daughter age 15 and a son age 10. They put their children into observant Orthodox private schools, with tutors to help them catch up.
The 10-year-old takes to the change easily.
The 15-year-old has some bumps, but after effort seems to acclimate well.
The oldest, 17, is unwilling to switch schools, friends or change his lifestyle. He is somewhat willing to live within the home in an Orthodox lifestyle, but in his personal life, school and life goals he is not interested and occasionally defiant.
How should the parents help their 17-year-old, in terms of his own situation and his impact on the family?
2. An observant family has a child with learning issues, which influence personality and socialization. It is difficult for her to appropriately conform to the policies of Orthodox schools, from style of clothing to social activities. The child’s learning issues are not being addressing to the extent needed by the Orthodox school system, but are available in the public system. Further, the challenge of handling the school's policies is affecting the child’s self-image and self-respect, and she appears to be drifting away from observance.
What should the parents do to give their child an education and keep her on the path of Torah observance?
3. A family with several children finds that one of them, age 15, does not want to keep an observant lifestyle. The parents cannot determine the cause. The parents respond angrily, the siblings often fight with him, the child is becoming more sullen and distant. What can be done?
4. After 15 years of marriage, a couple with a ten-year old daughter divorces and one of the two becomes Torah-observant. Custody is shared, and the observant parent wishes to raise the chld in an observant setting, while the other parent does not agree. The child experiences drastically different lifestyles, messages, ethics and basic rules of conduct with the different parents. Leaving aside matters of family law, the observant parent is concerned that the child’s mixed messages will actually cause her to drift further away from Torah. What should be done?
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Unschooling and a Culture of Instruction
[Please read this: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stands up for Israel at the G8]
This morning, toward the end of Psukei d'Zimra, I was invited to give a dvar torah during Musaf. I agreed reluctantly; I don't like to speak without planning, but I also believe it's important to take advantage of opportunities to discuss Torah.
I talked about the classic description (Shabbos 88b) of HaShem holding Mount Sinai over the heads of the Jews, demanding that they accept the Torah, even though they had already volunteered that they would accept the Torah. I offered my own take: That the Jews needed a Culture of Instruction, in addition to the Culture of Volition instituted by their ancestors with their independent pursuit of Gd. Voluntary acceptance of Torah is wonderful, but it must be complemented by a feeling that the will of Gd is compulsory.
The same idea applies to the gemara's assertion (Kiddushin 31a) that there is more reward for fulfilling a mitzvah one has been commanded to do, than in fulfilling a mitzvah one has accepted voluntarily. Certainly, there are several explanations for this idea, but one may be that the Culture of Instruction is critical to service of Gd.
Someone who serves Gd voluntarily, because the ideology resonates with her or because the mitzvos make sense to her, might well reject some particular philosophical point or practical commandment. Volition is wonderful for its elevated use of Free Will, but it must be supplemented with Instruction.
This connects with the end of Parshat Bamidbar (4:19) as well, in which we are told that each Levi was assigned a particular task in taking care of the Mishkan. Sforno comments there that no Levite could rush ahead and take a job based on wanting to do it; each person was given his role. To me, that's part of the same idea; although certain jobs were, indeed, up for those who volunteered, the Culture of Instruction was part of the Mishkan as well.
This afternoon, someone approached me in shul to tell me about a contrasting idea found in an article in today's National Post: Not a Textbook Education talks about "unschooling", or the idea of having children learn through day-to-day life activities rather than through studying required texts. I know little about the field; from the article, it sounds like children are given a lot of latitude, living an unregimented day, and are exposed to different subjects on some level. They then choose what to pursue, and how to pursue it.
I don't know just how extreme this is in practice, so I can't comment on the system. Is it truly open-ended? If a child says, "I don't want to learn how to multiply," or, "I'm not interested in understanding civics", is he left to use a calculator and ignore the political process? If so, I'd be pretty uncomfortable; I do think the Torah's Culture of Instruction is needed, because ignorance of certain fields will make a person a poor citizen.
On the other hand, any parent could tell you that an extreme Culture of Instruction could be just as bad for a child; stifling creativity, mandating a system in which Volition is worthless, will get us nowhere.
So that's what's on my mind this evening.
This morning, toward the end of Psukei d'Zimra, I was invited to give a dvar torah during Musaf. I agreed reluctantly; I don't like to speak without planning, but I also believe it's important to take advantage of opportunities to discuss Torah.
I talked about the classic description (Shabbos 88b) of HaShem holding Mount Sinai over the heads of the Jews, demanding that they accept the Torah, even though they had already volunteered that they would accept the Torah. I offered my own take: That the Jews needed a Culture of Instruction, in addition to the Culture of Volition instituted by their ancestors with their independent pursuit of Gd. Voluntary acceptance of Torah is wonderful, but it must be complemented by a feeling that the will of Gd is compulsory.
The same idea applies to the gemara's assertion (Kiddushin 31a) that there is more reward for fulfilling a mitzvah one has been commanded to do, than in fulfilling a mitzvah one has accepted voluntarily. Certainly, there are several explanations for this idea, but one may be that the Culture of Instruction is critical to service of Gd.
Someone who serves Gd voluntarily, because the ideology resonates with her or because the mitzvos make sense to her, might well reject some particular philosophical point or practical commandment. Volition is wonderful for its elevated use of Free Will, but it must be supplemented with Instruction.
This connects with the end of Parshat Bamidbar (4:19) as well, in which we are told that each Levi was assigned a particular task in taking care of the Mishkan. Sforno comments there that no Levite could rush ahead and take a job based on wanting to do it; each person was given his role. To me, that's part of the same idea; although certain jobs were, indeed, up for those who volunteered, the Culture of Instruction was part of the Mishkan as well.
This afternoon, someone approached me in shul to tell me about a contrasting idea found in an article in today's National Post: Not a Textbook Education talks about "unschooling", or the idea of having children learn through day-to-day life activities rather than through studying required texts. I know little about the field; from the article, it sounds like children are given a lot of latitude, living an unregimented day, and are exposed to different subjects on some level. They then choose what to pursue, and how to pursue it.
I don't know just how extreme this is in practice, so I can't comment on the system. Is it truly open-ended? If a child says, "I don't want to learn how to multiply," or, "I'm not interested in understanding civics", is he left to use a calculator and ignore the political process? If so, I'd be pretty uncomfortable; I do think the Torah's Culture of Instruction is needed, because ignorance of certain fields will make a person a poor citizen.
On the other hand, any parent could tell you that an extreme Culture of Instruction could be just as bad for a child; stifling creativity, mandating a system in which Volition is worthless, will get us nowhere.
So that's what's on my mind this evening.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Which would you rather [your child] be?
[Post on my mind today: I'm proud of my Prime Minister, and disappointed that I'm not eligible to vote for him.]
My kids have a book that asks, “Which would you rather be?” and then gives choices:
• Stick or stone?
• Thunder or lightning?
• Cat or dog?
• Grownup or kid?
and so on.
Someone, somewhere, has probably done a poor-quality Jewish rip-off of that book:
• Kiddush or Havdalah?
• Avraham or Sarah?
• Boro Park or Lakewood?
• Rabbi or Rabbah?
• Chametz or Matzah?
• Mordechai or Matityahu?
• Alef or Tav?
• Rabban Gamliel or Rabbi Akiva?
• Eretz Yisrael or Ever haYarden?
• Rashi Tefillin or Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin?
• Eruv Chatzeiros or Eruv Techumin?
• Beruriah or Kimchis?
More substantively, though: As a parent, and a Jewish parent, I find myself asking the same question when prioritizing what to emphasize for my kids. And as in choosing between thunder and lightning, cat and dog, and so on, I’m often unsure.
Assuming you had to select one or the other (which is not always true, I know), which would you rather your child be:
• Athletic or Bookish?
• Learned or Giving?
• Questioning or Faithful?
• Giggly or Stern?
• Stubborn or Flexible?
• Whimsical or Steady?
• Popular or Independent?
• Socially Clued-In or Clueless?
• Follower or Leader?
• Strait-Laced or Loose?
• Intellectually Creative or Structured?
• Broad or Focussed?
The answer is usually some sort of balance, I know, but I still find the questions interesting, and challenging. And sometimes, when I am caught up in concern that I’ve chosen wrong, I put my faith in the advice I once received from a wise mentor: Children’s personality will win out; in normal situations, parents have limited capacity to corrupt it…
My kids have a book that asks, “Which would you rather be?” and then gives choices:
• Stick or stone?
• Thunder or lightning?
• Cat or dog?
• Grownup or kid?
and so on.
Someone, somewhere, has probably done a poor-quality Jewish rip-off of that book:
• Kiddush or Havdalah?
• Avraham or Sarah?
• Boro Park or Lakewood?
• Rabbi or Rabbah?
• Chametz or Matzah?
• Mordechai or Matityahu?
• Alef or Tav?
• Rabban Gamliel or Rabbi Akiva?
• Eretz Yisrael or Ever haYarden?
• Rashi Tefillin or Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin?
• Eruv Chatzeiros or Eruv Techumin?
• Beruriah or Kimchis?
More substantively, though: As a parent, and a Jewish parent, I find myself asking the same question when prioritizing what to emphasize for my kids. And as in choosing between thunder and lightning, cat and dog, and so on, I’m often unsure.
Assuming you had to select one or the other (which is not always true, I know), which would you rather your child be:
• Athletic or Bookish?
• Learned or Giving?
• Questioning or Faithful?
• Giggly or Stern?
• Stubborn or Flexible?
• Whimsical or Steady?
• Popular or Independent?
• Socially Clued-In or Clueless?
• Follower or Leader?
• Strait-Laced or Loose?
• Intellectually Creative or Structured?
• Broad or Focussed?
The answer is usually some sort of balance, I know, but I still find the questions interesting, and challenging. And sometimes, when I am caught up in concern that I’ve chosen wrong, I put my faith in the advice I once received from a wise mentor: Children’s personality will win out; in normal situations, parents have limited capacity to corrupt it…
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Thank Gd for Shabbos. And Pizza Day.
[This week's Haveil Havalim, and an important call for Tehillim, are here.]
[Background: Wednesdays are Pizza Day in my children’s school.]
I worry about my kids developing the same negative attitude many of us have regarding Shabbos – the feeling that it’s a day of restrictions, of “can’t-do-that,” of lots of time in shul or at the table instead of playing ball and computer games. I don’t want them to go through the day just waiting for it to end.
So over Shabbos I had a few minutes to hold my youngest (a kindergartener) on my lap, and I decided to talk to him about Shabbos. I told him I’m very grateful that HaShem created this day. I explained that it’s wonderful to have time to be with my children, as opposed to the rest of the week when my time with them is confined to evenings. I told him that without Shabbos I would likely never stop working, and I would be exhausted, and so on. So it’s great that HaShem created Shabbos.
After which he turned to me and asked, “Who created Pizza Day?”
Shows where his priorities are…
[Background: Wednesdays are Pizza Day in my children’s school.]
I worry about my kids developing the same negative attitude many of us have regarding Shabbos – the feeling that it’s a day of restrictions, of “can’t-do-that,” of lots of time in shul or at the table instead of playing ball and computer games. I don’t want them to go through the day just waiting for it to end.
So over Shabbos I had a few minutes to hold my youngest (a kindergartener) on my lap, and I decided to talk to him about Shabbos. I told him I’m very grateful that HaShem created this day. I explained that it’s wonderful to have time to be with my children, as opposed to the rest of the week when my time with them is confined to evenings. I told him that without Shabbos I would likely never stop working, and I would be exhausted, and so on. So it’s great that HaShem created Shabbos.
After which he turned to me and asked, “Who created Pizza Day?”
Shows where his priorities are…
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Tempting children with their talents
[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here, sans chulent]
I was built for Yom Kippur, as well as for Rosh haShanah, Tisha b'Av, Purim, Shavuos night, etc. – like many people, I thrive on intense emotion, and these days designed for extended periods of intense emotion are perfect for me. They seem more authentic, more alive, than the rest of the calendar.
The result is that I never want to come down from Musaf on Yom Kippur; I want to carry it right through to Minchah and Neilah. And so it was that yesterday I continued my tradition of teaching a class through the Yom Kippur break. I’ve been doing it since my Rhode Island days, and thank Gd I’ve had the health to sustain it. This year, thanks to Toronto’s situation at the west end of the time zone, we had a hefty two and a half hours.
So we learned Orot haTeshuvah from the text itself yesterday, covering the first, fifth, sixth and seventh chapters. One particular point of interest was Rav Kook’s statement (fifth perek) that a person is meant to develop his natural abilities and tendencies, and not to squelch them in pursuit of idealized perfection. Even though following one’s core nature might lead to error and sin at times, it would be, in Rav Kook’s words, a far greater sin to deny that inherent nature, like the nazir’s self-denial in pursuit of purification.
To use Rav Kook’s own words:
On one level, this seems to say that one shouldn't refuse to enjoy humor in order to rein in his character, and one shouldn't decline to enjoy hiking, if hiking is something he enjoys, in order to spend 100% of his time in the beit midrash. But it also speaks to developing one's talents and abilities, in general.
This reminded me of a story I once heard about Rav Ruderman at Ner Yisrael in Baltimore – that he had accepted a student who was gifted as a pianist, and he told the student to continue to set aside time to develop his piano talents. [I’d love verification on this story, from anyone else who has more information.]
But then I heard another story, about a young Jewish woman who is a contestant on America’s Next Top Model, and is facing serious decisions on Shabbos and dress in order to develop as a model. We must develop our talents, right? It would be a sin to squelch them, right?
And it reminded me of a family I know whose pre-teen daughter was developing into a star athlete, with her team coach talking about the Olympics. How far could they take her before they would be misleading her into thinking that chillul Shabbos and other competition-related transgressions were an option? Or before she would decide for herself that these were an option?
I don’t think career-long violation of Shabbos is what Rav Kook had in mind when he noted that following one’s core nature might lead to error and sin at times.
Rav Kook’s words here are loaded. They work well for adults, encouraging us to find out who we are and what we can do, and not to lock ourselves in boxes in pursuit of perfection. But I wouldn’t recommend these words, carte blanche, as a strategy for raising children. For children this advice needs moderation, because children cannot necessarily put on the brakes when necessary.
To use the example above: Training a child for Olympic-level competition is cruel, if you don't want the child to compete on Shabbat.
I do believe that every talent can and should be used in a positive way, and I’m behind the idea that squelching talent is denial of a Divine gift. I hear Rav Kook’s point about this being a great sin. And I believe we should support our children in discovering their talents, and in developing them. But there are limits to what we can do with those talents, and I fear that this is an adult challenge, not one meant for kids.
I was built for Yom Kippur, as well as for Rosh haShanah, Tisha b'Av, Purim, Shavuos night, etc. – like many people, I thrive on intense emotion, and these days designed for extended periods of intense emotion are perfect for me. They seem more authentic, more alive, than the rest of the calendar.
The result is that I never want to come down from Musaf on Yom Kippur; I want to carry it right through to Minchah and Neilah. And so it was that yesterday I continued my tradition of teaching a class through the Yom Kippur break. I’ve been doing it since my Rhode Island days, and thank Gd I’ve had the health to sustain it. This year, thanks to Toronto’s situation at the west end of the time zone, we had a hefty two and a half hours.
So we learned Orot haTeshuvah from the text itself yesterday, covering the first, fifth, sixth and seventh chapters. One particular point of interest was Rav Kook’s statement (fifth perek) that a person is meant to develop his natural abilities and tendencies, and not to squelch them in pursuit of idealized perfection. Even though following one’s core nature might lead to error and sin at times, it would be, in Rav Kook’s words, a far greater sin to deny that inherent nature, like the nazir’s self-denial in pursuit of purification.
To use Rav Kook’s own words:
שלמותם של החיים היא דוקא עם המשך התגלותם על פי טבעם העצמי. וכיון שהטבע מצד עצמו אינו בעל הסתכלות והבחנה, הרי החטא מוכרח הוא מצד זה, "ואין אדם צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא." וביטול עצם טבעיותם של החיים, כדי שיהיה האדם בלתי חוטא, זהו עצמו החטא היותר גדול, "וכפר עליו מאשר חטא על הנפש."
On one level, this seems to say that one shouldn't refuse to enjoy humor in order to rein in his character, and one shouldn't decline to enjoy hiking, if hiking is something he enjoys, in order to spend 100% of his time in the beit midrash. But it also speaks to developing one's talents and abilities, in general.
This reminded me of a story I once heard about Rav Ruderman at Ner Yisrael in Baltimore – that he had accepted a student who was gifted as a pianist, and he told the student to continue to set aside time to develop his piano talents. [I’d love verification on this story, from anyone else who has more information.]
But then I heard another story, about a young Jewish woman who is a contestant on America’s Next Top Model, and is facing serious decisions on Shabbos and dress in order to develop as a model. We must develop our talents, right? It would be a sin to squelch them, right?
And it reminded me of a family I know whose pre-teen daughter was developing into a star athlete, with her team coach talking about the Olympics. How far could they take her before they would be misleading her into thinking that chillul Shabbos and other competition-related transgressions were an option? Or before she would decide for herself that these were an option?
I don’t think career-long violation of Shabbos is what Rav Kook had in mind when he noted that following one’s core nature might lead to error and sin at times.
Rav Kook’s words here are loaded. They work well for adults, encouraging us to find out who we are and what we can do, and not to lock ourselves in boxes in pursuit of perfection. But I wouldn’t recommend these words, carte blanche, as a strategy for raising children. For children this advice needs moderation, because children cannot necessarily put on the brakes when necessary.
To use the example above: Training a child for Olympic-level competition is cruel, if you don't want the child to compete on Shabbat.
I do believe that every talent can and should be used in a positive way, and I’m behind the idea that squelching talent is denial of a Divine gift. I hear Rav Kook’s point about this being a great sin. And I believe we should support our children in discovering their talents, and in developing them. But there are limits to what we can do with those talents, and I fear that this is an adult challenge, not one meant for kids.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
When children suffer – a child’s view
Some time back, a ten or eleven year old boy told me that he had experienced a stomach ache in shul. He told me he was wondering whether his stomach ache might have averted some disaster elsewhere. If it did, he said, he would gladly accept more such pains in order to save people from catastrophe.
This conversation really bothered me.
Certainly, we do believe within traditional Judaism that when part of the community suffers, that can atone for communal sin, and avert a different communal tragedy. [Yes, this is the idea that becomes skewed into vicarious atonement in Christianity.]
It’s also good for a child to develop sympathy for others, and to be willing to endure hardship for the sake of helping others. This is a major parenting goal; you don’t need me to do yet another re-hash of Rav Chaim of Volozhin’s perennial pedagogy for his son.
Among my questions, though:
1. Who would teach this concept to an unsophisticated ten year old boy?
2. How does this child now view suffering – his own and that of others?
3. Is it healthy for a ten year old boy to think this way?
4. What sort of behavior toward himself and others might this trigger in the child, before he is mature enough to gain a better understanding of suffering?
I don’t know. I’m very uncomfortable with this.
This conversation really bothered me.
Certainly, we do believe within traditional Judaism that when part of the community suffers, that can atone for communal sin, and avert a different communal tragedy. [Yes, this is the idea that becomes skewed into vicarious atonement in Christianity.]
It’s also good for a child to develop sympathy for others, and to be willing to endure hardship for the sake of helping others. This is a major parenting goal; you don’t need me to do yet another re-hash of Rav Chaim of Volozhin’s perennial pedagogy for his son.
Among my questions, though:
1. Who would teach this concept to an unsophisticated ten year old boy?
2. How does this child now view suffering – his own and that of others?
3. Is it healthy for a ten year old boy to think this way?
4. What sort of behavior toward himself and others might this trigger in the child, before he is mature enough to gain a better understanding of suffering?
I don’t know. I’m very uncomfortable with this.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Talking to children about depression
[My Tisha b'Av article for YU To Go is now on-line here.]
Here’s a question I’ve asked and been asked over the years: At what point should parents talk to their children about depression?
The question arises for two reasons:
1. Stories in the news - From time to time there are news items about pre-adolescents, kids aged 9, 10, 11, taking their own lives, often in response to abuse from their schoolmates. The parents say the normal things – “We never knew it was this bad,” “He would swing in and out of moods, but he never talked as though he was a danger to himself,” and so on. And we wonder how we should introduce the question to our children. “Are you going through…?” “Are you thinking about…?”
2. Family histories - Studies show that one can, in fact, inherit a vulnerability to clinical depression. So when an adult is diagnosed with this condition, the follow-up questions include, “What about my children? Is there a way to test them for this? Do I warn them? How?”
It seems to me that normal child-rearing must include teaching, in an age-appropriate way, coping mechanisms for normal, non-biochemical depression. Dealing with frustration, with boredom, with tough peer groups, with love and loss – we cannot immunize our children against these situations, but we can, and I think must, help them find ways to cope, both directly and by modeling the behavior. This doesn’t require a conversation about clinical issues and genes and biochemistry.
But I’m asking about more than that, about helping our kids recognize when an emotion is outside of the normal range, and it’s time to call in the experts. Can that happen at age 10? Age 13? Age 15? Age 18?
I’m not suggesting that kids at these ages could diagnose an abnormal personal, emotional reaction – it’s hard enough for trained and objective adults – but perhaps we could tell them a little bit about the problem and its dangers, empowering them to seek out help… without terrorizing them and without leading them to a false self-diagnosis.
Obviously this not a one-size-fits-all subject, but surely someone with knowledge of developmental psychology could make some general recommendations.
I’m sending this question to my favorite Internet counseling resource. In addition, though, please comment with your thoughts, and any recommended reading material.
Here’s a question I’ve asked and been asked over the years: At what point should parents talk to their children about depression?
The question arises for two reasons:
1. Stories in the news - From time to time there are news items about pre-adolescents, kids aged 9, 10, 11, taking their own lives, often in response to abuse from their schoolmates. The parents say the normal things – “We never knew it was this bad,” “He would swing in and out of moods, but he never talked as though he was a danger to himself,” and so on. And we wonder how we should introduce the question to our children. “Are you going through…?” “Are you thinking about…?”
2. Family histories - Studies show that one can, in fact, inherit a vulnerability to clinical depression. So when an adult is diagnosed with this condition, the follow-up questions include, “What about my children? Is there a way to test them for this? Do I warn them? How?”
It seems to me that normal child-rearing must include teaching, in an age-appropriate way, coping mechanisms for normal, non-biochemical depression. Dealing with frustration, with boredom, with tough peer groups, with love and loss – we cannot immunize our children against these situations, but we can, and I think must, help them find ways to cope, both directly and by modeling the behavior. This doesn’t require a conversation about clinical issues and genes and biochemistry.
But I’m asking about more than that, about helping our kids recognize when an emotion is outside of the normal range, and it’s time to call in the experts. Can that happen at age 10? Age 13? Age 15? Age 18?
I’m not suggesting that kids at these ages could diagnose an abnormal personal, emotional reaction – it’s hard enough for trained and objective adults – but perhaps we could tell them a little bit about the problem and its dangers, empowering them to seek out help… without terrorizing them and without leading them to a false self-diagnosis.
Obviously this not a one-size-fits-all subject, but surely someone with knowledge of developmental psychology could make some general recommendations.
I’m sending this question to my favorite Internet counseling resource. In addition, though, please comment with your thoughts, and any recommended reading material.
Monday, April 26, 2010
What I learned from a High School program at the RCA Convention
My primary reasons for attending this year's RCA Convention were that I was asked to present a session, and that I wanted to re-connect with friends. This morning, though, I gained a lesson I find significantly more valuable.
I attended a session this morning in which high school seniors from the New York area (some from Jewish schools, some not) answered questions about what it’s like to be a person and a Jew in high school today. They talked about drugs and alcohol and sexual activity, as well as relationships with their rabbis, with their parents, and with Judaism.
Most of what was said was not particularly novel [although I did learn that – contrary to what I had thought – Facebook and Twitter have not yet fallen out of fashion]. The yitzrim are the same, and the prevalence of teen involvement in those yitzrim remains high. No novelties there, no Generation Gap there.
But I did learn something that was new to me: I found the current Generation Gap. The difference between today’s eighteen year old and the eighteen year old of even ten years ago is Control. Access. Power. And it all comes down to Communication.
The same Communication Revolution that has empowered remote populations, economically disadvantaged populations and government-repressed populations has also empowered teenagers.
The result: Today's high schooler has far more independent power than we did as high schoolers, and they know it.
Ten years ago, and certainly twenty years ago when I was in high school, we had no cell phones, no personal email, no ability to text. The result was that nearly all communication took place within a zone that our parents could monitor.
Friends called the home phone to talk, and our parents answered; the only way to communicate in private was by mail, and who was going to write a letter? Sure, we could talk in school, but with teachers present and the fear of supervision, we were very limited.
Today, teens can text each other, send pictures to each other, call each other on cell phones, hold a video chat, and all directly; it’s easy to talk and make plans and arrange whatever they choose.
I never really thought about the impact of all of that that independent communication before, but it’s so clear to me now.
Separately, I learned something else: As part of the program, the students discussed the role of a Rabbi. One person present commented that Rabbis are more benign than parents, because the Rabbi (assuming confidentiality) is not able to punish them. He can only help.
The conversation really made me miss the shul rabbinate. I was never the best at getting close to high schoolers, in no small part because of the reflex reaction of “I’m not cool enough” triggered by being near adolescents. But it was always something I wanted to do better, and I miss not having done more. I can do it somewhat in my current position, but one day, one day…
I attended a session this morning in which high school seniors from the New York area (some from Jewish schools, some not) answered questions about what it’s like to be a person and a Jew in high school today. They talked about drugs and alcohol and sexual activity, as well as relationships with their rabbis, with their parents, and with Judaism.
Most of what was said was not particularly novel [although I did learn that – contrary to what I had thought – Facebook and Twitter have not yet fallen out of fashion]. The yitzrim are the same, and the prevalence of teen involvement in those yitzrim remains high. No novelties there, no Generation Gap there.
But I did learn something that was new to me: I found the current Generation Gap. The difference between today’s eighteen year old and the eighteen year old of even ten years ago is Control. Access. Power. And it all comes down to Communication.
The same Communication Revolution that has empowered remote populations, economically disadvantaged populations and government-repressed populations has also empowered teenagers.
The result: Today's high schooler has far more independent power than we did as high schoolers, and they know it.
Ten years ago, and certainly twenty years ago when I was in high school, we had no cell phones, no personal email, no ability to text. The result was that nearly all communication took place within a zone that our parents could monitor.
Friends called the home phone to talk, and our parents answered; the only way to communicate in private was by mail, and who was going to write a letter? Sure, we could talk in school, but with teachers present and the fear of supervision, we were very limited.
Today, teens can text each other, send pictures to each other, call each other on cell phones, hold a video chat, and all directly; it’s easy to talk and make plans and arrange whatever they choose.
I never really thought about the impact of all of that that independent communication before, but it’s so clear to me now.
Separately, I learned something else: As part of the program, the students discussed the role of a Rabbi. One person present commented that Rabbis are more benign than parents, because the Rabbi (assuming confidentiality) is not able to punish them. He can only help.
The conversation really made me miss the shul rabbinate. I was never the best at getting close to high schoolers, in no small part because of the reflex reaction of “I’m not cool enough” triggered by being near adolescents. But it was always something I wanted to do better, and I miss not having done more. I can do it somewhat in my current position, but one day, one day…
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Daniel Pink: How to motivate people
Daniel Pink presents an interesting TED talk here on how to motivate workers. Essentially, he is in favor of self-motivation, and having employers encourage employees to motivate themselves.
Pink's arguments are solid, and research-based. More, I appreciate the fact that he knows that his findings and ideas don’t apply to all cases and are not the only way to achieve a degree of success; I’m tired of hyperbole (tired of hearing it, not of using it, of course…).
An excerpt from CNN’s summary of the talk:
In laboratory experiments and field studies, a band of psychologists, sociologists and economists have found that many carrot-and-stick motivators -- the elements around which we build most of our businesses and many of our schools -- can be effective, but that they work in only a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances.
For enduring motivation, the science shows, a different approach is more effective. This approach draws not on our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but on what we might think of as our third drive: Our innate need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
In particular, high performance -- especially for the complex, conceptual tasks we're increasingly doing on the job -- depends far more on intrinsic motivators than on extrinsic ones.
The discussion is particularly interesting for parenting, in the on-going challenge of finding ways to help our children take responsibility for themselves. As the CNN summary explains:
In the peculiar world of human motivation, sometimes adding two positives can give you a negative. Take the case of chores and allowances. Both are good. Chores show kids that families are built on mutual obligations and that all members need to help each other. Allowances teach kids to be responsible for, and manage, their own money.
But combining the two is a big mistake. By linking money to the completion of chores, parents turn an allowance into what I call an "if- then" reward (as in "If you do this, then you get that.") The science is very clear that "if-then" rewards, while effective in some circumstances, can trigger an avalanche of unintended consequences.
In this case, the carrot of payment sends kids a clear (and clearly wrongheaded) message: In the absence of cash, no self-respecting child would willingly set the table, empty the garbage or make her own bed.
It converts a moral and familiar obligation into just another commercial transaction -- and teaches that the only reason to do a less-than-desirable task for your family is for payment. So keep allowance and chores separate, and you just might get that trash can emptied. Even better, your kids will begin to learn the difference between principles and payoffs.
I have more to say, but time is at an unusually high premium today, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
Pink's arguments are solid, and research-based. More, I appreciate the fact that he knows that his findings and ideas don’t apply to all cases and are not the only way to achieve a degree of success; I’m tired of hyperbole (tired of hearing it, not of using it, of course…).
An excerpt from CNN’s summary of the talk:
In laboratory experiments and field studies, a band of psychologists, sociologists and economists have found that many carrot-and-stick motivators -- the elements around which we build most of our businesses and many of our schools -- can be effective, but that they work in only a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances.
For enduring motivation, the science shows, a different approach is more effective. This approach draws not on our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but on what we might think of as our third drive: Our innate need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
In particular, high performance -- especially for the complex, conceptual tasks we're increasingly doing on the job -- depends far more on intrinsic motivators than on extrinsic ones.
The discussion is particularly interesting for parenting, in the on-going challenge of finding ways to help our children take responsibility for themselves. As the CNN summary explains:
In the peculiar world of human motivation, sometimes adding two positives can give you a negative. Take the case of chores and allowances. Both are good. Chores show kids that families are built on mutual obligations and that all members need to help each other. Allowances teach kids to be responsible for, and manage, their own money.
But combining the two is a big mistake. By linking money to the completion of chores, parents turn an allowance into what I call an "if- then" reward (as in "If you do this, then you get that.") The science is very clear that "if-then" rewards, while effective in some circumstances, can trigger an avalanche of unintended consequences.
In this case, the carrot of payment sends kids a clear (and clearly wrongheaded) message: In the absence of cash, no self-respecting child would willingly set the table, empty the garbage or make her own bed.
It converts a moral and familiar obligation into just another commercial transaction -- and teaches that the only reason to do a less-than-desirable task for your family is for payment. So keep allowance and chores separate, and you just might get that trash can emptied. Even better, your kids will begin to learn the difference between principles and payoffs.
I have more to say, but time is at an unusually high premium today, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Big Orange Splot and High Self-Monitors
I heard an interesting term on the radio this morning: High Self-Monitors. The label refers to people who pay attention to the way they are perceived by others, and try to modify their behavior in order to satisfy others’ expectations.
I was a High Self-Monitor as a kid; I was the one who hadn’t seen the latest movie, but who instinctively knew to hover in the group that was discussing the movie until I had absorbed enough to fake it. I didn’t always act on the monitoring intelligence – hence my inclusion in the “Normals” instead of the “Dragons” in junior high school – but I was always watching for what was cool.
The context of the radio piece was a study published in BusinessWeek ("Online dating as honest as real life") and on CNN.com ("Online dating liars: Why they do it"), showing that people who lie (in ‘minor’ ways) on on-line dating sites, such as by saying they “look like a model,” are more likely to be eager-to-please. Such people are called “high self-monitors,” and they are more likely to find a mate. As the newsreader put it, low self-monitors are more likely to be brutally honest, and alone.
They certainly had a point; even though I get upset when people dissemble in order to please me, I can’t ignore the fact that they are trying to make me happy with them, and that on some level this is a good thing.
I listened to the radio report with a parent’s ambivalence. I want my children to be high self-monitors so that they will fit in, but I also want them to have the confidence to chart their own paths, and do their own thing. I want my kids to follow the advice of Pirkei Avos and use public approval as a key way to gauge the morality of their decisions, but I also want my kids to be Mr. Plumbean in that '70s classic, The Big Orange Splot, doing what they feel is right rather than what they feel will help them fit in.
Of course, this is also a shul rabbi’s problem – on the one hand, a Rabbi wants to work with people, and that comes with a degree of wanting to please. On the other hand, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s classic observation - that rabbis who are universally approved aren’t doing their jobs – makes the point that a successful rabbi must buck the trend, too.
I expect that the answer is a Kohelesian גם מזה אל תנח ידיך, “Hold on to this, but do not let go of that.”
Be a High Self-Monitor, in the sense that we should train ourselves, and our kids, to pick up on social cues and be aware of how we will be perceived. At the same time, be a Low Self-Monitor in the sense that we should be willing to ditch that public opinion of which we are aware, when we feel it’s wrong.
Be a High Self-Monitor on issues of grave public consequence, taking public opinion into strong consideration. But be a Low Self-Monitor in deciding what music you like, what sort of art you like, in who you are inside.
And if someone lies to you in describing himself, don’t get upset. Remember: It’s just because he wants your approval.
I was a High Self-Monitor as a kid; I was the one who hadn’t seen the latest movie, but who instinctively knew to hover in the group that was discussing the movie until I had absorbed enough to fake it. I didn’t always act on the monitoring intelligence – hence my inclusion in the “Normals” instead of the “Dragons” in junior high school – but I was always watching for what was cool.
The context of the radio piece was a study published in BusinessWeek ("Online dating as honest as real life") and on CNN.com ("Online dating liars: Why they do it"), showing that people who lie (in ‘minor’ ways) on on-line dating sites, such as by saying they “look like a model,” are more likely to be eager-to-please. Such people are called “high self-monitors,” and they are more likely to find a mate. As the newsreader put it, low self-monitors are more likely to be brutally honest, and alone.
They certainly had a point; even though I get upset when people dissemble in order to please me, I can’t ignore the fact that they are trying to make me happy with them, and that on some level this is a good thing.
I listened to the radio report with a parent’s ambivalence. I want my children to be high self-monitors so that they will fit in, but I also want them to have the confidence to chart their own paths, and do their own thing. I want my kids to follow the advice of Pirkei Avos and use public approval as a key way to gauge the morality of their decisions, but I also want my kids to be Mr. Plumbean in that '70s classic, The Big Orange Splot, doing what they feel is right rather than what they feel will help them fit in.
Of course, this is also a shul rabbi’s problem – on the one hand, a Rabbi wants to work with people, and that comes with a degree of wanting to please. On the other hand, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s classic observation - that rabbis who are universally approved aren’t doing their jobs – makes the point that a successful rabbi must buck the trend, too.
I expect that the answer is a Kohelesian גם מזה אל תנח ידיך, “Hold on to this, but do not let go of that.”
Be a High Self-Monitor, in the sense that we should train ourselves, and our kids, to pick up on social cues and be aware of how we will be perceived. At the same time, be a Low Self-Monitor in the sense that we should be willing to ditch that public opinion of which we are aware, when we feel it’s wrong.
Be a High Self-Monitor on issues of grave public consequence, taking public opinion into strong consideration. But be a Low Self-Monitor in deciding what music you like, what sort of art you like, in who you are inside.
And if someone lies to you in describing himself, don’t get upset. Remember: It’s just because he wants your approval.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Danger Signs
I had an upgraded version of The Stranger Talk with my oldest on Friday night.
This is a talk we’ve had at least twice before, but as he gets older and interacts more – and with less supervision – with the greater world, I feel the need to reinforce it, and to be more specific about my concerns. He's not quite a pre-teen yet, but he's getting there, and I'm getting nervous.
So we talked about the usual issues: People you see in public places, people in shul, teachers and relatives and friends and friends’ parents and so on. And Internet use, naturally.
And I tried to help him define Danger Signs – ways to identify people as potential risks.
This is not simple. I don’t want to make my son paranoid and fearful around everyone he sees. I also don’t want to make him judgmental, so that everyone who doesn’t fit a certain ‘safe’ mold is considered defective.
Beyond the obvious reminders about being touched inappropriately or feeling intimidated, we came up with a couple of Danger Signs which should warn him to escape the situation:
• Adults who look to spend time with pre-teens, without parents present and without a formal role [teacher, shul rabbi].
• Adults who interact childishly with young children.
But I’m not even comfortable with those relatively simple signs. In one light, they are too limiting; #2 excludes adults who just like to joke around with kids. In another light, they are too permissive; #1 allows access to people who start out with a formal role but want to inappropriately transcend it.
So, of course, I tell him to ask me if you have any questions about particular situations, so that I will be able to modify the rules to fit specific cases.
I’d like to hear from other parents:
What are your Danger Signs? What do you tell your children to notice, and what do you tell them to do when they see it? And at what age?
All responses welcome.
This is a talk we’ve had at least twice before, but as he gets older and interacts more – and with less supervision – with the greater world, I feel the need to reinforce it, and to be more specific about my concerns. He's not quite a pre-teen yet, but he's getting there, and I'm getting nervous.
So we talked about the usual issues: People you see in public places, people in shul, teachers and relatives and friends and friends’ parents and so on. And Internet use, naturally.
And I tried to help him define Danger Signs – ways to identify people as potential risks.
This is not simple. I don’t want to make my son paranoid and fearful around everyone he sees. I also don’t want to make him judgmental, so that everyone who doesn’t fit a certain ‘safe’ mold is considered defective.
Beyond the obvious reminders about being touched inappropriately or feeling intimidated, we came up with a couple of Danger Signs which should warn him to escape the situation:
• Adults who look to spend time with pre-teens, without parents present and without a formal role [teacher, shul rabbi].
• Adults who interact childishly with young children.
But I’m not even comfortable with those relatively simple signs. In one light, they are too limiting; #2 excludes adults who just like to joke around with kids. In another light, they are too permissive; #1 allows access to people who start out with a formal role but want to inappropriately transcend it.
So, of course, I tell him to ask me if you have any questions about particular situations, so that I will be able to modify the rules to fit specific cases.
I’d like to hear from other parents:
What are your Danger Signs? What do you tell your children to notice, and what do you tell them to do when they see it? And at what age?
All responses welcome.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Poll: What makes a great Purim Seudah?
[Haveil Havalim is here]
I have strong feelings about certain aspects of the Purim Seudah (the meal we are instructed to eat on Purim, to celebrate the miracle of our survival).
In particular, as I've written elsewhere, I believe that adults must not drink alcohol to excess [meaning, drinking more than a normal person drinks at a normal meal] with children present, even if those adults are entirely self-controlled.
I define "children" as:
(a) human beings who will not understand why mitzvah-drinking is any different from other drinking and might be inspired to follow suit at inappropriate times, or
(b) human beings who will not understand the health risks involved in drinking and might be inspired to follow suit in an unhealthy manner.
But once we are past that point, what makes for a good Purim Seudah?
By which I mean: What do you find creates an atmosphere in which people feel the meaning of Purim most, while also enjoying the experience?
* Is family better than community? Or how about family at a community Seudah?
* Should people Seudah-hop?
* Should people be in costume? And does this include rabbis?
* Should kids be involved, or is it better to give them something else to do?
* Should the divrei torah be central or part of a longer program of shpiels, games and contests, etc?
* For those who can drink - Wine, Beer, Vodka or Scotch? Or something else entirely?
* Should it be earlier or later in the afternoon? (Especially in a year like this, when non-Shushan Purim is Sunday)
* Should the food be fancy or simple, elaborately prepared or quick-and-easy?
I ask these questions for a few reasons:
1. I would love to hear your answers;
2. This is the first year that I can actually create a Purim Seudah, or attend one elsewhere as a civilian, instead of being Shul Rabbi;
3. I think that we often rush into the Purim Seudah with little preparation, and I'd like to see this more as a planned experience with a cultivated atmosphere, to optimize the mitzvah.
And, of course, please add any questions I've missed...
I have strong feelings about certain aspects of the Purim Seudah (the meal we are instructed to eat on Purim, to celebrate the miracle of our survival).
In particular, as I've written elsewhere, I believe that adults must not drink alcohol to excess [meaning, drinking more than a normal person drinks at a normal meal] with children present, even if those adults are entirely self-controlled.
I define "children" as:
(a) human beings who will not understand why mitzvah-drinking is any different from other drinking and might be inspired to follow suit at inappropriate times, or
(b) human beings who will not understand the health risks involved in drinking and might be inspired to follow suit in an unhealthy manner.
But once we are past that point, what makes for a good Purim Seudah?
By which I mean: What do you find creates an atmosphere in which people feel the meaning of Purim most, while also enjoying the experience?
* Is family better than community? Or how about family at a community Seudah?
* Should people Seudah-hop?
* Should people be in costume? And does this include rabbis?
* Should kids be involved, or is it better to give them something else to do?
* Should the divrei torah be central or part of a longer program of shpiels, games and contests, etc?
* For those who can drink - Wine, Beer, Vodka or Scotch? Or something else entirely?
* Should it be earlier or later in the afternoon? (Especially in a year like this, when non-Shushan Purim is Sunday)
* Should the food be fancy or simple, elaborately prepared or quick-and-easy?
I ask these questions for a few reasons:
1. I would love to hear your answers;
2. This is the first year that I can actually create a Purim Seudah, or attend one elsewhere as a civilian, instead of being Shul Rabbi;
3. I think that we often rush into the Purim Seudah with little preparation, and I'd like to see this more as a planned experience with a cultivated atmosphere, to optimize the mitzvah.
And, of course, please add any questions I've missed...
Saturday, December 19, 2009
National Fatherhood Initiative's finding on raising teens
[This week's Haveil Havalim is here!]
A friend pointed me to the National Fatherhood Initiative’s “Mama Says” Survey, which studied mothers’ beliefs about fathers. Among the findings:
* 93% of moms believe there is a father absence crisis.
* Closeness to children and work-family balance were the biggest predictors of mom's happiness with dad (after living arrangement).
* Moms said that "work responsibilities" were the biggest obstacle to dad's success in fathering.
* Strong religious values are beneficial to helping dads be better fathers.
* Moms think communities of faith are the top place for dads to get fathering help.
One particular finding caught my eye: Dads of young children got better marks than teens.
I can see that (assuming they meant Dads of young children got better marks than dads of teens...).
For me, one of the main challenges of fatherhood is recognizing that resistance from the kids isn’t always about me. I am so naturally competitive that I tend to take resistance personally, even though the conflict may be about a real problem, or about tension over a test that day, or about the fact that the sun rose that morning. The result is that I frequently need to take a mental step back and make sure I am responding to the right stimulus, in order to parent properly.
For example: If my daughter refuses to put on a coat before going outside in the Toronto winter, I could respond competitively, using warnings and the like to ‘win’ by getting her to put on her coat. But I’m far better off asking myself why she is refusing, and dealing with the problem at its root.
I know it’s dangerous to stereotype by gender, but I’ll do it now anyway: I think men are generally more competitive than women, and certainly than mothers. And I think men are more likely to allow themselves to compete with their children.
And to take the next step, I think this probably becomes more challenging when dealing with teenage children, specifically. Younger children usually live in their own world and tend to be stubborn rather than competitive. I’ve noticed with my older children, though, that as they are nearing adolescence they are becoming more competitive with their parents, in ways both evident and subtle. Managing that competition, especially as the kids become more legitimate as competition, is becoming more of a challenge for me.
In other words: Competitive fathers have an easier time with younger children, who are less capable of competition and less interested in competition. That changes as the kids get older, and fathers either learn to deal with it or they and their children have a very rough time.
And here’s a possibly-somewhat-relevant thought, building on something I saw the other day on-line, I forget where: Among the founders of the Jewish people, our ancestors all spent serious time away from their parents when embarking upon their major biblical careers. Avraham and Sarah leave altogether. Yitzchak spends some serious time out of the house after the Akeidah (binding), before his father decides to seek a wife for him. Rivkah leaves her family, as do Rachel and Leah. Yaakov spends more than twenty years away from home. And then, of course, we have Yosef.
Interesting.
A friend pointed me to the National Fatherhood Initiative’s “Mama Says” Survey, which studied mothers’ beliefs about fathers. Among the findings:
* 93% of moms believe there is a father absence crisis.
* Closeness to children and work-family balance were the biggest predictors of mom's happiness with dad (after living arrangement).
* Moms said that "work responsibilities" were the biggest obstacle to dad's success in fathering.
* Strong religious values are beneficial to helping dads be better fathers.
* Moms think communities of faith are the top place for dads to get fathering help.
One particular finding caught my eye: Dads of young children got better marks than teens.
I can see that (assuming they meant Dads of young children got better marks than dads of teens...).
For me, one of the main challenges of fatherhood is recognizing that resistance from the kids isn’t always about me. I am so naturally competitive that I tend to take resistance personally, even though the conflict may be about a real problem, or about tension over a test that day, or about the fact that the sun rose that morning. The result is that I frequently need to take a mental step back and make sure I am responding to the right stimulus, in order to parent properly.
For example: If my daughter refuses to put on a coat before going outside in the Toronto winter, I could respond competitively, using warnings and the like to ‘win’ by getting her to put on her coat. But I’m far better off asking myself why she is refusing, and dealing with the problem at its root.
I know it’s dangerous to stereotype by gender, but I’ll do it now anyway: I think men are generally more competitive than women, and certainly than mothers. And I think men are more likely to allow themselves to compete with their children.
And to take the next step, I think this probably becomes more challenging when dealing with teenage children, specifically. Younger children usually live in their own world and tend to be stubborn rather than competitive. I’ve noticed with my older children, though, that as they are nearing adolescence they are becoming more competitive with their parents, in ways both evident and subtle. Managing that competition, especially as the kids become more legitimate as competition, is becoming more of a challenge for me.
In other words: Competitive fathers have an easier time with younger children, who are less capable of competition and less interested in competition. That changes as the kids get older, and fathers either learn to deal with it or they and their children have a very rough time.
And here’s a possibly-somewhat-relevant thought, building on something I saw the other day on-line, I forget where: Among the founders of the Jewish people, our ancestors all spent serious time away from their parents when embarking upon their major biblical careers. Avraham and Sarah leave altogether. Yitzchak spends some serious time out of the house after the Akeidah (binding), before his father decides to seek a wife for him. Rivkah leaves her family, as do Rachel and Leah. Yaakov spends more than twenty years away from home. And then, of course, we have Yosef.
Interesting.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Educating our children with mixed messages
Today I happened upon a birthday party for pre-teen Jewish children. The boys wore yarmulkes and the food was kosher, but the entertainment was, well, not dressed in a manner I might have expected for observant Jewish children.
This led me to contemplate the strange things we do to our children. We have such high expectations for their development – emotional, religious, intellectual, physical , etc. We spend exorbitant sums, endless hours and many sleepless nights to achieve those goals. And yet, we defeat our own ends by sending them mixed educational messages, on a regular basis.
What do we expect our children - these creatures who lack both the neural hardware and the experience-based software to properly digest such conflict - to make of this?
I’m not talking about sheer parental wickedness here; bad as that is, the mixed-message phenomenon can actually be worse. When parents present an outright bad model, children can see it, and accept or reject it. We don’t gravitate to a Kayin or an Esav. (Also, see Rama on the challenge of doing teshuvah for a possible sin, as opposed to doing teshuvah for a known sin.) Mixed messages, though, can lead children to question the sincerity of every role model they meet.
Of course, mixed messages are, to a certain extent, unavoidable. For example: Kids hear about not losing your temper, about handling situations in a healthy and productive way, about analyzing problems and developing a solution, and then they see you express uncontrolled anger. But that’s normal; every mortal parent goes through that experience, and it can be a chance to teach our children.
My problem is with the birthday parties, the scenarios we create, the worlds we form for our children with forethought and volition, which send them conflicting messages.
My own example: One of our daughters took karate lessons when we lived in Allentown, in a co-ed environment. The halachic calculation was fairly straightforward: Despite the physical contact, she was young enough that she didn’t qualify for chinuch (halachic education), the chibah issues did not apply for her at that age and so there was no issue of ספי לה איסורא בידים, and there were no other options for much-needed organized physical outlets for her.
But now my daughter is older, and I am teaching her about gender-separation on a level appropriate for her age. She can remember the experiences of a year ago. She is not old enough to understand what has changed and what will soon change, and it is not yet time for a full-fledged explanation. I know she wonders why we are doing things differently now.
It’s a mixed-message situation, parents having sanctioned something in the past and now revoking their endorsement. I don’t know that I could have done things any differently, but I must recognize that if she is confused about gender-separation, it’s a confusion that I generated, myself.
Similar mixed messages that parents convey:
Prohibiting foul language but then speaking it ourselves;
Condemning certain kinds of movies but watching them ourselves;
Insisting that our kids go out and exercise but not doing it ourselves;
Telling our kids that Talmud Torah is important, but never opening a sefer in front of them and never taking them to a shiur;
Insisting on sharing and compromise but failing to demonstrate it;
Talking about tzedakah but taking extravagant vacations;
Impressing upon our children the importance of kavvanah [focus] during prayer and then talking to others during the davening.
What can we do about these mixed messages, the avoidable as well as the unavoidable? I look at the elements within Torah that offer mixed messages, and that gives me an idea.
I see the mixed messages that appear from the Torah’s icons, the leaders who startle us with actions that don’t seem to fit. Whether it’s Sarah or Moshe or Miriam or Dovid, these figures have a remarkable track record of righteousness... which makes their apparent diversion from that record all the more jarring. And I realize that because these leaders have such a grand and complete resume of greatness, these diversions stand out only as exceptions and not the rule, not the model, not what we would select to emulate. Their consistent righteousness drowns out the odd mixed message.
And that’s my thought for today: Drown out the mixed messages with clear ones.
Mixed messages are part of life, and children will need to learn to deal with gray areas. But as a parent I need to recognize that I can be a confusing teacher. If my children are confused, the fault is not necessarily with them. Or to quote the old computer programming maxim, GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
So I need to take every opportunity to introduce enough clear and consistent messages to drown out the mixed ones. If they see regular Torah learning, hear regular clean language, participant in healthy living and focused davening, then the mixed messages will be the exception rather than the rule, the “man bites dog” instead of the “dog bites man,” and that should decrease their influence. Or so I can hope.
This led me to contemplate the strange things we do to our children. We have such high expectations for their development – emotional, religious, intellectual, physical , etc. We spend exorbitant sums, endless hours and many sleepless nights to achieve those goals. And yet, we defeat our own ends by sending them mixed educational messages, on a regular basis.
What do we expect our children - these creatures who lack both the neural hardware and the experience-based software to properly digest such conflict - to make of this?
I’m not talking about sheer parental wickedness here; bad as that is, the mixed-message phenomenon can actually be worse. When parents present an outright bad model, children can see it, and accept or reject it. We don’t gravitate to a Kayin or an Esav. (Also, see Rama on the challenge of doing teshuvah for a possible sin, as opposed to doing teshuvah for a known sin.) Mixed messages, though, can lead children to question the sincerity of every role model they meet.
Of course, mixed messages are, to a certain extent, unavoidable. For example: Kids hear about not losing your temper, about handling situations in a healthy and productive way, about analyzing problems and developing a solution, and then they see you express uncontrolled anger. But that’s normal; every mortal parent goes through that experience, and it can be a chance to teach our children.
My problem is with the birthday parties, the scenarios we create, the worlds we form for our children with forethought and volition, which send them conflicting messages.
My own example: One of our daughters took karate lessons when we lived in Allentown, in a co-ed environment. The halachic calculation was fairly straightforward: Despite the physical contact, she was young enough that she didn’t qualify for chinuch (halachic education), the chibah issues did not apply for her at that age and so there was no issue of ספי לה איסורא בידים, and there were no other options for much-needed organized physical outlets for her.
But now my daughter is older, and I am teaching her about gender-separation on a level appropriate for her age. She can remember the experiences of a year ago. She is not old enough to understand what has changed and what will soon change, and it is not yet time for a full-fledged explanation. I know she wonders why we are doing things differently now.
It’s a mixed-message situation, parents having sanctioned something in the past and now revoking their endorsement. I don’t know that I could have done things any differently, but I must recognize that if she is confused about gender-separation, it’s a confusion that I generated, myself.
Similar mixed messages that parents convey:
Prohibiting foul language but then speaking it ourselves;
Condemning certain kinds of movies but watching them ourselves;
Insisting that our kids go out and exercise but not doing it ourselves;
Telling our kids that Talmud Torah is important, but never opening a sefer in front of them and never taking them to a shiur;
Insisting on sharing and compromise but failing to demonstrate it;
Talking about tzedakah but taking extravagant vacations;
Impressing upon our children the importance of kavvanah [focus] during prayer and then talking to others during the davening.
What can we do about these mixed messages, the avoidable as well as the unavoidable? I look at the elements within Torah that offer mixed messages, and that gives me an idea.
I see the mixed messages that appear from the Torah’s icons, the leaders who startle us with actions that don’t seem to fit. Whether it’s Sarah or Moshe or Miriam or Dovid, these figures have a remarkable track record of righteousness... which makes their apparent diversion from that record all the more jarring. And I realize that because these leaders have such a grand and complete resume of greatness, these diversions stand out only as exceptions and not the rule, not the model, not what we would select to emulate. Their consistent righteousness drowns out the odd mixed message.
And that’s my thought for today: Drown out the mixed messages with clear ones.
Mixed messages are part of life, and children will need to learn to deal with gray areas. But as a parent I need to recognize that I can be a confusing teacher. If my children are confused, the fault is not necessarily with them. Or to quote the old computer programming maxim, GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
So I need to take every opportunity to introduce enough clear and consistent messages to drown out the mixed ones. If they see regular Torah learning, hear regular clean language, participant in healthy living and focused davening, then the mixed messages will be the exception rather than the rule, the “man bites dog” instead of the “dog bites man,” and that should decrease their influence. Or so I can hope.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Changed by a decade of Parenting
[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here!]
Our oldest turned 10 this past Thursday, the 17th of Tammuz, and the milestone set me to thinking about what a decade of fatherhood has tried to teach me.
The following will be old-hat to parents who are ahead of me on the chronological curve, as well as to many who simply figured things out long before I did, but it’s a short list of ways that parenting can mature us:
Parenting forces total responsibility.
This is beyond being reliable; I’m talking about something greater here. I’m talking about changing your life around in order to fill a responsibility. I’m talking about taking full responsibility for others’ actions and for the events of their lives, the buck stopping here.
If your six-year-old stuffs a ball down the bathtub drain and the plumber charges you $70 to get it out, you can't take it out of his allowance. If your two-year-old ruins something, there is no recourse. It's all on your head.
Parenting forces flexibility.
I can honestly say that I am more flexible now, by several orders of magnitude, than I was ten years ago. I don’t get as upset about the foiling of plans, or about not knowing what’s happening until the last minute; it’s a natural part of life with children.
I learned this especially in shul, regarding davening. When my rebbitzen was expecting our second, and the first was still under 2 years old, I brought him to shul on many occasions. As a rule, I ended up standing outside and doing the bare minimum of davening. I wasn't used to that, but he taught me.
I’m not sure people who share my life think I’m that flexible, but I feel the difference between what was and what is.
Parenting tries to teach us that we don’t need to stand out.
Anyone who survives a dozen years in the rabbinate must harbor an element that appreciates the spotlight (even if you’re nervous about being center-stage), but being a parent often means turning the spotlight to your child.
Having your child perform on stage or play a game or write a story is a great way to learn to stay in the background and keep your ideas to yourself. Balancing being visible enough to be a role model, while not so visible as to be intimidating, is real work.
Parenting makes us feel ignorant, which is not the same thing as being able to admit ignorance to others.
When I say, ‘feeling ignorant,’ I mean being willing to hear and embrace an entirely foreign point of view, recognizing that we know nothing. Trying to raise a child and recognizing you know nothing at all about how to do it was a good learning experience.
Telling a laughing pediatrician that you don't know how to get medicine into your stubborn child ("There are two of you and one of him, and you're bigger than him!"), or studying an off-colored diaper and wondering whether the weird shade of green means anything, is a good way to realize just how much you don't know.
The above is just a short list; much more could be said.
I wouldn’t say I’ve absorbed any of the above ideals 100%, but I’m definitely a world different now from the way I was in the Labor and Delivery room in 1999. I cringe to think about the person I once was… and I can’t wait to see what I will become in the next ten years, Gd-willing…
Our oldest turned 10 this past Thursday, the 17th of Tammuz, and the milestone set me to thinking about what a decade of fatherhood has tried to teach me.
The following will be old-hat to parents who are ahead of me on the chronological curve, as well as to many who simply figured things out long before I did, but it’s a short list of ways that parenting can mature us:
Parenting forces total responsibility.
This is beyond being reliable; I’m talking about something greater here. I’m talking about changing your life around in order to fill a responsibility. I’m talking about taking full responsibility for others’ actions and for the events of their lives, the buck stopping here.
If your six-year-old stuffs a ball down the bathtub drain and the plumber charges you $70 to get it out, you can't take it out of his allowance. If your two-year-old ruins something, there is no recourse. It's all on your head.
Parenting forces flexibility.
I can honestly say that I am more flexible now, by several orders of magnitude, than I was ten years ago. I don’t get as upset about the foiling of plans, or about not knowing what’s happening until the last minute; it’s a natural part of life with children.
I learned this especially in shul, regarding davening. When my rebbitzen was expecting our second, and the first was still under 2 years old, I brought him to shul on many occasions. As a rule, I ended up standing outside and doing the bare minimum of davening. I wasn't used to that, but he taught me.
I’m not sure people who share my life think I’m that flexible, but I feel the difference between what was and what is.
Parenting tries to teach us that we don’t need to stand out.
Anyone who survives a dozen years in the rabbinate must harbor an element that appreciates the spotlight (even if you’re nervous about being center-stage), but being a parent often means turning the spotlight to your child.
Having your child perform on stage or play a game or write a story is a great way to learn to stay in the background and keep your ideas to yourself. Balancing being visible enough to be a role model, while not so visible as to be intimidating, is real work.
Parenting makes us feel ignorant, which is not the same thing as being able to admit ignorance to others.
When I say, ‘feeling ignorant,’ I mean being willing to hear and embrace an entirely foreign point of view, recognizing that we know nothing. Trying to raise a child and recognizing you know nothing at all about how to do it was a good learning experience.
Telling a laughing pediatrician that you don't know how to get medicine into your stubborn child ("There are two of you and one of him, and you're bigger than him!"), or studying an off-colored diaper and wondering whether the weird shade of green means anything, is a good way to realize just how much you don't know.
The above is just a short list; much more could be said.
I wouldn’t say I’ve absorbed any of the above ideals 100%, but I’m definitely a world different now from the way I was in the Labor and Delivery room in 1999. I cringe to think about the person I once was… and I can’t wait to see what I will become in the next ten years, Gd-willing…
Friday, June 19, 2009
Iran's Trust Revolution and the Meraglim (Derashah Shelach 5769)
According to the analysts, Iran’s upheaval is not a 21st century version of Eastern Europe’s liberation. Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are both conservatives, ideological brothers.
This is also not a “power to the people” rebellion; Iran’s poorer classes support Ahmadinejad, not Moussavi.
Millions of Iranians are endangering their own lives not out of political philosophy or abject poverty, but in outrage over a government that has betrayed their trust.
Government has always been empowered by social contract, but in this age of free and speedy access to information government is also held accountable to social contract. Violating that contract, betraying that trust, in Iran’s case ignoring votes in a democracy, leads to revolt.
The need for maintaining popular trust is not a new idea. In fact, a midrash suggests that Gd's decision to send the meraglim/spies was motivated by that need, to maintain popular trust regarding Canaan, to head off doubt by letting the Jews themselves see what the land offered.
Elaborating on this point, the midrash compares the desert Jews to a man who wishes to purchase a donkey. He asks, 'Would you give it to me for a test run?' The owner agrees. 'Can I take it on mountains and through hills?' 'Sure.' Once the buyer sees that the owner is hiding nothing, he hands over the money without even doing the test.
Of course, our relationship with HaShem is supposed to be about Emunah/faith, but Gd understood that not every Jew would reach such a high level, that some might need to know everything upfront – and so HaShem allowed them to send spies, in order to build trust.
Moshe also practiced this trust-building transparency, regarding the money he raised for the mishkan. After the collection was complete, Moshe gave the nation a full accounting of all of the items presented; it’s listed in the beginning of the parshah of Pekudei.
One midrash suggests that this was a response to people's explicit allegations about what Moshe was doing with the money; Moshe swore he would provide a full accounting in order to earn their trust, and he did.
Moshe's practice with the Mishkan collection became the recommended ‘best practice’ for tzedakah in general; the Shulchan Aruch says that elected tzedakah distributors need not provide a full explanation of their spending, but the Rama adds that they should do so anyway, כדי שיהיו נקיים מה' ומישראל, to maintain innocence before Gd and Israel.
And this transcends the realm of tzedakah; the Torah’s instruction of maintaining innocence in the eyes of Gd and Israel, of earning popular trust, is all-encompassing.
This is certainly true for our communal institutions.
One of the RCA's resolutions at this year's convention was on exactly this topic – the need for Jewish institutions to function with the greatest transparency, in order to build trust.
The wording of the resolution includes the message, “Let it be resolved that all Jewish communal institutions strive to attain levels of transparency regarding financial affairs, regarding the mechanism of leadership succession, and regarding the planning and execution of general business. Vehicles for attaining transparency include annual open meetings, featuring complete reports of their activities and financial condition, as well as periodic newsletters detailing current news and goals.”
Iran or Meraglim or Tzedakah funds or communal instituions, it’s all about earning and maintaining trust.
And there’s one more area where transparency and trust-building are critically important: On talking to our children and grandchildren about our religious beliefs.
As parents and grandparents, we wrestle with the question of what to tell our children about illness, about family issues, about finances; we wonder when it's appropriate to include them in the knowledge that a parent lost a job, or that a relative has received a terminal diagnosis.
This question is all the more applicable for our personal spiritual struggles, our issues of faith and doubt, and I believe that pre-teen and teen children need to know their parents’ beliefs, as well as their parents’ skepticism, in an age-appropriate way.
As children near their teenage years, some younger, some older, they experience normal skepticism about all of the things they learn in school, and particularly the Jewish lessons which are contradicted by so much of society's input. How do I know the Torah is true? Where is Gd now, and where was Gd during the Holocaust? Is there really a Mashiach? What happens when people die?
When parents discuss these issues, and their own views, with their children, that open conversation can establish a trusting relationship that will last far into the future:
• It can prove to children that their parents are people of depth, and not rote observers of ritual;
• It can send the message that wondering and doubting are normal and healthy;
• It can provide answers for children’s questions, and it can provide lessons in how to deal with doubt;
• And it can establish a line of communication that children will, hopefully, exploit as they grow older.
The trust this establishes can be the difference between a child who rejects his parents’ path, and a child who chooses to follow it.
In his essay, “My Father’s Bourgeois Judaism,” Franz Kafka described being dragged to shul for Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur. He wrote to his father, “Four days a year you went to the synagogue, where you were, to say the least, closer to the indifferent than to those who took it seriously, patiently went through the prayers as a formality, sometimes amazed me by being able to show me in the prayer book the passage that was being said at the moment, and for the rest, so long as I was present in the synagogue (and this was the main thing) I was allowed to hang around wherever I liked. And so I yawned and dozed through the many hours (I don't think I was ever again so bored, except later at dancing lessons) and did my best to enjoy the few little bits of variety there were…”
Kafka felt that his father never discussed the spiritual with him, and the result was a son who did not trust, and who rebelled and walked away.
Let’s model our parenting on HaShem’s act of sending the Meraglim, rather than the silence of Kafka’s father. When our children know that their vote counts, when they see that we permit them to take the donkey for a spin before buying it, then we will have earned their trust.
-
Notes:
1. The midrash comparing sending the meraglim with selling a donkey is Sifri Devarim 21; the midrash on Moshe earning trust by making a full accounting is Tanchuma Pekudei 4. The Rama's comment is in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 257:2.
2. Note that the meraglim trumped Gd in the drive for the nation's trust, by claiming that Gd really had been hiding information all along - the land is filled with giants, it's a harsh land, we've been duped, etc. It isn't until the beginning of Devarim that Gd, through Moshe, acknowledges to the people the residents of the land are mighty, etc.
3. Perhaps this desire for national trust is one reason why a nasi (leader of the Jewish people) is required to bring a unique korban if he sins. Bringing a normal sin-offering, hiding his transgression among the regular citizens, will not suffice; leaders must be honest with their citizenry.
This is also not a “power to the people” rebellion; Iran’s poorer classes support Ahmadinejad, not Moussavi.
Millions of Iranians are endangering their own lives not out of political philosophy or abject poverty, but in outrage over a government that has betrayed their trust.
Government has always been empowered by social contract, but in this age of free and speedy access to information government is also held accountable to social contract. Violating that contract, betraying that trust, in Iran’s case ignoring votes in a democracy, leads to revolt.
The need for maintaining popular trust is not a new idea. In fact, a midrash suggests that Gd's decision to send the meraglim/spies was motivated by that need, to maintain popular trust regarding Canaan, to head off doubt by letting the Jews themselves see what the land offered.
Elaborating on this point, the midrash compares the desert Jews to a man who wishes to purchase a donkey. He asks, 'Would you give it to me for a test run?' The owner agrees. 'Can I take it on mountains and through hills?' 'Sure.' Once the buyer sees that the owner is hiding nothing, he hands over the money without even doing the test.
Of course, our relationship with HaShem is supposed to be about Emunah/faith, but Gd understood that not every Jew would reach such a high level, that some might need to know everything upfront – and so HaShem allowed them to send spies, in order to build trust.
Moshe also practiced this trust-building transparency, regarding the money he raised for the mishkan. After the collection was complete, Moshe gave the nation a full accounting of all of the items presented; it’s listed in the beginning of the parshah of Pekudei.
One midrash suggests that this was a response to people's explicit allegations about what Moshe was doing with the money; Moshe swore he would provide a full accounting in order to earn their trust, and he did.
Moshe's practice with the Mishkan collection became the recommended ‘best practice’ for tzedakah in general; the Shulchan Aruch says that elected tzedakah distributors need not provide a full explanation of their spending, but the Rama adds that they should do so anyway, כדי שיהיו נקיים מה' ומישראל, to maintain innocence before Gd and Israel.
And this transcends the realm of tzedakah; the Torah’s instruction of maintaining innocence in the eyes of Gd and Israel, of earning popular trust, is all-encompassing.
This is certainly true for our communal institutions.
One of the RCA's resolutions at this year's convention was on exactly this topic – the need for Jewish institutions to function with the greatest transparency, in order to build trust.
The wording of the resolution includes the message, “Let it be resolved that all Jewish communal institutions strive to attain levels of transparency regarding financial affairs, regarding the mechanism of leadership succession, and regarding the planning and execution of general business. Vehicles for attaining transparency include annual open meetings, featuring complete reports of their activities and financial condition, as well as periodic newsletters detailing current news and goals.”
Iran or Meraglim or Tzedakah funds or communal instituions, it’s all about earning and maintaining trust.
And there’s one more area where transparency and trust-building are critically important: On talking to our children and grandchildren about our religious beliefs.
As parents and grandparents, we wrestle with the question of what to tell our children about illness, about family issues, about finances; we wonder when it's appropriate to include them in the knowledge that a parent lost a job, or that a relative has received a terminal diagnosis.
This question is all the more applicable for our personal spiritual struggles, our issues of faith and doubt, and I believe that pre-teen and teen children need to know their parents’ beliefs, as well as their parents’ skepticism, in an age-appropriate way.
As children near their teenage years, some younger, some older, they experience normal skepticism about all of the things they learn in school, and particularly the Jewish lessons which are contradicted by so much of society's input. How do I know the Torah is true? Where is Gd now, and where was Gd during the Holocaust? Is there really a Mashiach? What happens when people die?
When parents discuss these issues, and their own views, with their children, that open conversation can establish a trusting relationship that will last far into the future:
• It can prove to children that their parents are people of depth, and not rote observers of ritual;
• It can send the message that wondering and doubting are normal and healthy;
• It can provide answers for children’s questions, and it can provide lessons in how to deal with doubt;
• And it can establish a line of communication that children will, hopefully, exploit as they grow older.
The trust this establishes can be the difference between a child who rejects his parents’ path, and a child who chooses to follow it.
In his essay, “My Father’s Bourgeois Judaism,” Franz Kafka described being dragged to shul for Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur. He wrote to his father, “Four days a year you went to the synagogue, where you were, to say the least, closer to the indifferent than to those who took it seriously, patiently went through the prayers as a formality, sometimes amazed me by being able to show me in the prayer book the passage that was being said at the moment, and for the rest, so long as I was present in the synagogue (and this was the main thing) I was allowed to hang around wherever I liked. And so I yawned and dozed through the many hours (I don't think I was ever again so bored, except later at dancing lessons) and did my best to enjoy the few little bits of variety there were…”
Kafka felt that his father never discussed the spiritual with him, and the result was a son who did not trust, and who rebelled and walked away.
Let’s model our parenting on HaShem’s act of sending the Meraglim, rather than the silence of Kafka’s father. When our children know that their vote counts, when they see that we permit them to take the donkey for a spin before buying it, then we will have earned their trust.
-
Notes:
1. The midrash comparing sending the meraglim with selling a donkey is Sifri Devarim 21; the midrash on Moshe earning trust by making a full accounting is Tanchuma Pekudei 4. The Rama's comment is in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 257:2.
2. Note that the meraglim trumped Gd in the drive for the nation's trust, by claiming that Gd really had been hiding information all along - the land is filled with giants, it's a harsh land, we've been duped, etc. It isn't until the beginning of Devarim that Gd, through Moshe, acknowledges to the people the residents of the land are mighty, etc.
3. Perhaps this desire for national trust is one reason why a nasi (leader of the Jewish people) is required to bring a unique korban if he sins. Bringing a normal sin-offering, hiding his transgression among the regular citizens, will not suffice; leaders must be honest with their citizenry.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Children in Shul
[The latest edition of Haveil [Charles] Havalim is here!]
Thank Gd, we are blessed with four wonderful children with very different personalities, and we now manage to have all of them with us in shul Shabbos morning for davening, from the almost-10 year old down to the 3 year old. All of them come with my wife and me before davening , and all of them remain through the end.
Every once in a while, people ask me for “the secret” to their good behavior. If we have succeeded at all [and on many mornings I tend to doubt it...], the secret is mostly in my much-admired rebbetzin’s genes as well as influence.
Still, we have learned some lessons over the past six years of bringing kids to shul, lessons which also apply to other areas of raising kids. Here are several; please add your own.
Set realistic expectations
In terms of bringing kids to multiple davenings on the same Shabbos, in terms of bringing kids to shul early in the morning or late at night, and in terms of the level of davening participation we demand, it’s important that we figure out their shul-tolerance in advance.
Make sure the children know your expectations
This is huge; kids must know, in advance, what exactly they are expected to do.
This includes providing clear and timely notice before sections of davening in which you cannot speak to them; parents can’t stand up in the amidah or go for an aliyah without forewarning their children and setting them up with proper activities.
Instructions must also be repeated at appropriate intervals for younger children.
Avoid the wrong distractions, provide the right distractions
As far as avoiding the wrong distractions, this is the one benefit of my sitting far from others; there is no pressure for them to converse with peers or adults.
But we must also provide the right distractions, ways for the kids to spend their time in shul productively, when they are not davening. For some it’s picking out letters in the siddur with them; for others it’s storybooks or sefarim. But just like adults need positive distractions, so do kids.
This also goes for the shul's youth programs during davening. Know what the programs are, and know whether they are good for your kids, and in what doses.
Set the tone when you’re not in shul
Children often see davening as a “shul thing” rather than something they do, personally, and they don’t understand why it should have meaning for them. Davening should be a part of their daily lives in some way, both in learning about it and in practicing it, so that they understand the conversation with HaShem as a function of their normal, day-to-day existence.
Be a good role model
A no-brainer. If you talk, or if you space out, then the kids will do it, too.
(Although, once they reach their teens they may use this as a catalyst for rebellion, and start to daven more seriously just to spite you...)
Put yourself at their disposal
This may mean delaying your amidah until a problem is resolved, or staggering child-care with a neighbor. It certainly involves interrupting your davening, when at all possible, to converse appropriately with the children, explain the davening to them, and keep them involved.
Have a fall-back plan
Leaving shul, handing a child off to another parent, whatever, but there must always be a plan.
Understand what they are doing, and why
It’s important for parents to understand why their children daven, or do not daven. Do they understand what davening is about? Can they read well? If they are not davening, is it rebellion against you, boredom, distraction by their personal lives, spacing out… ?
Relax
Training kids to daven is chinuch, a critical parental responsibility, but getting agitated and losing your temper won’t help. If your child isn’t ready, getting upset at him won’t make him ready. Take each child at her own level, with his own style.
Oh, and be ready to throw any and all of these rules out the window for your particular child. It’s the age-old lesson of child-rearing: No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.
Thank Gd, we are blessed with four wonderful children with very different personalities, and we now manage to have all of them with us in shul Shabbos morning for davening, from the almost-10 year old down to the 3 year old. All of them come with my wife and me before davening , and all of them remain through the end.
Every once in a while, people ask me for “the secret” to their good behavior. If we have succeeded at all [and on many mornings I tend to doubt it...], the secret is mostly in my much-admired rebbetzin’s genes as well as influence.
Still, we have learned some lessons over the past six years of bringing kids to shul, lessons which also apply to other areas of raising kids. Here are several; please add your own.
Set realistic expectations
In terms of bringing kids to multiple davenings on the same Shabbos, in terms of bringing kids to shul early in the morning or late at night, and in terms of the level of davening participation we demand, it’s important that we figure out their shul-tolerance in advance.
Make sure the children know your expectations
This is huge; kids must know, in advance, what exactly they are expected to do.
This includes providing clear and timely notice before sections of davening in which you cannot speak to them; parents can’t stand up in the amidah or go for an aliyah without forewarning their children and setting them up with proper activities.
Instructions must also be repeated at appropriate intervals for younger children.
Avoid the wrong distractions, provide the right distractions
As far as avoiding the wrong distractions, this is the one benefit of my sitting far from others; there is no pressure for them to converse with peers or adults.
But we must also provide the right distractions, ways for the kids to spend their time in shul productively, when they are not davening. For some it’s picking out letters in the siddur with them; for others it’s storybooks or sefarim. But just like adults need positive distractions, so do kids.
This also goes for the shul's youth programs during davening. Know what the programs are, and know whether they are good for your kids, and in what doses.
Set the tone when you’re not in shul
Children often see davening as a “shul thing” rather than something they do, personally, and they don’t understand why it should have meaning for them. Davening should be a part of their daily lives in some way, both in learning about it and in practicing it, so that they understand the conversation with HaShem as a function of their normal, day-to-day existence.
Be a good role model
A no-brainer. If you talk, or if you space out, then the kids will do it, too.
(Although, once they reach their teens they may use this as a catalyst for rebellion, and start to daven more seriously just to spite you...)
Put yourself at their disposal
This may mean delaying your amidah until a problem is resolved, or staggering child-care with a neighbor. It certainly involves interrupting your davening, when at all possible, to converse appropriately with the children, explain the davening to them, and keep them involved.
Have a fall-back plan
Leaving shul, handing a child off to another parent, whatever, but there must always be a plan.
Understand what they are doing, and why
It’s important for parents to understand why their children daven, or do not daven. Do they understand what davening is about? Can they read well? If they are not davening, is it rebellion against you, boredom, distraction by their personal lives, spacing out… ?
Relax
Training kids to daven is chinuch, a critical parental responsibility, but getting agitated and losing your temper won’t help. If your child isn’t ready, getting upset at him won’t make him ready. Take each child at her own level, with his own style.
Oh, and be ready to throw any and all of these rules out the window for your particular child. It’s the age-old lesson of child-rearing: No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Vocational school is not enough
For today's "Daily Torah Thought" post, I used the following piece from R' Samson Raphael Hirsch (Horeb, paragraph 552):
While, however, this training for earning a living is unquestionably a father's duty, beware of seeing in it the whole of that duty and of thinking that you have done enough if your child is able to keep body and soul together by his own efforts, or even to set up house. Of what use are a living and a home to him if his spirit is unilluminated, if he knows how to make a living but not to live as a Jew?
This is obvious, of course, but I have seen so many people who don't grasp its truth and convert that truth into reality. Kids need a richness of life, a spiritual depth, a full and mature religious education, an appreciation for the beauty of their world and the love of their family.
I don't want this to turn into a rant, even though it is tailor-made for a serious tirade. I spent the morning with a family suffering an unbelievably horrific loss, and after what they are enduring, everything else in the world, even matters of the greatest spiritual importance, just pale to utter nothingness. My heart hurts. I lack the interest in ranting.
So I'm going to leave this where it is, and let you do the commenting.
While, however, this training for earning a living is unquestionably a father's duty, beware of seeing in it the whole of that duty and of thinking that you have done enough if your child is able to keep body and soul together by his own efforts, or even to set up house. Of what use are a living and a home to him if his spirit is unilluminated, if he knows how to make a living but not to live as a Jew?
This is obvious, of course, but I have seen so many people who don't grasp its truth and convert that truth into reality. Kids need a richness of life, a spiritual depth, a full and mature religious education, an appreciation for the beauty of their world and the love of their family.
I don't want this to turn into a rant, even though it is tailor-made for a serious tirade. I spent the morning with a family suffering an unbelievably horrific loss, and after what they are enduring, everything else in the world, even matters of the greatest spiritual importance, just pale to utter nothingness. My heart hurts. I lack the interest in ranting.
So I'm going to leave this where it is, and let you do the commenting.
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