Last week marked the fifteenth anniversary of moving to Israel. We came with nine children ages 2 – 18. We moved to Karmiel, which had just a handful of English speaking olim families at the time, my children didn’t speak Hebrew, and financially we didn’t have a big financial cushion that would have allowed us to hire tutors, therapists and other helpful support for the transition. It was hard, hard, hard for all of us.
Months ago I read an online assertion that every single older child who makes aliyah has significant emotional damage and huge trauma that takes a lot of work to move past. I reflected on this point quite a bit, and here are some of my thoughts on that.
There’s no question that moving to a new country with a different culture and a different language is going to be challenging in many ways. You can be as optimistic and positive as you want about it, but it’s going to be rough. Kids go into a school system without knowing the language, with no way to communicate with others around them, not understanding what is taught – how could it not be hard?
You can make this easier by learning the language in advance. You can make it easier by moving to an area with a lot of supports for Anglos. You can make it easier by having an ample budget for various emotional and academic supports. But no matter what, it’s going to be a huge transition, and there are going to be difficulties.
We want our children to be happy, to be comfortable – but perhaps we can zoom out and take a wider view, and consider the value of building character instead of keeping them comfortable. We are too quick to shy away from doing hard things, and to discourage others from doing hard things. We know that it’s bad to put your children in hard situations.
But your character is built by the hard things you do. Just like your physical muscles, that grow from expanding the demands you make on them, your emotional capacity grows from pushing beyond your current comfort zone.
A comfort zone is called that, because where you are is familiar and comfortable. No one wants to be uncomfortable. But to have a better life, you’re often going to have to do uncomfortable things, and push yourself in some way.
Children who move to a new culture are forced to move beyond their comfort zone, as are their parents – and that’s not comfortable. It’s outright hard. But hard doesn’t mean bad. Hard is simply hard.
Doing hard things is going to impact people. Is it going to cause them huge emotional damage and a lifetime of scars? It can. It depends on how it’s perceived and processed.
Going through hard things doesn’t mean that someone will inevitably be damaged emotionally and traumatized for life. What’s inevitable is someone will be impacted, but that impact doesn’t have to be negative.
There are two options for someone going through something hard that I want to touch on.
The first possibility is resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back, adapt and keep going after hard things happen. Resilience isn’t something you’re born with, but is built by developing skills, mindset, and accessing internal and external supports. The good news is we can grow our emotional capacity and become more resilient, and be less negatively impated by the stresses we experience.
It’s worth learning about how to become more resilient, because this is something that helps us, and we can use these same strategies to help our children get through hard times.
Going beyond resilience is post traumatic growth. I first heard this term around 2014 when I attended a talk by Rona Ramon, wife of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died when the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disintegrated upon reentry to Earth’s atmosphere. (Sadly, Rona died in 2018.)
Post traumatic growth is “the positive psychological change experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances… increased appreciation for life in general, more meaningful interpersonal relationships, an increased sense of personal strength, changed priorities, and a richer existential and spiritual life.” (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004)
That means that a person can go through very hard things, and not just bounce back from them (resilience), but can grow beyond who they previously were and experience increased well-being as a result.
I haven’t asked my six now adult children who came between the ages of 9 – 18, for their thoughts on this question. But we have talked on a number of occasions about how hard it was – and how glad we are that we did it, because we all have lives we’re very happy with now.
Avivah
3 Responses
I love this post! We have such a similar story – my family came with 9 children between the ages of 2-20. I was 10 . I feel like you are talking directly to me!
We did live in a place with a nice amount of English speakers, but there wasn\’t much outside support (physical or emotional) mostly because it was just not recognized as a need. (We came about 15 years before you). Bh for a strong family unit which makes it doable. But it was hard.
I can tell you personally, I am so tremendously grateful to my parents for taking this huge step. It\’s changed my life for the better in countless ways.
This is an amazing post and comment.
I grew up as a self-proclaimed hedonist. I was so immature that I considered the word “work” as a foul, 4-letter word — exerting effort was something to be avoided at all costs. Well, today, as a young grandmother, I’m slowly coming around to realizing my folly (it’s terribly embarrassing to admit that!!); an incredible cost has been paid by my family and me. I only share this to encourage those who are thinking of aliyah to go with an attitude that challenges are meant to be embraced and worked through and to not seek to run from them. We had made aliyah for a relatively short period of time years ago and I look back longingly and wish that I had had the grit to stick it out and to have been a stronger role model for my family.
wow, I cherished every single word! I am forwarding it to my friends, some who wish to make aliya and are worried about this.
There is so much you gain from raising kids in Israel, it’s a pity many families brush off the Eretz Yisrael dream because they opt for easy.
So many of us are used to the mindset that children need to be raised in sugar coated envoirment and every struggle is a negitive trauma. Though by letting them going out to the world we are training them to cope with real life – which is hard, no matter where you live. Adult life includes major changes even if you are in the same setting, such as marrige, children, ect. What better gift can it be than to prepare them for life while gaining the Kedusha of our land which isn’t found anywhere else?