Avivah Werner

Blog

  • Wanting it doesn’t mean you get to have it

    This morning I listened to a podcast about finances in the US Orthodox Jewish world, and how untenable living expenses have become for the middle class.

    Shortly into the podcast I paused to talk to my husband, and said, “People have to learn to live with what they can actually afford.” That’s actually the answer to this complicated issue. I’ve heard people go around and around about possible solutions, but this is the answer that no one wants to hear.

    This is true wherever you live: in every country, in every community, in every culture.

    No matter what everyone around you has, no matter how much you want to look like everyone else , no matter how much something has become a social norm – either you can afford it or you can’t.

    If you can’t afford it, you have to be honest with yourself and look for options.

    I’m not writing this as a wealthy person looking down at everyone with less than me who doesn’t understand what things cost, but as a person who raised a very large Orthodox family in the United States on a single modest income, and made those choices. After moving with our nine children to Israel, we continued to have to make those choices.

    I read and listen to a lot of what people are talking about regarding finances, and what constantly strikes me is that people need to learn to live with what they have.

    Learning to live within your means asking yourself hard questions and making hard choices based on those answers.

    Here are some of the big expenses mentioned in the podcast:

    You can’t afford tuition? Homeschool. Move to a different community with affordable tuition.

    You can’t afford summer camp? Don’t send. Entertain your own children, encourage your pre-teen and teen children to earn their own money.

    You can’t afford a lavish bar mitzva/wedding? Make a simple event.

    You can’t afford to send your daughter to seminary in Israel? Don’t.

    You can’t afford to support your married children? Don’t.

    Either make more money, or admit to yourself you can’t do it – and then find choices that are doable for you.

    I know, it sounds simplistic. Obviously life happens and everything can’t be planned; unexpected necessary expenses can happen to the best organized and most frugal. But living within your means is actually a simple concept. What’s not simple is when you have a budget but don’t live within your financial resources (for whatever reason, no judgement about that).

    These are all choices and they’re our choices to make. When things are seen as a given in a community, we forget that we’re making a choice every time we go along with some standard.

    You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You do have to be willing to live with the choices of not doing those things. Sometimes that’s not easy.

    We have a tendency to overinflate the discomfort of being different from those around you. Humans are social creatures and we feel safe when we fit in. You have to be willing to be different and that may feel unbearable for some.

    When we lived in Ramat Beit Shemesh, we were the only family in our apartment building without a car. It wasn’t my business how everyone else financed their vehicle, or what they thought of our financial capacity because we didn’t have one. It didn’t matter that it would have made my life easier. We didn’t have a budget for a car, period. So we used public transportation; we got where we needed to go and we lived without going into debt.

    Is it easy to make choices to live within your means? Sometimes it’s not. But it’s usually not unbearable deprivation, either. This is how people have lived for most of the time that humanity has existed. They didn’t spend money they didn’t have, because they couldn’t.

    Life would become so much simpler and less stressful if we returned to this way of thinking.

    I want to encourage people to really think about their expenses, to empower you. Not to shame you for spending money you don’t have. I want you to know you probably have more choices available to you than you think. It might not seem like it at first glance – and sometimes there really is no wiggle room no matter what – but usually there are adjustments you can make to take pressure off of yourself.

    Avivah

  • Teaching kids to get along

    One of my older sons mentioned that when visiting homes of friends for Shabbos, he’s noticed that a lot of the older siblings don’t like their younger siblings. That’s not the case in our home: when the older boys come home, the younger siblings run to welcome them like returning heroes.

    Seriously. I was outside in the parking lot with the kids one morning when my husband came home. The kids ran to greet him with their usual enthusiasm. My neighbor asked, “How long has he been gone?” I told her, he just went to shul. She laughed, since she thought from their greeting that he had been gone for a much longer period of time.

    When kids don’t get along, many parents feel like this is how it is, throwing up their hands in frustration and wistfully saying, “What can you do?” when their children are unkind to one another.

    I believe that you have to teach your children to get along. Our children of all ages get along well, and while people will think it’s all luck that they enjoy one another, I can assure you it didn’t just happen. We have a lot of personalities in our family, and they aren’t all naturally compatible with one another. Sometimes siblings click and sometimes they don’t, but as a parent you can help them learn to interact with one another kindly.

    I expect everyone in our family to be kind and respectful to one another, and with the younger children I facilitate and model and give them the right words and then have them redo interactions on a daily basis.

    But what about once they’re older?

    This brings to mind an interaction I actively mediated a year or two ago with two of my teen sons. My three teens (16.5, 18, 19.5) overall get along really well. They enjoy spending time together: working, learning, hiking, biking, sports – everything. It’s amazing that they have each other. But naturally, sometimes there is conflict.

    One afternoon they had a disagreement. At some point, I noticed they weren’t moving beyond it. They were getting increasingly upset and then moved on to actually being angry with the other. This is very unusual and at this age I rarely get involved beyond an occasional comment or suggestion because they’re able to work things out fairly quickly with each other. But I saw they were too upset to process my suggestion.

    At that point I got actively involved. I told them we were all going to sit down together and no one was moving until they could speak respectfully to one another. The guidelines I gave them were: each one needed to listen to the other express his point without interrupting, then repeat over what he heard shared. The first person needed to agree on the accuracy and feel that he had been heard, before the next person could say his opinion. And the first person then needed to listen and reflect back to the second person what he heard.

    There was so much emotion that this wasn’t easy at all. I could have let it go and as it continued, it was so intense that part of me wanted to let it go, but I saw that if it wasn’t dealt with, they would both have lingering resentment toward the other one. Resentment doesn’t go away; it gets pushed down and then comes bursting out unexpectedly over minor issues.

    I don’t remember how long we sat there – it was at least an hour, probably closer to an hour and a half. Me, stopping them when they said something that sounded hostile or judgemental, asking them to rephrase, and let’s try again and again. Eventually, the emotions subsided and they walked away having respectfully communicated about a hot topic.

    I can’t say they enjoyed my intervention, but they appreciated it. Sometimes your children need your help to work through things even when they get older.

    Certainly when children are younger they need a lot of help expressing their emotions appropriately.

    Here’s an example of what this looks like around here. Dd8 is fast to scream and lash out physically if something upsets her; she accelerates from 0 – 60 very quickly. It’s not enough to say, “Don’t do that.” Kids need to know what to do, and how to do it. So I’ll say something like, “You sound really upset.”

    Her: “He touched my book!”

    Me: “You are so upset he touched your book.”

    Her: “It’s not his book, it’s mine and he didn’t ask me!”

    Me: “You’re right, it’s your book. (Pause) It doesn’t look like it feels good for him when you yell at him.”

    Turning attention to sibling: “I see you look upset/sad and it didn’t feel good for you when she yelled at you. Do you want to tell her, “I don’t like when you yell at me”?

    Him: “I don’t like when you yell at me.”

    Me to her: How can you tell him what you want without yelling or hitting him?”

    Her: (Shrug or she might have an appropriate suggestion. If she has a way to say it appropriately, she says it now. If she doesn’t, I give her the words now.)

    Me: Do you think you can say, “Please don’t touch my book” in a quieter voice?

    Her: Please don’t touch my book.

    Me: Good for you for speaking nicely! Now your brother can listen to you. Do you think it would make him feel better if you said you’re sorry for yelling at him?” (She says, “I’m sorry I yelled at you”, he says he forgives her, and they go off and play together.)

    It’s best when there’s an initial validation of the emotion the child is feeling before moving to correction. I don’t want them to feel shamed because of their reaction; I want them to learn there’s a more effective way to interact when they are upset.

    Creating a respectful and kind home is a process. Modeling is SO important. If I tell them that in our house we are kind to one another, but I yell at them all the time, then what I say wouldn’t be matter as much to them because they would see my hypocrisy. There has to be a consistent message. Consistent doesn’t mean perfect. You can and will make mistakes but the overall direction is towards being respectful and kind.

    Even children who are very different and seemingly non-compatible can be taught to be respectful and kind to one another. It’s a good skill for life: you’re not always going to like the people you’re with, but you can still be respectful.

    (There are other important points to consider when siblings don’t get along like paying attention to why they aren’t getting along, and addressing that. Perhaps one is threatened by the attention or special treatment the other gets, maybe one is displacing the negativity he experiences onto another. There are lots of possibilities, and these are important to address.)

    Avivah

  • Taking time as a couple

    The marathon of the holiday season is winding down!

    In addition to all of the holiday preparations, we’ve celebrated two birthdays (my eighteen year old son and twenty five year old daughter).

    We were also asked by our shul to host a simchas beis hashoeiva (Sukkos celebration) for the community. Usually the rabbi of the community hosts this the first night of chol hamoed, but this year they wanted to have an additional one. We had over one hundred people the second night of chol hamoed. My older boys did an amazing job setting up an area that was comfortable for all of the men, women and children attending. I handled preparing refreshments, and they did everything else to make it run smoothly and everyone had a great time.

    Five years ago we noticed that in our shul on Simchas Torah, there were minimal refreshments (soda, pretzels, cake). It’s a long day in shul (coming home around 3 pm) and I thought it would be helpful to have something more substantial for people to eat to hold them over. Our shul just celebrated its 90th anniversary, and it’s not easy to introduce something new to a place that has done things a certain way for a long time.

    It took quite a bit of convincing but they agreed that I could make soup for the community. Every year we buy all the ingredients and paper goods, prepare it, bring our own hotplates to set it up in shul, and then serve it the next day. I chose mushroom barley soup since it’s thick and substantial. For four years now I’ve made 32 liters of soup, which get polished off. (Interestingly, each year since I began making the soup, the shul has increased the quantity of food they serve; this year there was enough served that I wondered if I should still make the soup in the future. Since so many people told us how much they enjoyed it, I’ll continue.)

    Two days after the holidays ended, we had a visit from our social worker, her supervisor, and the head of the foster care agency. They did a brief house tour, and wanted to hear about the difficulties with ds8 (and dd8 as well, though it’s easier for me to deal with her), and talk about what would happen if we ended their placement. I stressed to them that we aren’t interested in disrupting the placement and we want to make it work, but we do want them to understand the difficulties we’re experiencing.

    They asked me what they can do to support us, and I told them the most helpful thing would be if we had a respite option. They said they’ll look into possibilities (our social worker has checked this already and not turned anything up but maybe something new will come up), and were very happy when I told them my husband and I are going away for Shabbos sans children.

    You can’t give and give and give without taking time to fill yourself up. It’s been a good and also intense holiday season with a lot of hosting and cooking and having children home all the time. I’m super grateful to my teen boys, who insisted that we go away and they will take care of the children for Shabbos.

    We don’t want to spend a lot of time in the car traveling somewhere so we’ll be staying in a hotel in Tiberias. Our priority is to have a quiet space without children around, time to unwind from the internal tensions and rushing.

    It’s critical to water what you want to grow. Relationships need regular positive inputs and nurturing, and even the best marriage can stagnate without ongoing time and effort to improve your relationship. Even though we spend time together when we’re at home, getting away is entirely different and allows uninterrupted focus on one another.

    I appreciate taking this time to recharge as a couple. If I didn’t take this time, it would be so easy to be in the busyness trap, going from one thing to another and another, without taking adequate time to pause.

    When I get back I’ll right away need to shop and prepare for ds13’s school bar mitzva ceremony/celebration on Monday. It was delayed until now and the good thing about that is since it’s still during the yeshiva vacation, the older boys will be able to attend, which will make it much more enjoyable and meaningful for ds13.

    I’d like to encourage you to think about recharging yourself after a busy season in your life. It feels like a luxury and an extra but it’s NOT. It’s critical to recharge yourself and if you’re married, your marriage.

    Avivah

  • Helping the twins process that this is their home and we are their parents

    In the last visitation the twins had with their mother, a very short conversation resulted in a lot of emotional turmoil.

    The kids came home from visitation, and as I was putting dd8 to sleep, she told me she’s going to live with her mother.

    “Hmm…who said you’re going to live with Ima?” I responded.

    “Ima. She said when we get bigger we’re going to live with her.”

    Oh. One of the things that supervised visitation is supposed to prevent is something like this. I explained that when they are very big, big enough to get married and live by themselves, maybe they will live with Ima. Maybe not. But in any case, not for a long, long, long time.

    They then asked somewhat accusingly me why I took them away from their short term foster carers. For the first time, I explained that they were taken from their parents because they didn’t know how to take care of them, and then this couple took care of them while the social workers looked for a family for them.

    “But she wasn’t our mother?” “No, she was a very nice lady who cared about you very much and took good care of you, but she wasn’t your mother.”

    I thought I had been clear. But then I got a call from dd’s principal the next morning, asking if we were moving.

    “No, why?” “Because dd8 announced to her entire class that she is moving to Kiryat Shmonah, and then came to my office to tell me.”

    Oy. I explained the situation to the principal, and then called the supervising social worker at the visitation center to ask exactly what had been said by their mother.

    She told me that the mother told the kids that she had to prove herself still, but when they get older they’re hopefully going to live with her and their father (in separate homes). She told them right now her home isn’t big enough but she’ll get a bigger place and then asked them to describe the kind of decorations they’ll put in their rooms.

    After that, ds8 told her, “I don’t want to live with Mommy (me)!” “Why not?” the social worker and mother asked.

    “Because I want a Spiderman bedroom!”

    I told the social worker that the kids don’t understand time and this conversation had been deeply unsettling for them, since they think the move is imminent. She told me the mother didn’t say anything wrong, she didn’t promise, she told them ‘hopefully’ they’ll live with her when they get bigger, and the kids need to know that they might not stay with us forever.

    Save me from well-intentioned social workers who know not what they do! This conversation should have been stopped immediately, but she didn’t know. This is her first time working at a visitation center, and unfortunately, this conversation dramatically eroded the security the kids feel living in our home, feeling this is their home.

    When dd8 came home from school, I reminded her that Ima said they would live with her when they were big. She told me that she was already big. (She’s right – she’s a day bigger than the night before.) I told her that Ima needs to learn how to take care of them, and she reassured me that Ima learned how to do that.

    At this same meeting, ds8 once again was chastised for referring to me as ‘his other Ima’. She told him he can’t call me that because I’m not his Ima; I’m his Mommy.

    This is hard for him to understand. In our home we speak English and he calls me Mommy, but he was translating to Hebrew since he was with Hebrew speakers, and Mommy translates to Ima. So he understood from this that I’m not his parent.

    This necessitated another conversation about who am I to them. I explained they have two mothers, me and their mother. I explained what a mother does, and what makes someone a mother. I explained why their temporary foster carers were not their parents, even though they cared about them very much.

    The next day, dd8 commented, with no intent to be offensive or hurtful, but just in a way that she was clarifying for herself, “So you’re just the lady who takes care of us.”

    In their minds, they now no longer have a stable home and I’m not their mother.

    The day before I had told dd8’s therapist that we would take a break until after the holidays, but this was so urgent that I asked her if we could have a session on erev Yom Kippur to help dd understand and process these issues. It was so urgent that her therapist agreed.

    I am so, so grateful for this therapist. She is wonderful. She told me she can’t force dd to talk about something if she doesn’t want to, and has to wait for her to bring it up. I asked if it was okay if when I dropped her off, if I mentioned to her that dd had visitation with her mother and her mother said she would be living with her. She agreed that would be fine, and we hoped that would create a lead-in to help dd with this issue.

    She called me in at the end of the session to show me dd8’s new baby. She explained that she (the therapist, playing a role) had a baby she couldn’t take care of even though she loved her so much, and she had to find a new mother to take care of her baby. Dd8 is the new mother.

    When we ate breakfast together today, dd8 asked me if I remember the name of her doll (the one at her therapist), then we talked about if her doll was sad to leave her first mother. She said no, and I told her that the mother was sad when she couldn’t keep her child, and the child also feels sad.

    Then we talked about if there were other emotions the baby might feel. We segued into how dd felt when she was removed from her home, and talked about if it was scary when the policemen came to take them away. My husband walked in during this conversation, and we shared with him what we were discussing.

    Later in the day she went with my husband to do an errand, and they spoke about this topic while they were out. On the spot, my husband made up a song to the tune of a popular children’s song, and here is the song:

    • Hashem gave us two presents
    • Do you know who they were?
    • (Name) and (name)
    • He gave us him and her.
    • He asked some other people
    • “Do you want these gifts of mine?”
    • But they said “No, thank you, for children we’ve no time.”
    • Then to Mommy and Daddy
    • (Name of our social worker) did go
    • They said, “Oh they sound so cute, we will love them so!”
    • Then to Mommy and Daddy
    • (Our social worker) did go
    • They said, “Oh, they sound so cute, we will help them grow.”

    It’s an ongoing conversation with them both. We want them to know it’s okay to miss their parents, it’s okay to have mixed feelings and wish they could live with them (they told me they don’t want to live here, they want to live with their mother), it’s okay to be sad or angry or whatever else they are feeling.

    We don’t want them to feel they have to keep it all inside, push down those feelings and put on a happy face. This is part of their lives and they need to have a space to talk about it and have a space to talk about those hard emotions.

    I spoke to two therapists about this, and both were disturbed that the conversation had been handled at the visitation as it was. Dd’s therapist will be calling her to discuss it, and the other therapist has been in touch with our social worker to begin the process of creating the official narrative about why they left and the process of moving here with all of the adults, so that the children will hear the same version from everyone, instead of each adult explaining it in their own way. Then this narrative that is shared with others, like teachers, and it will help create consistency for the kids.

    So in the end, good things are coming from this topic coming up in the way it did.

    Avivah

  • Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Shabbos menus 2025

    The way the holidays fall this year – Shabbos, day off, holiday, day off, Shabbos, day off, holiday, etc – means a cooking marathon for a few weeks!

    **Before I go on to menus, I want to share our happy news, that exactly two weeks after our last granddaughter was born, our youngest married son and his wife had their first baby – a girl! We haven’t yet seen her in person due to the holidays but hope to see her soon – in pictures she looks adorable! Thank You, Hashem.**

    I got up at 4 am this morning, the morning after Yom Kippur, to get started cooking for Shabbos. I don’t like feeling rushed and pressured, and I’ve really been enjoying doing the bulk of my cooking on Thursdays and having a stress free Friday.

    This week that’s not an option since Yom Kippur was Thursday, so getting up early is the best option for me. As I write at 7:30 am, there are six roasts in the oven, a sixteen quart pot of chicken soup simmering on the stovetop, the load of whites is finished and ready to hang, and a load of coloreds are in the wash. I made lunches for the three boys who have school today and got them out to their school van. Now I’ll hang that laundry, and dd8 and I will go to the store to pick up some things that we don’t have since part of the Mishnat Yosef order didn’t arrive this week, and will resume cooking once we’re back home.

    My teen boys are all home, the last one arriving in the middle of the night so I haven’t seen him yet. Bliss…you all know how I love when they’re all home. My youngest married daughter and husband were here for Yom Kippur, so they’re still around but will be going back to Jerusalem at some point today.

    The boys will take down the pool today (my husband already emptied almost all of it) since it’s on the patio where we’ll be building the sukka, and will start working on the sukka.

    To make this time of year easier, whenever I’ve been cooking, I’ve doubled or quadrupled quantities of some dishes to put in the freezer. I don’t have freezer space for everything, so meat, chicken and fish I make fresh before each holiday. Soup and salads are also made fresh. Some dips like matbucha, marinated eggplant/peppers, and pickled beets I’ve canned so those are shelf ready.

    That means challahs, dips, kugels, and desserts are what I put in the freezer. Right now I have in the freezer I have: peanut butter ice cream, mango ice cream, leek quiche, potato kugel, onion kugel, carrot muffins, sweet potato souffle and apple spice cake.

    My stock of ready made foods helped me a lot on the Shabbos right after Rosh Hashana, when I was so mentally exhausted that I didn’t have any energy for cooking – I pulled from the freezer and some canned goods, and asked my husband and son to make the meat, chicken, fish and soup, and no one could tell I hadn’t been in the kitchen at all that day.

    I’ll share what my menu plans have been so far, including for this Shabbos, beginning with Rosh Hashana.

    Rosh Hashana 2025 Menu

    Round spelt challahs – I made a large batch of ten challahs, froze what I didn’t immediately need

    Simanim/symbolic foods for Rosh Hashana nights:

    • apples and honey
    • roasted beets with honey and basil
    • stir fry – gourd, carrots and onion
    • leek patties
    • black eyed peas
    • pomegranate arils
    • dates
    • baked tilapia
    • fish head

    Dinner 1:

    • challah
    • simanim
    • chicken soup
    • roast brisket with carrots
    • sweet potato/potato fries
    • Cucumber/tomato/purple onion salad
    • Apple spice cake

    Day 1:

    • Dips: guacamole, fresh tomato, eggplant with tomato/pickle/onion finely diced in, Moroccan carrot
    • salmon (honey)
    • sweet potato souffle
    • leek quiche
    • chicken
    • cabbage craisin salad

    (No dessert, took apple spice cake and onion kugel for kiddush at shul during break before shofar blowing)

    Night 2:

    • challah
    • simanim, plus new fruit – dragonfruit
    • (no soup, everyone full from simanim)
    • roast meat (with tomato sauce)
    • roasted carrots and apples
    • salad – raisin cabbage slaw
    • dessert – apple plum crumble

    Day 2:

    • challah
    • dips –
    • salmon
    • chicken
    • roast sweet potatoes
    • carrot muffins
    • onion kugel
    • cabbage salad
    • tomato cucumber salad
    • dessert – apricot compote

    Yom Kippur 2025 Menu

    first meal on erev Yom Kippur:

    • challah (I made another large batch of eight challahs, since the last batch was finished)
    • baked fish
    • chicken poppers with dipping sauce
    • vegetable quiche
    • potato kugel
    • tomato avocado salad
    • cabbage craisin salad

    Meal two/seuda hamafsekes erev Yom Kippur:

    • challah
    • chicken soup
    • meat
    • dips
    • cucumber tomato salad
    • Korean carrot salad
    • sweet potato souffle
    • melon

    Yom Kippur kids meal:

    • pitas
    • hot dogs
    • french fries
    • chicken wings
    • salad

    After Yom Kippur – break fast meal:

    • chicken soup
    • meat
    • honey garlic chicken wings
    • carrot salad
    • cuke tomato salad
    • dessert – fresh mango

    Shabbos between Yom Kippur and Sukkos :

    Dinner:

    • challah – from freezer
    • chicken soup
    • roast meat with carrot and onions (I’m making several kinds and will slice and freeze some for Sukkos)
    • roast potatoes with schwarma spice
    • purple cabbage mango salad
    • avocado tomato salad
    • dessert – easy fruit pie

    Shabbos Day meal:

    • guacomole – (I’ll be making multiple recipes of the first four dips listed and freezing them)
    • chumus
    • techina
    • carrot dip
    • marinated eggplant and peppers (from pantry)
    • baked tilapia
    • chicken (just came home from the store after writing this and got a great sale on fresh chicken quarters – 25 shekels a kg) so updating to say I’ll prepare it all and pop it in the freezer)
    • cucumber tomato salad
    • Korean carrot salad
    • dessert – ice cream

    I hope those of you celebrating are enjoying this special time of year and not feeling overwhelmed by the preparation! It’s a lot and give yourself lots of pats on the back for all that you’re doing that is seen and even more for what isn’t seen. When I get time pressured, I still get everything done but tend to feel resentful at people around me for not doing as much as me. I may not express it, but it’s there. That’s my personal tendency I’m aware of and need to work on. So doing more in advance means I’m relaxed and the appreciation I get from others is extra, so it makes for a happier me and a more pleasant environment for us all.

    Avivah

  • Rosh Hashana and beyond….hard reckonings

    What a draining holiday I’ve just had.

    Even though the week preceding Rosh Hashana I was away for a few days to be with my daughter who had a baby, I still managed to have everything ready for Rosh Hashana without any pressure or rushing. It felt like an accomplishment.

    But the child care front is a different matter completely. Ds8 is in a new school and really likes it. I’m so grateful because last year wasn’t a good fit for him and it was a very hard year. The first week at his new school he had short school days, and then for the next two weeks he had a full day, coming home late in the afternoon.

    This longer day is what I was told before they came would be their schedule, but it never has been until now. Having some time without him home in the afternoon has been a gift and I love it! It gives me one on one time with ds8.5 and dd8 and the house is so much calmer, I’m more relaxed and able to enjoy being a mother. Him coming home later is also what made it possible for me to leave for a couple of days at a time to be with my married daughter and grandchildren.

    However, almost immediately after attending for the longer days, his behavior became dramatically worse. Really, really worse. As in, the difficulty of last year when he was regressing seems like nothing compared to what I’m seeing now – I can hardly remember what felt hard then.

    All through Rosh Hashana, I thought and thought about the impossibility of the situation. Since he’s spent so much time with us, he’s had dramatic improvements that have made it possible for him to rise above what was expected of him. When he has extensive time at home, he’s overall a sweet and loving boy, albeit one who needs constant oversight.

    However, he can’t be home all the time, and I don’t want him home all the time. The lack of that extended time at home means he’s not able to regulate himself and he has become difficult to live with. So I find us in a catch 22 situation that I don’t see a resolution for.

    It’s scary to see how fast his behavior changed, and how bad it’s gotten in just three weeks. Obviously something isn’t working for him internally, and he’s acting it out.

    My biggest concern is his behavior towards ds8.5, sometimes being verbally and physically aggressive towards him. I have absolutely no tolerance for that. Every person in this family needs to be safe and feel safe. That’s foundational to how our home functions.

    I mentioned to someone on the first day of Rosh Hashana that he had been very disrespectful and physically aggressive. She told me, “You think my kids are perfect? They also hit each other and don’t speak nicely.” I’m really not talking about the same kind of thing.

    His reactions to someone saying ‘no’ or stopping him from doing what he wants are extreme – screaming with fury through clenched teeth while physically lashing out at whoever is near him.

    Then there’s the verbal aggression that comes right after he stops screaming, spewing the most angry words he can think of.

    I should be grateful that since we speak pretty nicely around here, the worst he can yell at me is: “Get away from me! Stop it. Stop it! Don’t touch me. Be quiet. Stop talking. Stop talking. Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t touch me. I can do what I want. You can’t tell me what to do. Stinky mommy. I’m in charge of myself. I’m going to do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want.”

    While he’s yelling, his body gets as stiff as a board and then he stops talking and starts having what looks like an autistic meltdown (but it’s not). I was sitting across the table from my husband one of the times this happened and as he held ds on his lap I saw the worry in my husband’s eyes at how extreme ds8’s behaviors were.

    Finally (we’re always holding him on our laps at this point) he stops, kind of sags and puts his head against our chests and gets quiet and calm. Then when he starts to talk again, for up to an hour afterward, he speaks in a babyish voice with babyish movements.

    This is much worse than the behavior he had even when he first arrived, and I felt so disheartened that after two and a half years of so much love and guidance for him, that we’re behind where we began. It’s also hard to feel warmth or compassion towards him when he acts like this, even when the cycle ends.

    I’ve been concerned about the affect it’s having on ds8.5, who was so scared seeing this behavior that he spent hours on Rosh Hashana secluded in his room, not joining us at all for one of the meals. I took steps right away to address this and fortunately ds8.5 seems to be regrouping really well.

    It’s been really hard dealing with ds8, but just as hard dealing with my thoughts – turning and turning the situation around, looking at it from all directions, wracking my brain as to how we can help him – and coming up with very little. But at a time I want G-d to have compassion for me and judge me favorably despite my flaws, how can I pronounce a harsh judgment on this child and say I’m done?

    I spoke to my social worker right after Rosh Hashana, detailed what’s happening and said, while I’m not saying we’re quitting right now, we need to talk about what the next step would be if we can’t continue. She told me that several months ago, the therapist I spoke to then called her and said she had told me to emotionally prepare for him needing to be transferred to a residential treatment center. The therapist also told her, she sees it as inevitable that due to his complexities at some point he will need to be transferred out of home care.

    There’s one diagnosis that scares me more than any other, and that’s RAD (reactive attachment disorder). When I first heard about ds8, I wondered if he had it and have wondered about it a number of times since. While a lot of behaviors match, I’m not convinced. Even though he was diagnosed with RAD (as well as PDD) by a psychiatrist several months ago, I’m still not convinced. When I think of him having RAD, I feel like I just can’t continue because there’s no hope; for me, it’s something so hard that I’m not able or willing to deal with it. (Here’s a great website to learn more by a parent of two adopted RAD children – Every Star Is Different.)

    So I decided to put the diagnosis out of my mind since that’s too worrisome, and just deal with the child in front of me, with what I see right now. When I do that, I can feel more warmth and compassion.

    My husband and I had an appointment with with the foster care therapist yesterday morning, and she told us that every single day we give him in our home is a benefit for him. She stressed that we need to take very good care of ourselves because parenting him (and dd8 is a lot, also, even though I’m not mentioning her here) is so demanding and draining. She cautioned us to have our finger on our emotional pulse, to recognize and respects our limits, and not to push ourselves beyond what we can do.

    While dd’s therapist commented in response to something I said about him, that it sounds like all foster/adopted youth behaviors, the social worker and this therapist who knows the specifics of his background understand that we’re dealing with hard things and are very supportive of us. They’ve both made it clear that they think all we’ve done for him has been heroic and they understand if we can’t continue.

    Avivah

  • Struggling with scrolling on my phone

    Last week I saw dried dates on sale for 11 shekels a kilo, which is a great price. I bought 20 kilos with the intention to can them, since they are then easily blended and used as a sweetener for desserts.

    However, my daughter gave birth this week and I was away for a few days, so the cases of dates were still waiting for me when I got back. When I looked this morning at what felt like a mountain of dates that needed to be pitted, checked for infestation, and then canned – and in a few days it will be Rosh Hashana and there’s already so many other things to do – I wondered why I had to create extra work for myself.

    Then I began working on them while chatting with my husband before he started work, and I got through half of a 5 kg box. It would be easy to say, “I just spent so much time and I’ve only done 1/8 of the dates – how am I ever going to finish them all?”

    But that’s not what I thought. As I packed the liter jars full and prepared them for canning, I genuinely appreciated all that I had done.

    ———————–

    I’ve been doing a deeper level of decluttering in the last few months, as I go through things in my home and ask myself, “Does this have value to me right now?”

    Moving things that I’m not using out of my home has been very positive. My house is getting easier and easier to clean, and I can maintain it with much less effort. And it makes me more relaxed and accomplished.

    Every little bit I’ve done has been so gratifying and as I celebrate it, it encourages me to do more.

    ——————-

    I’ve really been grappling with my phone use. I’ve felt shame that I scroll as much as I do, that I don’t control myself and use my time better. Coming to understand just how intentionally human emotion and addiction psychology has been studied with the intent to create addiction has lessened that shame somewhat, as I realize my struggle is shared by most people.

    But I still have great frustration over the effort to minimize my screen use.

    For those who are wondering about our family technology stance: our children don’t use internet, though occasionally when I need to go out or do something when my husband is working, he’ll let the younger kids (ages 8, 8, 8) sit next to him in his home office and watch something like Mister Rogers. We don’t have Ipads and they don’t play computer games.

    When we drive places, they listen to music on the car speakers and look out the window or look at books.

    Of our three teenage boys (16, 18 and 19), the two who are living in dorms have chosen not to have any kind of phone at all. The youngest has regular daily learning sessions on the phone, so he has a simple ‘dumb’ phone that he uses at home but doesn’t take with him during the day. He does take it with him when he travels.

    Sounds great, right? I’m very glad my children are growing up in the real world, with real people, real experiences, and plenty of outdoor time. It’s really important to me.

    The challenge is for me and my husband, and I always think of us as the weak links in our home technology use. (My husband got rid of his smartphone a couple of years ago, but works online.)

    I got off of Facebook five years ago, even though it meant closing my business page and that was significant. The only social media platform I use is YouTube. While I don’t ever actively contribute or engage on YouTube, and the content I watch/listen to is overall positive, it is driven by an algorithm that targets exactly what interests each person, and that is what keeps me looking longer than I intend to.

    I’ve tried putting boundaries around my phone use: don’t look at it until after a certain time of day, be conscious of keeping it in a room where I’m not at. I took our family picture off of the screensaver months ago so it would be visually unstimulating. A couple of months ago I began calling a phone line for Torah classes to listen to higher quality content that doesn’t arrive through the internet, to partially replace the podcasts I listened to on YouTube.

    But I still feel frustrated with not being able to completely subdue the phone issue. It’s something that always has to be managed. I slide away from my good intentions, and then have to restart again.

    Sometimes I am weary of feeling unsuccessful about my efforts in this area.

    This morning, at my request, my husband loaded a black screen onto my phone to use as wallpaper, so there’s not only not a family picture, but there’s no appealing color or design on my screen. This is recommended as a step to minimizing phone usage, and I was glad to have it done.

    At that moment, I thought, ‘Why am I not appreciating all the things I’ve done in this area, and keep focusing on what isn’t yet the way I want? This is a good step!”

    I have 17.5 kilos of dates waiting to be checked and processed, and that may have to wait for another week to finish, but I didn’t focus on that – I felt accomplished with the dates I did.

    I’m not finished decluttering every single corner of my home, but I’ve mentally cheered for single thing I moved out of the house. Cumulatively all of these things have led to a bigger impact felt by everyone in the home.

    For today, I’m reminding myself that positive change only happens by appreciating the small steps, and continuing to make steps in the direction you want to go. I want to minimize digital clutter in my life (I’m wishful about eliminating it completely), but that’s an ongoing process.

    I don’t love the struggle, but everything I’ve done to improve the situation has been constructive. When I appreciate those efforts, I can let myself be where I am right now, without criticizing myself for not yet being at the finish line.

    Once again, I’m reminded of the saying, “By the inch it’s a cinch; by the mile it’s a trial.” I seem to have to continually remind myself to pause, look at what I’ve done, and say ‘good job, me!”

    I’m going to hold on to this thought as I’m thinking about the things I want to improve in as the Jewish New Year approaches.

    Can you relate? How do you manage your thoughts/feelings/actions around the things you wish you were doing differently?

    Avivah

  • Grieving the loss of our dog

    Yesterday my husband and I took our first walk together in three months. As often happens, our dog followed us.

    We walked a new route, through the fields and came to the end where it met the main road that leads into town. Our dog meandered at his own pace through the fields. We crossed the road so we could walk on the side with the a larger shoulder.

    Soon our dog joined us. A few minutes later, he crossed to the other side of the street, walking on the narrow shoulder. Less than two minutes later he was struck by a large van; the driver paused for a brief instant, presumably glanced in his mirror to see our dog lying on the side of the road, then continued without stopping.

    We ran across the street to him, and he seemed to have died on impact. My husband pulled his body away from the street so he was on the opposite side of the guardrail, and I sat down next to him, stroking his neck. After a few minutes he returned to consciousness, breathing very shallowly.

    We agreed that I would stay with him while my husband left to get the car so we could get him medical help. During that fifteen minute period, I stroked him and spoke to him. By that time I could tell his injuries were serious and to my plans for the vet shifted to having him put down so he wouldn’t suffer.

    When my husband arrived, he gently lifted him into the car to go to the vet. Sheleg died a few minutes later, before we left to the clinic. He was thirteeen years old and had been a constant presence in our family for five and a half years.

    We got a dog at the request of one of my sons, but at some point it became obvious to everyone that he chose me as ‘his person’. My daughter once told me, “He looks at you with love in his eyes.” He followed me everywhere I went; even to the bathroom – no matter how short a time I was there, when I came out he would be curled up outside the bathroom door.

    When I put the kids to sleep each night, Sheleg would follow me into their rooms and lay down. The kids would ask, “Why is Sheleg here?” And then they would answer their own question: “Because you’re here.” They would try to get him to stay with them, but he wouldn’t stay once I went out.

    Last week I went to the beach, and on the spur of the moment I took Sheleg with me. When I got there, I was the only one there, so I didn’t put him on a leash. He enjoyed being there, and wandered around, coming back to where I was twice. When I was ready to leave, I waited for him but he didn’t come back. He must have gotten lost. I spent the next hour and a half searching for him, finally finding him laying under a bench at a bus stop, trusting I would find him.

    I thought to myself, in the future it will be more relaxing to go myself. A week later, he’s no longer alive to go with me, so it’s not a choice I get to make. Now it gives me comfort that he had the experience of being at the beach that day.

    Sheleg’s final resting place

    ————————-

    Together with the feelings of loss come gratitude. Appreciation of what we had, that he was healthy until the end, that we saw the accident (as traumatic as that was for us) and were with him immediately, that he died without drawn out suffering.

    There’s a tendency to look at what you could have done differently and to say, “If only I had done something differently there would have been a different outcome.” But there’s no purpose in that.

    Everything is as G-d wants it to be, and everything is for our good, even when we can’t see it. Nothing that happens is a mistake or because we didn’t do something we should have done. I told my oldest son last night, we don’t know the calculations that G-d makes. Who knows what we were meant to lose or experience, and in His compassion our dog was taken instead.

    The next morning, I was speaking with another son, who told me that there’s a concept in Judaism that when a person accepts what happens to him with faith in G-d, it averts worse suffering.

    He also told me that an hour after Sheleg died, there was a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. It was on a packed bus leaving his neighborhood. Terrorists dressed as bus inspectors got on with machine guns and began shooting (this is what I heard, these details may not be fully accurate). Six people were killed and at least 21 injured before the terrorists were shot.

    Israel is a very small country, but this attack hits closer to home for me than most of the news. Yes, I’m sad about the loss of my dog and I’ve spoken with all of our children about giving themselves room to feel the sadness and not to minimize it because ‘he was just a dog’, but there are so many horrible things that happen in the world and I’m grateful that our family didn’t experience a much more serious loss.

    May we see revealed blessing for us all.

    Avivah

  • Changes for more enjoyable Shabbos prep

    Today I did some housecleaning on the blog – I’ve been overwhelmed by hundreds of spam posts by AI bots. I found that in the midst of those of almost 500 in the last month that still weren’t deleted were about fifteen legitimate comments from the last couple of years that I didn’t see and therefore didn’t approve. If you commented at some point and thought you were being ignored, please know that it wasn’t intentional, but a matter of falling through the digital cracks.

    ————————-

    Today (Thursday) I’m doing the bulk of my Shabbos cooking. I usually do most of my cooking on Friday, but am shifting my schedule after a conversation with my husband and sixteen y ear old son.

    Our almost 18 year old is now living in the yeshiva dorm and will only be home every few weeks for Shabbos. Every time someone moves out, the logistics in the home shift and we discussed what would make our Shabbos more enjoyable.

    We began by discussing erev Shabbos preparations, since that affects how you go into Shabbos.

    We agreed we’d all like to be ready earlier – we’re usually almost ready a couple of hours before Shabbos, but that bit that isn’t quite done keeps us from feeling completely able to relax. We don’t like the feeling of work that goes on and on. We would all like to take a nap in the afternoon, so that we aren’t tired by the time we begin our meal after 8 pm.

    Friday is the only day that my son and husband are both available to do things around the house. Those tasks get done at a slow pace, because they both help in the kitchen. I recognized that I’m less appreciative of this assistance than I generally am of the things they do, because what I really want is for them to knock out the ever growing list of home repairs.

    Here’s the plan we worked out together:

    I’ll switch my cooking day to Thursday, leaving Friday for soup and fresh salads. Last night I did a shopping trip that I usually would have done this morning, so that I would have an uninterrupted block of time for cooking today.

    I’ve always preferred to bake challah on Fridays so it’s fresh, but now I’ll bake it in advance and wrap it well before freezing it. I’ve found when I do that, it’s still tastes very fresh when defrosted.

    Last week I made a double batch of challah dough and froze half of it, so I defrosted the dough last night. I was able to shape the dough into challahs when I got up at 5 am. They rose while I got the kids ready for school and the freshly baked challahs were in the freezer by 10 am. That was nice to have done.

    I’ve made the meat and chicken, and as soon as I finish writing this, will prepare a pan of potatoes and sweet potatoes, then bake them all at once while I take a nap.

    My plan is to have all the laundry washed and hung up in time for it to dry by Thursday evening, so I don’t need to deal with any laundry on Friday. I have one load of whites in the washer right now, and then maybe I’ll do a small load of towels, but otherwise all of the laundry was done yesterday.

    My son and husband will do the cleaning on Thursday night, so we’ll all wake up to a house that is ready for Shabbos. Just as I preferred freshly baked challahs on Friday, my eighteen year old son preferred freshly mopped floors on Friday afternoons. He was the one doing the mopping, so that was his schedule.

    Now with his job shifting to someone else, the mopping will be done in advance, with a quick damp wipe of the floors an hour before Shabbos.

    Instead of helping in the kitchen, my husband and son will have a set time for home repairs/projects, on Friday from 10 am – 1 pm. 1 pm is the hard stop time; they will be completely finished before or by 1 pm. None of us want to finish all we need to do early, and then fill our time with more tasks.

    All of the youngest four kids are home by 1. Once they get home, we’ll all have quiet time (this was our routine every day of the summer) so that everyone will be able to rest and feel fresh by the time Shabbos begins.

    It’s helpful to periodically reassess what is working well in your home and what isn’t. Our previous schedule was working well for a long time for all of us and it was still okay, but we realized we could all feel more of a sense of accomplishment, connection and relaxation by making these changes.

    Have you changed how you’ve done things for a long time to make it better? What did you do differently?

    Avivah

  • Neglecting to thank myself for a summer well done

    It’s been a long and busy summer, and it’s only now with just a few remaining days until the school year begins that I’m able to carve out some time to write.

    I’ve had some disappointment with myself these last couple of months – not being patient enough, not having a better daily schedule for the kids, not being physically active enough, not consistently eating well, not regularly having a menu plan for the family.

    But the summer happened, and the kids had a great time. I may not have created art projects for them, but I gave them markers and papers, scissors and tape, and they made their own projects.

    There wasn’t a weekly menu plan, but we still had three homemade meals and snacks every day.

    There were messes all day long, but they got cleaned up and I even got some decluttering done.

    We didn’t do amazing trips but the younger kids were happy with our park outings and a trip to the beach. We did a house swap and spent three days in Beit Shemesh, where we spent time with married children and grandchildren.

    While I was feeling inadequate that our days felt like an effort and everything wasn’t running like a well-oiled machine (‘if only I had a better schedule!’), overall everyone was content.

    With just a couple more days before they go back to school, I can step back and recognize how much energy was needed to keep the days running smoothly for everyone. It takes time and effort to have lots of people around all day long.

    Telling myself it would feel easier if I was more organized wasn’t helpful. As I often remind my family, “Done is better than perfect”, and I need to regularly remind myself of that, too.

    I don’t think I’m the only parent feeling tired after a long summer with everyone home. We all deserve huge pats on the back for what we’ve done these last two months! I tend to neglect to appreciate myself, minimizing my efforts while focusing on what I could do better. Not good.

    It was a good summer for our children of all ages, and despite not having ‘me-time’, I can say it was a good summer for me, too. Yes, it’s been a lot of work, and yes, I’m very much looking forward to quieter mornings. But I’ve done a good job.

    Please give yourself some appreciation and loving affirmations for all of your hard work!

    Avivah