Post Purim recap

marriage, parenting, personal development

What a beautiful Purim we had!

It was of course a very full and busy day. I did the deliveries with all of the kids for the mishloach manot, which I usually ask my husband to do while I prepare for the Purim seuda. But this year he wasn’t feeling 100% and I wanted him to be able to rest before the seuda. I actually really enjoy doing the deliveries and it was nice to get out with them.

In the process of assembling mishloach manot

We made a lot of stops with all of the kids getting out almost every time, so when we came home we were all pretty tired. My husband and teen boys announced they needed to go to shul right after we got back, and being so tired with still so much work do, I was aware of feeling much closer to the edge of irritation than I usually feel. Even though my seventeen year old organizes the learning after mincha, I told them I was too tired to get ready and take care of the kids for the next two hours on my own, and requested they come home without staying for the learning so they could help get ready for the seuda.

Women: if you don’t ask for what you need, the chances are high you won’t get it and then you’ll be resentful that someone didn’t read your mind – which isn’t really fair. Men are generally pretty accommodating if you directly (without hostility) let them know what you need.

They came home and encouraged me to take a nap while they got ready, which I agreed to, even though part of me was concerned everything wouldn’t be done the way I wanted it. I woke up right after our guests arrived, and everything was ready without me being there to supervise. It wasn’t perfect but overall everything looked great.

In the middle of the meal, my married daughter and family came to visit, and soon after we were joined by another family. It was a festive and upbeat atmosphere that we all enjoyed and during the post-Purim recap, our teens appreciated what a fun and enjoyable Purim they had.

The younger kids had a great time, too, and though we kept them all up until everything was over, ds6 bitterly complained about being expected to go to bed. He began cursing me in “Arabic” and spitting at me, which isn’t rare behavior for him when he’s tired but he doesn’t usually lose himself so much that he expresses himself in that way towards me. He was so upset that when I tried to hold him and calm him down, his entire body was shaking while he yelled that he wasn’t going to sleep. I never put him in bed without our nighttime routine of singing and hugs, but that night it was clear he needed to go directly into bed. He kept yelling and crying until a few minutes later, he was sound asleep.

Sometimes kids need active direction, and sometimes you have to realize when they’re so emotionally beyond their capacity that they can’t be directed. In that case, they need compassion while helping them meet their underlying need (in this case, putting to bed an overexhausted child).

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We had a slow morning today. The kids were all home, and after all the stimulation of the day before, I consciously wanted to keep the pace very mellow so everyone could regroup.

The older boys and I have been talking about planning a family camping trip for the upcoming bein hazmanim (yeshiva break). Ds16 took out tents and sleeping bags to take inventory of what we have and what we need. He assembled the large family sized tent and let it stand for a few hours so the younger kids could play inside.

Meanwhile, ds14 found a can of Pepsi that he was given on Purim. We don’t drink it but find it useful once a year when it’s given to us – he asked me if he could show dd6 how to clean the toilet with it. It’s very acidic and rather than drink it and have it leach minerals from our bones, we take advantage of those qualities to scrub the toilet. A bonus is the bathroom is really clean now.

Then I asked dd14 to take a look at our washer and see if he can figure out why it’s not draining fully before I buy a new one. He took it apart but didn’t have any luck solving the problem. It might be time to replace it, but I’m reluctant since it’s a heavy duty non-computerized US model and I can’t find anything similar here.(I’m open to suggestion if you know of something that has a ten kilo capacity or more that is well-made.) On the other hand, if I do have to buy a new washing machine, I have a repurposing project in mind for the old washer.

Ds14 generously offered to watch the kids so I could go to a clothing sale in the area; it was a sale of brand new clothing that was being sold for the ridiculously cheap price of five shekels each – overstocks and end of season items. I did a lot of shopping for dd6 last week, and today I finished buying her summer wardrobe. I was pleasantly surprised to find clothing for myself and with seven new skirts for the whopping sum of forty shekels (with tax) I’m also set for the upcoming hot weather now.

I met my daughter at the sale, and she and her kids came back home with us to spend time here. They stayed until it was almost time for me to leave to take the twins for a visit with their parents. My daughter took ds7 back with her for special time at her house, which is really nice because it’s hard for him that the twins come home from their visits with snacks and presents, and he doesn’t get any of that. We try very hard to find ways to give him extra nurturing to offset some of the challenges he experiences as a result of them being here. I took ds11 to visit my mom, so he also had special time while I went to the mediation center.

The twins’ parents brought the costumes they’ve been talking about for six weeks, which was good. Ds’s soldier costume included a gun that they told him I would put the batteries in. They consistently give him battery powered toys and tell him that when he gets home he can put batteries in. They have no way of knowing that I’m the wrong person to expect to take care of this because I have a strong dislike of electronic toys. For years I’ve disabled any electronic toy that I’ve bought. I explained to ds6 that it’s fun to play with it without batteries, too. Since all the toys he gets are so poorly made that they break after a day or two, he won’t have a chance to think more about the batteries before this toy is broken.

It was nice that today was on the mellow side, since the schedule for this week is already full with IEP meetings for each of the twins, speech therapy for ds7 and ds11 on Wednesday, and a couples meeting for my husband and I with dd6’s therapist. That leaves one day this week with no meetings currently scheduled, but don’t worry, it will get filled up soon!

In addition to that, tomorrow it’s a high priority for me to make some calls and/or have some meetings regarding a group of boys that jumped ds11 on Shabbos morning when he walked by their shul, and crossed the street to push him around and kick him. To put it mildly, there’s a very challenging population involved and that’s all I’ll say about that for now except to add that it’s not acceptable.

Avivah

Purim preparations

homemaking

We’re busy with Purim preparations around here!

Dd6 and ds6 had Purim parties in their kindergartens yesterday for which they dressed up in costumes. The twins’ parents told them during a visitation almost six weeks ago that they were bringing costumes for them and told them what costumes they were buying for each of them. They’ve been talking about wearing them literally every day. During that very visit, I purchased the costume for ds11 from a branch of the same store that their father works in, and when they came out of the visit talking about the costumes, I knew exactly what their parents were planning to buy.

Two weeks later we had a missed visitation when the kids were sick, then had a video call in which the parents again told them about the costumes. A week later, I took them for another visit with their parents, and asked the supervising social worker to be sure the kids dressed in their new costumes and their parents took pictures for themselves.

They came out an hour later LOADED with treats – two big bags filled with candies and wafer and snack bags – but no costumes. I asked the social worker where the costumes were – she blithely responded that they would bring them to the next visit two weeks later – after Purim.

The next time the twins were talking about the costumes their parents were going to give them, I gently told them that they weren’t going to be seeing their parents before Purim. I didn’t tell them they wouldn’t be dressing up in the anticipated costumes but they realized it on their own. It was sad to me when after five weeks of talking every day about wearing the costumes from their parents, without any discussion between them or me, they suddenly switched to talking about different costumes. They were very excited about the costumes I got them and dd6 was so sweet in thanking me repeatedly after I surprised her with a crown and makeup, to add to the costume she knew she would be wearing.

I wasn’t excited about the costumes they were supposed to get, but I was frustrated that their parents had talked about it so much, for so long, and then didn’t deliver on their promises. I know they have their issues but I had a hard time justifying this oversight as their father works every single day in the store that sells them and they’ve been in stock for many weeks. I asked our social worker to convey to the parents’ social worker that even though it will be after Purim, it would be good for the children if they bring the costumes to the next visit. That way, their disappointment will be mitigated and they can still use them for dress-up during the year (the younger three kids play dress-up about five days a week).

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Today was Taanis Esther (Fast of Esther), and ds7 and ds11 had the day off. Since ds6 went off the rails emotionally after coming home from his class Purim party yesterday, I thought it would be good to keep him home and help him settle his nervous system. With Purim being such a busy and stimulating time, carving out some quiet and connection time seemed like a good thing to do. I then decided to keep dd6 home, too, and I’ll keep them home tomorrow (Friday) as well so they’ll go into Purim as rested and calm as possible. (My daughter told me that in Jerusalem Friday is a day off for the schools, but that’s not the case for our area – it seems there are different official holiday dates in different parts of the country.)

We all took ds14 to Tiberias to buy the remaining accessories for the costumes for him, ds16 and my husband, and pick up his suit for Pesach. (I took the boys suit shopping for Pesach at the beginning of the week but the suit he wanted wasn’t in stock in his size so they ordered it for him). The three of them are doing a theme of chasidim and needed streimels (fur hats) and white knee socks. I bought their bekeshes (long satin coats), chasidish tzitzis and chasidish kippas at a second hand place in Bet Shemesh. Planning their costumes together has heightened the anticipation for Purim.

Afterwards I took the younger four kids on a really nice trip. There was a lot of running around in the fresh air and it was just what they all needed after being in the car for so long. By the time we got home, we had been out for five and a half hours; the kids were exhausted and so was I. Bless my husband, who gave them all dinner and put them to bed.

As I said to one of my teens today, Purim is a holiday for the organized woman! There are so many things to do: prepare costumes for children, hear the megilla read in the evening and morning, prepare mishloach manot and deliver them all, keep the children fed and entertained throughout the day so they don’t get overdosed on sugar, and prepare the food for a festive Purim meal. This year there’s even more to do since Purim begins immediately after Shabbos ends, so there’s all the Shabbos preparations to do as well as the Purim preparation!

I took a nap while my husband did bedtime so I could get up to to get a start on preparing mishloach manos in a quiet kitchen. I always try to give foods that can be used for the Purim meal, and this year plan to give kugel and a couple of salads.

Several weeks ago I ordered some decorative boxes for the mishloach manos. When they arrived, they were bigger than I had pictured. I decided to use them anyway but filling them requires making bigger quantities of foods than I had intended. Fortunately I have plenty of ingredients to make many multiples of each recipe. I have a mountain of eggshells and in the morning our chickens will happy to eat them all. (I crumble them first.)

I stayed up very late to get the Purim baking finished. Since I’m an early riser staying up late isn’t usually the best use of my energy, but in addition to all the regular things that need to be done for Shabbos, in the morning I’ll need to get ds11 and ds7 ready for their class Purim parties and take dd6 to her therapist appointment. I’m so glad to have all the cakes and kugels baked and wrapped, and the salads are almost finished as well – they just have to be put into containers.

My husband and boys did a lot of the prep work to make this easier for me, and while we were up late together, I advised my sixteen year old son regarding how to make granola he wanted to make (he’s giving yogurt and granola). My fourteen year old son also made a large pan of lemon mousse for the Purim meal. He’ll be making Yerushalmi kugel in the morning to go along with the crackers and herring he’s already prepared. There so much to do and it’s nice to have all of this taken care of.

Now on to Shabbos and Purim meal preparations!

Avivah

Recognizing and replacing limiting financial thinking

personal development

Recently, we needed to make a cash purchase on short notice for a sum that was higher than the daily maximum able to be withdraw from the ATM.

Since it was too late in the day to go to the bank and withdraw the necessary sum, we scraped together all the cash we had in the house that was set aside for different purposes. I assumed that in the next day or two I would withdraw the sum we ‘borrowed’ from ourselves from the bank and replace it. I delayed doing that, however, since the next day I saw that a large sum owed to us that was supposed to have been deposited wasn’t made. I decided to wait until that was paid before making the withdrawal to replace the cash.

Over the next day I noticed something really interesting.

When I got to an appointment much earlier than I expected, I began considering what to do while I waited for my appointment. “I could stop at the grocery store.” No, you don’t have any cash with you. “Oh, there’s a toy store with costumes; maybe they have the dress-up hat I’m looking for??” No, you don’t have any cash with you.

Then I thought about scheduling a trip I wanted to take the boys on at some time in the future, which reminded me I didn’t have cash for it. As thoughts went through my mind during the morning hours, to all of those that involved money I told myself, “You don’t have money for that.”

Until that morning, I didn’t realize how often thoughts connected to money went through my head. Since I generally keep cash available for my discretionary spending, when a thought about spending goes through my mind, I tell myself, “Sure, I can do that.” Sometimes I make the purchase; more often than not it remains a thought. But I was continually telling myself “Yes, I have the resources and I can do that.”

I could mentally spend the same thousand shekels many times over, and it was still sitting in my wallet after all of it! These thoughts of abundance were creating and reinforcing a sense of prosperity in me.

I didn’t realize how positive all those thoughts were until I experienced the contrast. After just four hours of telling myself, “You don’t have and you can’t,” I felt so deprived. It didn’t matter that I didn’t need any of these things, and it didn’t matter that I have the money to replace the cash sitting in my bank account. What mattered is that I kept telling myself I couldn’t have those items/experiences.

This was a powerful reminder for me of how important it is to pay attention to the thoughts we allow into our heads! I haven’t yet withdrawn the cash, but I’m now more conscious of what I was telling myself and replacing those thoughts with ‘Yes’ thoughts.

I remember years ago hearing someone talk about keeping a hundred dollars in his pocket, because it created a sense of prosperity in him. I now understand exactly what he was talking about!

Avivah

Keeping kids full – what I feed them first thing in the day

health

This week when I took my six year old to kindergarten, his teacher told me the day before he was very hungry when he came to school. He and ds7 took an especially long time to get dressed and he only had time for a banana or two before he left, so I wasn’t surprised. I pack his lunch box with enough food that he can eat something as soon as he gets to school if he wants to. All the kids eat as soon as they get to school even though the official meal time is at 10 am meal time.

I mentioned that today he’ll be fine since he had a cheese omelet before leaving home. “What, an omelet?” she exclaimed. “Of course he’ll be hungry. I would also be hungry if all I had was an omelet and cheese. You have to give him fruit to fill him up.” (She seems to have missed the detail that the day before he ate fruit and was hungry.)

This same teacher told me a few months ago that he was very hungry when he arrived at school each morning. On that day, I told her he had eaten two apples with peanut butter, two hard boiled eggs and a cup of milk before going to school, literally fifteen minutes before arriving in his classroom and saying he was hungry.

I explained that as is common with foster children, there is an emotional component to his hunger due to growing up without predictability with regards to food, so the hunger is usually not physical. (Dd6’s teachers realized this very quickly before I spoke to them about it.)

After hearing all of the above, she insisted he was hungry because I didn’t give him crackers, because fruit and eggs aren’t filling. I found it ironic when a week later I heard her tell another parent that children need a fruit before going to school so they won’t be hungry. She insisted that she has experience as a parent and she knows this to be a fact. (Her oldest is ten.) I suggested to her that we each know what works best for our children.

Since the twins are one of the first to arrive in their kindergartens, I regularly see children walking to school or to their classrooms eating their breakfasts. I’ve seen this particular teacher’s children eating chocolate bars and wafers, and that’s typical of what I see children eating. Today I saw a child having a bag of chocolate milk, another sucking on a foil bag of fake juice, another with a bag of pretzels. Wafers, tea biscuits and cornflakes in sandwich bags are very common. The twins used to have cookies for breakfast in their last home, and their foster mother was relatively health conscious.

Processed carbohydrates are not foods that will stabilize blood sugar and provide steady energy for the body and brain. Instead, snack foods like these set a child up to have blood sugar highs and lows, with foggy brains, difficulty focusing and behavior issues. There was a study done years ago in which sugar was removed from the diet of prison inmates and they saw an immediate and drastic reduction in fights. Don’t you think that doing the same for school children would result in calmer and happier children?

What do I give our children in the mornings? Until recently, I was giving each child a fruit (usually an apple or banana), sometimes with peanut butter, two or three hard boiled eggs and goat milk. I stopped giving them hard boiled eggs a few weeks ago since the twins only eat the whites.

Interestingly, dd’s teacher told me that lately she’s been extremely fidgety, and suggested I should get her evaluated for attention deficit issues since her inability to sit still will be an issue in first grade. I didn’t think to ask how long they had noticed this increased fidgetiness. I wonder if the lack of protein first thing in the day was a contributing factor to her behavior change to any degree, and am now being more careful that the four younger children all have more protein first thing in the day.

Though we think of fruit as a healthy snack – and it’s better than pop tarts or boxed cereal by far – it still has a good bit of sugar in it. It tastes good in the mouth, but doesn’t have the fat necessary to cause the brain to register satiety and it doesn’t keep their blood sugar levels optimal. It’s important for all children to have stable blood sugar, but particularly those with ADD/ADHD, as it keeps their brains and bodies on a more even keel.

As such I’m experimenting with moving away from fruit in the morning, and am looking to increase the amount of protein I get into them before the school day begins. Since I’m trying to minimize grains, whole grain breakfast bars, muffins, cookies or hot cereals like oatmeal and polenta infrequently make an appearance before school, even though I enjoy making them and the kids of course like eating them!

Here’s some of what I’ve been giving them lately:

Cottage cheese mixed with sour cream – all of the kids like this and it’s really filling so this is great.

Scrambled eggs with butter – sometimes I give them cottage cheese or sour cream on the side

Cheese omelets – I scramble five or six eggs and cook them in butter in a large frying pan. I add shredded cheese on top to half of the pan, then fold it over and slice it into four portions. When they finish, I make a second batch for anyone who wants more.

Spelt pancakes – to boost the protein content, I increased the ratio of eggs from one egg to one cup of flour, to 6 eggs for one cup of flour. They all like this a lot, but since I’m trying to minimize grains it’s not something I’m going to make more than once a week.

Almond flour pancakes – like the spelt pancakes above, the kids like this a lot but due to almonds being so high in oxalates which build up in the body and can later cause painful issues (kidney stones are an oxalate overload issue), I try to keep my use of almond flour to a minimum.

Cottage cheese pancakes – cottage cheese combined with egg and some almond flour or gelatin (fish based) – I haven’t yet made them but they’re on my list to try in the next few days.

Butternut squash muffins – this is a GAPS friendly recipe that uses baked and blended butternut squash combined with eggs and peanut butter with a little bit of sweetener. So far they liked the maple syrup version best.

Chocolate pudding – I used this recipe as a base; it uses hard boiled eggs as a base, blended up, which is a simply brilliant concept. I tweaked the recipe, made this the night before, poured it into individual cups and put in in the fridge to set overnight. Since usually the kids have flavored yogurts for Shabbos breakfast (which they call pudding), this was very exciting for them! However, seeing how messy some of them got, I’ve decided to save it for Shabbos mornings to preclude the need to spot clean their clothes or have them get dressed again on a busy school morning.

I’ve just bought a waffle maker with the intention to ‘package’ high protein ingredients in a fun way. That will be something I begin experimenting with next week.

Eventually if I get around to making cheeses with our goat milk (right now cheesemaking is very much on my back burner) I can add that to the morning foods or foods I send to school. Our teen boys make yogurt and soft cheeses, but it’s somewhat irregular.

I’m going to check in a few weeks with dd’s teacher and see if there have been any improvements in her fidgetiness. Ds6 is already the best behaved child in his class of 9, but I have a meeting with his main teacher (not the one mentioned above) next week and will be asking about if they notice any differences in his ability to stay focused.

A noticeable change in behavior would be a nice bonus, but I’ll continue feeding them in this way regardless. When I eat like this – ie high fat/moderate protein – it keeps me satiated for long periods of time.

What do you like to give your children for breakfast? What keeps them full the longest?

Avivah

When kids are sick – trusting the healing process

health

We’ve emerged from the two week period of sick children and it’s great to have everyone up and about again!

One of the flu symptoms everyone experienced was deep exhaustion One of my teen sons, seeing one of the younger boys sleeping a lot, asked me if it I felt worried to see such an active child completely passive for so long.

Although as a younger mother I got more nervous if a child was sick, in general twenty or thirty years ago people were more relaxed when a child was under the weather. It was understood that kids get sick and with time will get better; there wasn’t an expectation that we had to run to a doctor and medicate every symptom. With a lot of years of experience I’ve developed a steadfast sense of trust in the healing process.

When I look at a feverish child with flushed cheeks, huddled under a blanket and sleeping for long periods of time, I don’t feel anxious – I see the amazing ability of the human body to take care of itself, to cleanse itself of toxins and restore health and harmony to the body. The body is doing what it’s meant to do – burn out the bad stuff and build future immunity. While the body is working hard to neutralize the germs, the child is sleeping because the healing process takes a lot of energy. A child who just wants to sleep and isn’t interested in eating is doing just the right thing.

That fever is our friend and working hard for the child, if we can just let it do it’s job. This is why I don’t use fever reducers. (If a fever is extremely high, there are natural ways to bring it down, and I did once do this with a twelve year old whose fever spiked very high.)

To nurture the child during this time, I’ll give him drinks, warm blankets, a hot water bottle, and let him sleep in unusual places that bring him comfort. For most of the kids this was in the living room, on a mattress on the floor or on the couch. On one sunny day, I placed mattresses outside and three of them slept for hours in the sun. Sometimes I’ll take steps to address other symptoms (eg homemade onion honey cough syrup for coughing), and giving vitamin D is a great way to shorter the duration and the intensity of the symptoms.

But overall, my job is to stay calm and support the healing process.

One of my grandsons was sick and my daughter called to ask about when she should go to a doctor. I don’t tell my children to do with their children; I’ll only offer my person experience and perspective. My position is, if you feel worried, go to the doctor. I’ve done that several times over the years when something was outside of my experience and it provided confirmation that the child just had a virus and I could relax.

Right now the flu is going around, so I share this perspective with the hope that it may be of encouragement and support to you when your children are feeling under the weather. Remember, the flu is a vitamin D deficiency – some doctors have said you can not get the flu unless your vitamin D is low. Read my post here that talks about the vitamin D hammer for the flu.

Avivah

Foster care – rising to the challenge and finding the fun in ‘playing the game’

parenting, personal development

It’s been over a week with all the kids home sick.

When I started feeling under the weather, did I do anything I would tell someone else to do to boost their immune system?

No, I did not.

I so infrequently get sick that I thought that would be unnecessary.

Well, after spending three and a half days in bed while my husband took off from work to take care of me and the kids, I can say I was wrong.

A nice thing about having to rest is it gives one a lot of time to think. My mind has been churning on a few topics and I’m making significant progress on them all. It’s quite exciting.

In my last post, I shared that we will be having a surprise visit to check on our home and the kids. This was very stressful for me to think about.

The first day everyone was home sick, the kids were all sleeping in the living room and on the patio outside for hours. I couldn’t go anywhere, but I didn’t need to do much for them because they were all sleeping all day long. I got lots done in the kitchen, and as I was working throughout that day, I was picturing what it would look like if someone would come in at various points.

Even though I was on top of everything and the kids weren’t active so they didn’t make any messes, it became clear that even in the very best of circumstances my house can never be spotless when people are actively living in it.

I cook everything from scratch, so there’s constant peeling or slicing or whizzing in the food processor. I don’t use disposable dishes and combined with cooking from scratch, that means there are constantly pots and dishes being used and needing to be washed. I don’t have cleaning help. I do kitchen projects like making pickles or homemade apple cider which take up counter space (I strained my apple cider that very afternoon). I often get large quantities of produce that can be sitting around waiting to be processed or put away. That afternoon I put two huge pans of dried chickpeas on the counter to soak to prepare for canning.

One gaping flaw in the design of my home is that when you enter, you walk directly into the kitchen. It’s beyond absurd to have the mostly highly used room in the home be the first thing people see. Do you know how unrealistic it is to always have your kitchen company ready? It wasn’t actually designed like this, but the contractor took a shortcut in all the houses and reversed the location of the living room and kitchen rather than sticking to the plans.

At the end of that day of watching myself doing all that I do, it was clear to me that I could not and would not allow this woman in my home on the spur of the moment. It doesn’t matter how organized I am, how hard I work – it’s just impossible for me to have a home that looks like people don’t live here when so many people do. I called my social worker the next day and informed her that person is welcome to come any time she wants, but as would anyone else who wants to visit, she can call me to set up a time.

That was very freeing, and took away most of the stress I was feeling. While things can get very messy in the course of the day, I don’t have a problem having the house very clean for a scheduled visit.

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I wasn’t sure how this boundary was going to be received and in fact didn’t set this sooner because I felt hamstrung by my concern for the kids. I don’t want her to get so angry that she would feel she had an excuse to pull them from us, but I have to protect my boundaries. My home is my sanctuary, my safe place, and I can’t allow that to be taken from me.

I’ve had to make my peace with her threats to remove them. My social worker said she’s never going to be able to find someone else to take both children, but that was scant reassurance for me. I know it’s not a priority to her if they stay together or even if they end up in a family home. I believe she would be fine with placing them in an educational institution as soon as they’re old enough (I believe some children’s villages accept children at the age of six).

During the day I’m pretty matter of fact about the threats to remove them if I don’t do exactly what she wants, but twice in the last ten days I’ve had intense nightmares involving the twins being taken away. I woke up a couple of nights ago to my husband very worriedly bent over me – he said I was screaming in my sleep. I’ve never, ever done that in my life. This brought me to contemplating why I was reacting to this threat like this, to try to create some emotional distance.

I look at the twins sometimes and my heart clutches knowing how vulnerable they are.
Since they have challenging behaviors that require a lot of patience and understanding that most people don’t consistently have, the likelihood of abuse is high if placed somewhere else. They are so trusting of us, and it’s because they feel safe that so many of their behaviors have calmed down or disappeared. It pains me knowing how limited my ability to protect them is.

All of this criticism of me and worry about the kids is bringing me to the same place – to let go of my ego and fears, and to turn to Hashem (G-d), knowing this entire circumstance is being orchestrated for the highest good of everyone involved. I wanted to raise them to be healthy adults, and it’s very possible I won’t have the opportunity to do what I thought I would. It’s possible they’ll experience having to be different places that I would want to protect them from. But that’s also part of the plan. Thanks to all the thinking and processing time I had while I was in bed sick for a few days, at this point I feel pretty solid with that, not just intellectually but emotionally.

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I’ve shifted to being irritated at the demands and insinuations that I’m not careful enough about their hygiene, to accepting as a fact of life that you have to put on a show when dealing with the system. I hate that kind of thing, particularly since it seems incredibly unnecessary since everything is so good without making a special effort to try to impress anyone. But now I’m embracing the challenge and even see ‘playing the game’ as fun. Why shouldn’t I learn to do something better or in a different more efficient way if it will benefit me?

I asked myself, what make a child look more well-cared for then what I already do? Maybe more involved hair styles, different styles every day? Dd6 has waist length hair, and usually I make two long ponytails and braid them both. Dd is very sensitive and screams a lot when her hair is brushed and styled; this style takes ten minutes every morning and I haven’t wanted to ask her to stand still for something more involved than that.

Now I have a reason to spend more time on her hair. To get her buy-in, I let her watch a couple of braiding videos with me and then she requested for me to make those styles for her. To keep her calm while I do her hair, I let her look at a video of someone’s hair being styled. I’ve been doing this a week and she’s gotten used to fifteen minute sessions.

I often made French braids for my older daughters when they were young, and for a few days I’ve made her French braids on each side of her head. Now I’m learning new styles – I’ve just mastered a fishtail braid today – and I even created a new hairstyle for Shabbos thanks to getting my creative juices flowing by watching different braiding techniques.

My oldest daughter mentioned there’s a way to fold clothes so they don’t get unfolded when a child moves things around. Now I’m learning about pocket folding and once I better understand how to use that method, the drawers will stay neater with less need for me to rearrange the drawer.

I decided that the night before they have visitation will now be their regular nail cutting time for them both, and scalp moisturizing time for ds6. I already give ds6 haircuts a couple of days after visitation, so that his hair grows out a little before his parents see him. Then it’s harder for them to feel if he has a little dry patch on his scalp (which I was taking care of for months before they noticed it and complained about it).

I take them directly from kindergarten to the visitation, and now I’m going to build in fifteen extra minutes to fix dd’s hair so it will be freshly done, and make sure she’s wearing her nicest clothing. It’s ironic that their parents complained about their clothing, because I was dressing the kids on the day of the visits in the clothing their parents bought them, thinking the parents would have pleasure seeing their children wearing it. The social worker told me that the parents commented that they really liked seeing the kids wearing the shoes and clothes they gave them – but it was just a week later that they made the specious complaint to the committee about me not dressing the children in clothing that fit them properly.

I’m a visual person, and I like when things are clean. I like when things are organized, and I like when children are nicely dressed – it gives me pleasure to see that. I’m going to enjoy raising the standard of whatever I’m doing because I want to do it; no one is forcing me to do any of this. I don’t feel like a victim of ridiculous dictates anymore. I’m choosing to see it as fun and expansive for me. Believe me, that feels worlds better than the way I was previously looking at it.

Avivah

Foster care – things that shouldn’t be a big deal but are

parenting

I’ve been struggling lately with some things going on after the last committee meeting for the twins. I can jokingly say that parenting by committee is not for wimps but honestly it’s so defeating that last week I felt like quitting – not because of the kids and the complexity of their issues, which I feel capable of dealing with, but because of the system.

Recap: the kids are doing amazingly in every area by everyone’s (sometimes grudging) opinion, far better than anyone expected, and certainly not in nine months. Their emotional and psychological health was given token attention at the committee because they needed to focus on what’s really important.

Dd’s bedroom – it must be pink, have two pictures on the wall and a rug between the beds. I already bought the sheets (with unicorns and rainbows), curtains and rug and am still looking for suitable wall hangings. While it looks cute, as I was hanging the curtains and changing the sheets there was resentment instead of pleasure to have been dictated to in this way. I was warned by someone who knows the person involved, who said she can and will pull the kids if we don’t do exactly what she said.

The other complaint was that dd’s clothing drawer needs to be better organized. I don’t think I previously mentioned that our visitor had all the kids open their closets and drawers for inspection when she came. Even though she had asked specific questions about how dd gets dressed and knew that dd chooses her clothing herself (with my guidance to make sure things match) and therefore jumbles her clothing in the process, this is something I’ve been told needs to be corrected. It’s frustrating because I already organize her drawer every day or two when I put clean clothes in, and the focus on this drawer when the entire house was neat and the boys’ drawers were organized is ridiculous to me.

Those were the official complaints. Sounds good? Let’s continue.

Onto the bio parents feedback. They see the children once or twice a month for an hour during supervised visitation. I was surprised that they acknowledged that the kids seem to be doing very well; I didn’t think they would have that level of awareness even though the change in the kids is visible.

When they spoke to the committee they claimed the children have dirty fingernails, ds smells like urine, they wear clothes that don’t fit properly, they don’t bathe regularly and I don’t tend to their appearance. I was taken aback when I heard this but more shocked that what they said was being considered as evidence.

Ironically, all of these claims were what was said about them and documented for months before the kids were removed from their care. My husband and I both believe they’re trying to make a case against us because they want to get the kids back, and these are things they know are a problem.

We not only have a thirty year history of parenting visibly well-cared for children, we’ve been foster parents for seven years and had monthly social worker visits and school checks all that time. Not only have we never received a complaint, but I get regular compliments on how cute dd always looks (people don’t usually comment on boys’ attire). The teachers have all told the social worker the kids are always clean and dressed appropriately, and dd’s teacher filed a report in which she stated that dd’s hygiene and clothing was at the highest level – which the social worker has seen herself every time she’s done a school or home visit.

None of the facts matter, and I was perplexed why the statements of the parents were being taken as evidence of my neglectful care, particularly in light of their own history. It’s typical of bio parents whose children are in foster care to be very critical of small details; that’s a known phenomenon. But why is the positive testimony that contradicts these false claims being ignored?

It also seems irrelevant how amazing the progress of the children has been.

We are now mandated to have twice monthly meetings with the social worker with a walkthrough of our home each time. Previously she came once a month. We had a walkthrough once before ds7 came as part of the approval process, then never again. For the twins, we had a walkthrough/inspection prior to them coming, and then again when the guardian ad litem came. So having inspections twice a month is out of the norm, particularly when there was nothing wrong except the two points above (lack of pink and the jumbled clothing drawer).

Our social worker is embarrassed to have to do this and has told me though it’s completely unnecessary she has no choice.

Additionally, the guardian ad litem is planning a surprise visit. She will come unannounced when the kids are home and expect a walkthrough of our home on the spur of the moment. We have no idea when this will be.

This has been very stressful to think about, as she has a very critical eye and no tolerance for a mess, regardless of the circumstances. You can imagine if she was upset about the lack of pink sheets and the clothing in the drawer when the house was very neat, what she’ll say when she comes into an actively lived-in home during the most hectic hours of the day.

I don’t understand how this is legal – in the US, police can’t enter the home of suspected criminals without a search warrant. But I haven’t done anything wrong …and still have to have this imposed on me? Having this person in my home feels unsafe to me.

I told my social worker I can’t understand why I’m being treated with suspicion despite all the evidence to the contrary. It just doesn’t make sense.

Since we’re also now being mandated to have parenting classes every other week, I set up a meeting with dd’s therapist. She called our social worker to find out what is going on and thanks to her, learned something that made the puzzle pieces fall into place.

I knew that my social worker was holding back on things this person said about us (before she ever met us ) from a couple of comments about hoping this person could let go of her prejudices once she met us. At the end of our meeting, our therapist explained that the legal rep won’t believe any of the feedback of teachers who see the kids daily because they are all religious, and “It’s known that charedim have a low standard of hygiene.”

This seems to be why what the parents said is taken as factual – because it supports her bigoted beliefs about religious Jews. It’s clear to me that the truth is irrelevant and nothing I do will change her perspective. In fact, I think she’s looking for something that will validate her strong opposition to us before the kids came, to prove to everyone that she was right to not want them here. She thinks we’re lying and so is anyone else who says something in support of us.

I’ve been feeling angry and frustrated and distressed about this for over a week. I’ve tried very, very hard to see everyone involved in a favorable light but at this point there’s not a bone in my body that believes that what is good for the children is the priority.

I’m being treated like an employee who has to do what she’s told, but social services is the last ’employer’ I’d want anything to do with if not for my desire to help the children. I don’t have a voice at all, I can’t say anything to defend myself or explain during the committee meeting – everything is decided on and then handed down to me without my input or clarification.

Generally I move away from dysfunctional people and unhealthy situations and minimize engagement; I don’t try to defend or justify myself. Now I’m forced to deal with an unhealthy system that I’d rather stay far away from, and I find it upsetting that I have to detail how often I bathe the kids and wash their hair, how often I cut their nails, explain that I dress the children in clothing that fits appropriately, etc, etc, etc.

I’ve been tempted to take a picture of the coats I put them in and contrast that with a picture of the oversized coats the parents gave them that will fit them in a year or two (They claimed they had to buy them coats because what I gave them was much too big.) Or to ask the supervisory social worker to note in her report that she has yet to send in, that ds never smelled like urine except for when he wet himself during a visit with his parents because they didn’t take him to the bathroom.

Being told what to do and how to do something will always negatively impact someone’s intrinsic motivation. There was more conversation regarding expanding visitation with their parents and educational choices that may be mandated that may be very different than what we would choose for them, that even further created a question for me as how to stay lovingly engaged with the children when it feels safer for me to detach.

It’s been challenging as I’ve been working through all of these emotions that were stirred up. It’s only today that I found inner calm about it all, and was able to put it all emotionally to the side. It is what it is, and I don’t want to give away my peace of mind to anyone involved.

Avivah

My new financial goal – focus on paying off mortgage early

frugal strategies

This past May, the engine on our van went out and we didn’t want to invest in putting a new engine into a 2006 vehicle. Though I was planning to upgrade our vehicle, I hadn’t yet built the ‘new car account’ high enough to buy what I wanted.

We brought the twins home four days later, and almost immediately needed to take them to appointments. It was an incredibly hectic time and we had not even an extra moment to shop around for car loans so we did something out of character – we took a loan for the car through our bank since it was automatically approved, with monthly payments for a year.

The interest rate started off at 11% and was up to 11.5% two months later.

I don’t like debt but that interest rate was extra motivating. I buckled down hard on getting this paid off, throwing every bit of extra money that came in at this loan. I was so relieved and gratified to make the final payment less than three months after we took the loan.

Our success in paying down the car loan inspired me to set a very ambitious goal that I’m excited about: to have our mortgage paid off by December 2025.

When we made aliya twelve years ago we started over financially at the bottom of the ladder. It was really tough and it took a few years until we began to get some traction. That has built slowly but steadily, thank G-d. When we bought our home in Israel, I felt acutely aware that taking a thirty year mortgage in our late thirties/early forties meant we would have a mortgage years after my husband’s official retirement age. By taking a home loan at a time in life that many people had paid their mortgages off, or were close to paying them off, we were financial late starters.

Though I always wished we could pay off our mortgage early, it wasn’t until we made the decision to move to Yavneel that we were able to make any progress on this goal. When we made the decision to buy a home in Yavneel, we could have purchased at a comparable cost to what we sold our previous home for, or since we qualified for a higher mortgage amount, bought something more expensive.

That didn’t fit our goal of going into retirement mortgage-free. I was adamant about buying below our budget. When we looked at different homes for sale, we chose a large home with a beautiful view, opposite fields and next to an orchard, and very easy walking distance to the shul. In was also a fixer-upper in a rundown neighborhood; there wasn’t a single indoor picture of the house shown on the online listing, or even a close up of the outside. There was a reason for that – there was no good picture to be had!

My daughter who viewed the house with us said she didn’t see what made us want to buy it, and when we moved in in March 2020, my kids looked around and later told me their first impressions were that it looked really bad. It wasn’t horrible, but there was nowhere you laid your eyes that didn’t need fixing or replacing.

We did the necessary renovations ourselves and fortunately the neighborhood has improved quite a bit since we bought. We took the difference from what we made on the sale of our previous home and what we bought our new home for, and by putting it toward our mortgage loan, we were able to pay down a third of our mortgage.

Our remaining mortgage is split into two parts: the first is the original fixed mortgage payment, set at 4.2% interest, to be paid off in 2037 (we were fortunate to get a mortgage when rates were super low). The second payment is the portion of our mortgage that we refinanced in January 2023 from a loan linked to inflation to a fixed rate of 5%. That loan was also initially set to end in 2037 but when we did the refinance, we slightly increased our monthly payments in order to shorten the length of the loan by five years, so it was reset to end in 2032.

As a homeowner in the US, it was easy to regularly put money toward the mortgage principle using a simple online payment. It didn’t have to be a large amount; I regularly put a hundred dollars toward the principle. That’s not an option here; at least not at our bank. When we asked the bank about how to make extra payments, they told us we can only do it for large amounts. I asked how much, and she told me a minimum of 50,000 shekels. We put money aside until we had enough for a payment of that amount. The process was not quick and easy and they charged us several thousand shekels as a fee for the interest they were losing. But it did bring down our mortgage some more.

After making that prepayment, I felt daunted about making more early payments. In any event, our daughter got married soon afterwards and our ‘extra’ funds were being put towards that. Then the twins came soon afterwards and we had the car to pay off. When I started actively thinking again about how to prepay our mortgage loans, I mentioned to my husband how frustrating and intimidating I found the prepayment process.

He informed me there’s a webpage on the bank site where you can easily prepay whatever amount you want. I was delighted to hear this and checked it out right away, only to find the webpage was down – and has continued to be non-functional for months. Apparently making it convenient for borrowers to pay off their mortgages even a bit early isn’t a priority.

Fortunately my husband and I are a good team; I comb through our budget to put towards the extra mortgage payment and he takes care of the hassle of making the payment. I’m going to share what’s involved and if you’re interested in making a one time or regular prepayment on your mortgage, knowing what is involved will make it more doable for you.

One huge thing I learned is that we don’t have to put down a very large amount, despite what I was previously told. It seems that the minimum payment you can make depends on the loan amount so you can’t throw five hundred shekels at it. And there is a fee of 60 shekels each time we make a prepayment, so it’s worth waiting a little longer and paying a larger amount to save a bit on the fee. I have no idea why we had to pay a penalty fee of thousands of shekels in the past when we prepaid a large amount.

First you have to call the bank to request a link to make the payment. It can take a long time to get someone on the phone but if you stick with it you’ll eventually get a representative. You let them know you want to make a partial mortgage payoff (siluk chilki), and choose to either make your monthly payment smaller to shorten the length of the loan. We choose the second option. They’ll send you a link to a form that tells you where to make the transfer.

Then you make the transfer, and fill out the form they sent with the details of what part of the mortgage you’re paying, the amount, the details of the transfer and upload the pdf from the bank of the transfer.

Once you do this, it will take three days until your mortgage will show the funds being credited to your account.

While this is annoying when it could easily be automated, it’s also not nearly as involved or as costly as I initially thought.

And it is so exciting to see the progress we’re making on the mortgage! I wanted to have a way to visually see our progress, so my husband made a chart that we keep on the fridge, with each block representing 5000 shekels paid off.

When I checked our mortgage balance before making our last prepayment, I was surprised to find it was ten thousand shekels less than I thought it should be based on the amount we paid off. When I did my original calculations, I forgot to take into account that our regular monthly payments were also paying off some of the principle. It was fun to be able to color in two more blocks on our chart – it felt like a freebie.

We’re working on first paying down the higher interest loan, and by making these early payments, we’ve already cut off four additional years off this loan since last year (the one that we shortened by 5 years when we refinanced last year) so after just a year, we’ve shaved nine years off the loan. It’s now set to end in 2028 versus 2037. My goal is to finish paying this one off in the next six months; assuming that happens, it will shorten the loan by thirteen years. That’s a lot of years of interest payments we’ll be saving.

Then we plan to tackle the remaining mortgage loan, using the monthly payment we previously paid for our first loan to accelerate our payments.

I was hesitant to set such an ambitious goal because I don’t like setting a goal and then not achieving it, and there are so many variables that are out of my hands that can affect my plans. But then I decided to set a goal that would energize and really motivate me, which this one does.

I talked to our teens before we did this, letting them know I’d be doing budget cutting. They were very supportive. One recently told me he thought we’d be eating rice and beans, sitting in the dark, and was disappointed by how ‘normal’ life felt. I laughed and told him we don’t have to give up all of our quality of life to do this! I’m thankful that all of our older children feel very abundant at the same time that we continue to live frugally.

I know that some people would say that the money could be invested in something that earns more interest than the interest we save by prepaying. While I’m sure there’s merit in that approach, I’m a financially conservative person and find comfort in the thought of having our primary residence paid for in full. The emotional benefits combined with the financial benefits make this a good choice for us. d financial benefits are worth it for us.

Have you paid off a mortgage early, or is it something you’re currently working towards? I’d love to hear your experience!

Avivah

A reading program for struggling readers, and a speech training program for struggling talkers

homeschooling, parenting, Trisomy 21

At the beginning of this school year, I attended a meeting for mothers of my first grader’s class.

When the teacher discussed the different things they would be doing, she mentioned that they would be beginning reading this year. I asked if they would be using the McGuiness reading method, and must have winced when she said they would, since she asked me if I had a problem with that.

I explained that it was extremely slow, and my eleven year old is still not reading Hebrew independently after three and a half years of McGuiness. He is very bright and I expected he would learn to read within a year; he unquestionably had the capacity. I was very optimistic and relieved that Hebrew reading was something I wasn’t going to have to teach when he began at this school but have since learned that the approach is agonizingly slow. I said that it was frustrating and disappointing for me because he wants to be able to read his parsha in shul for his bar mitzva, and I don’t see how that’s going to happen with this slow reading program.

My last comment caused a rash of whispering and shaking of heads amongst the other mothers. Clearly they thought I was completely unrealistic in my hopes for him and were tsk tsking to one another.

It’s interesting that not one of the other mothers came over to speak to me afterwards, even though I’m the only one in the class who has an older child in this school and has experience raising an older child with a disability. Maybe they were all put off by my comment.

One person wasn’t put off, and that was a new assistant. She came over to speak to me privately, and told me that a family member of hers trained in a different approach to reading and has seen a lot of success. She further explained that the course is available for parents so they can teach their own child to read.

I thanked her and looked it up right away when I got home. It’s a video training program for parents, accompanied by a workbook to use when learning with the child. It sounded interesting, but it was expensive and I was afraid to buy something like that and not see it through.

I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses. Systematic application of detailed programs are something I have to put a lot of conscious effort into, and I wasn’t sure that realistically I would be able to follow through. I have a tremendous amount on my plate at any given time, and it was the beginning of the school year and before the fall holidays, which are especially busy times. I was afraid I would buy the program and it would languish mostly unused, leaving me with guilt that I not only wasted the money but didn’t take steps to help my son with reading. I have enough things on my mental list that I wanted to do but didn’t follow through with, and really didn’t want to add something else to that list.

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While I was thinking about the reading program, someone else told me about a speech training method that would help my children’s articulation. Both my eleven year old and seven year old have Down syndrome/Trisomy 21, and thank G-d are smart kids. But their speech can be hard to understand at times. We’ve come very far with the help of Gemiini – ds11 was diagnosed with apraxia at age two, and by age five when he met a new speech therapist, she said it must have been a mistaken diagnosis because he didn’t have signs of it.

It wasn’t a mistaken diagnosis – we did a lot of work on our own using Gemiini and together with our own strategies, that helped him move forward in speech significantly.

The speech method I was told about is called Verbal Motor Learning (VML) and training would begin in December and be held mostly over Zoom for attendees in Israel. Again, I went back and forth in my mind about the expense (about four thousand shekels) and if I had the capacity to apply what I learned on a consistent basis.

Now I also had to consider which of the two programs was more important – reading or speech? Could I do even one of them? But both were so important to me.

After several months deliberating, I finally decided to jump in and get the reading program during Chanuka vacation. I would get started right away and get some traction, and then would sign up to begin the speech training.

Naturally, plans don’t always work out the way we intend.

The materials for the speech program didn’t come for a week, and by then vacation was over. In addition to usually having ds11 home with me (that’s been the case most of the year – a topic for another post), I was then busy setting up and meeting with therapists for the twins and other school meetings for them that had been delayed because of the war.

The deadline for the speech training was coming up. I finally sent in the registration form online, but didn’t get a response back. When I called, I learned that due to lack of enrollment, the Israel training wouldn’t be held and my forms hadn’t been received. I asked if there was another online training available. There was – just one more. It would begin two weeks later, taught in English and translated into Romanian, with the live demonstration portion taught in Romania.

The hours of the course are very difficult for me – two full days a month (9 am to 5:30 pm), then another evening from 6 – 10:30 pm, three days in a row. The training in Israel that was cancelled had been morning hours, with classes twice a week – that was more doable for me. But I decided to sign up, even though I can’t go to Romania for the hands-on workshop.

I’ll share more at a later time about each of these programs when I have more experience with them both. This is where I’m up to now:

It’s been about five weeks since I’ve been doing reading sessions with ds11 and it’s going really well. He loves it and every night before bed – when I’m so tired I really don’t want to do anything – he reminds me that we need to do reading and enthusiastically brings me the workbook. He’s great with a structure and keeps me on track! It’s very, very encouraging to see his progress so far.

Last month, I began the speech training program; right now I’m in the middle of the second month’s sessions. Most of the others on the training are speech therapists who work with non-verbal children; most are in Romania but there are a few from other European and South American countries. I’m the only one from Israel and there’s no one from America.

Even though as the eternal student I generally love learning, this isn’t easy or enjoyable for me. Almost from the beginning I could see what an incredible tool it could be for my boys, if I could see it through. However, I find it draining to sit on Zoom for so many hours. And it’s not easy on my family.

Last month, the twins got completely dysregulated after just one afternoon of me not taking care of them, even though the older boys and my husband were with them, and even though they saw me in the bedroom and talked with me briefly. They both just lost it emotionally.

The hours of the training allow me to get the kids ready and take them to school as usual, and at 9 am start the classes. Often during the week a child will stay home with me for a day, and the kids regularly ask me whose day it is to stay home. Yesterday when asked who was staying home, I told them everyone was going to school that day and I would be doing my classes from the computer, at home.

A few hours later, I got a call from dd6’s teacher to ask me if something was wrong with her, that she was very emotional, complaining that different parts of her body hurt and crying about everything. We had a relaxed and pleasant morning before that, nothing was out of the norm; I never send a child to school who indicates they aren’t feeling well. She was fine.

She came home and screamed and cried literally off afternoon, even though I was home and available for them. I haven’t seen her act like this in months. I believe that something about hearing I would be doing classes while she was in kindergarten caused her to feel like I wasn’t available even though she wasn’t home at the time.

They’ll be waking up soon and I’ll be sure to be extra reassuring and not mention the classes – yesterday morning I literally made only one comment in passing that I would be doing classes. I’m a very strong emotional regulator for her and it was pretty powerful to see how when she thought – not experienced – me not being available to her, it threw her into an emotional tailspin.

Last month the older boys had a couple of days off and together with my husband, took care of the kids while I was doing the training. This month I have chosen to make up the afternoon sessions and review the recording afterward (I usually attend live) so that I am there for them. This is more challenging for me but I hope it will help the twins stay on a more even keel.

Avivah

Dysregulation – maintaining a calm presence

parenting, personal development

Parents often want techniques to get their children to behave. But it’s not techniques or knowing the right words to say that are going to help. It’s the energy they feel from you.

Staying calm and regulated in the face of their dysregulation is your most powerful tool. When a child loses it, he needs your calm to help him calm down. Young children don’t have the ability to regulate themselves emotionally. His brain will mirror your brain.

To me, the most important thing is not about what you do or say to a child who is having a meltdown, but how you maintain your own inner calm. That’s always my main focus. If I can stay calm, there’s a high likelihood I’m going to be able to tune into their emotions and appropriately mirror what they’re feeling. I’ll be able to see past their behavior to the sweet child inside, and recognize that they’re in a moment of struggle right then. Then I can be compassionate instead of frustrated.

A young child isn’t able to moderate their emotions by themselves. They need your help to calm down and get back to themselves. You literally are their external brain, and when you are calm, you not only model how to act for them, but you teach their brain they are safe.

There are times that it’s easy to be calm, and you don’t need to try. But then there are the times when your children are much more challenged, or you’re feeling much more challenged – and the worst: when you’re stressed and they’re stressed at the same time.

This is when you have to be the most careful because your interactions are highly likely to be really negative.

Yesterday morning I had a situation like this. I was feeling very pressured in the morning because I thought I might be going with ds11 on his school van, and in the event that would be allowed, needed to have everyone completely ready before I got on the van at 7:20 am. I had only thought about doing this in the middle of the night, so no advance planning was done.

So I was feeling some time pressure and wanted the younger three children to put on the clothes that I gave them with less than usual assistance from me. They’re all quite capable of that, technically. I gave them each their clothes and told them I’d help them if they needed help, but to please put their clothes on as much as they could while I got their lunch boxes ready.

Despite reminders, ds6 did nothing to get dressed for half an hour.

He did other things, though – he put on his muddy boots over his soiled pajamas, climbed all over the top bunk bed in dd’s room, getting it all muddy in the process. I took him down and reminded him it’s time to put on underwear and pants. I sat him down to anchor him physically (he’s very easily distracted) and gave him his clothing again.

I came back in a few minutes later – he was on top of a different bunk bed (now also muddy), still with muddy boots and soiled clothing, still no progress getting dressed. Thirty minutes had passed by this point from when I had first given him his clothing and asked him to get dressed.

Though the muddy boots on the beds was a first, there was nothing unusual about this scenario. He usually needs a lot of guidance to do something and if he doesn’t have it, he does what feels interesting to him at that moment. But on this day, I had to take a deep breath because I was feeling so annoyed. One of his signs of dysregulation is distraction – he moves faster and faster, getting more and more erratic, seemingly oblivious to what he’s supposed to be doing.

I took off his boots, took off his pants, and put his underwear on him. I didn’t want to physically interact with him at that moment any more than that because of the level of irritation I was feeling.

Do you think me being frustrated was conducive to him moving faster? No. Was my expectation that he get himself dressed realistic? Not in that moment.

When I learned at 7 am that I wouldn’t be allowed to go on the school van because I didn’t have advance authorization, it was as if a balloon of tension emptied out of me. While I attended to getting the kids who needed to go on the van out the door, I let ds6 get dressed in his own time, helping him afterward with the clothing items that were missing when I had restored my inner calm.

Seeing he was unable to follow even minimal direction, I knew he needed more relaxed time and warmth than usual and made the decision to give him a ‘vacation day with Mommy’. He was so happy about that. He loves to stay home with me and it’s been three weeks since his last day home. We had a really nice day and he was so happy and relaxed all day long. This is when I felt like his balloon of tension released from him. (His teacher called me later that morning and mentioned he had a hard time the morning before, and I was especially glad I had kept him home to unwind.)

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Everyone has specific times and situations that trigger them.

My biggest challenge is when I feel time pressured, as I shared above, and this is when I’m most likely to overreact. When you know what your triggers are, you can take steps to avoid them.

Knowing my sensitivity to tension around time, I find a few things helpful. The first is to be proactive and take steps to avoid getting into situations that are hard for you and require a lot of your emotional energy to stay on an even keel. I build margin into situations, leaving more time than I need to to get places on time and to get children ready. I try to think ahead so that in the mornings, I’m not rushing or trying to find things.

For example, today three of the kids need white shirts because it’s Tu B’shvat so a couple of days ago I made sure all of their shirts were washed so when it’s time to get dressed, I’m not looking at empty hangers in the closet and realizing the shirts they need are unwashed and in the hampers. That would be stressful for me and cause me to feel tense. One child is supposed to take a treat for the class party, so that was purchased last night and put into his backpack.

I’ve had a few times that I realized the night before that I didn’t have enough bread for sandwiches and had to go to the store down the block at 5:30 am. Now I buy a few loaves and keep them in the freezer so I don’t run into that situation.

However, life happens, things come up, and I can’t and don’t always preempt to the degree that I’m never in a situation that challenges me.

Then there’s the level of managing thoughts. If I think thoughts like, “Why isn’t he getting ready, what’s the matter with him, what’s wrong with me that I can’t get him to do what he’s supposed to do?!”, I’m going to feel annoyed and even angry. If I think, “I don’t have enough time, I can’t do this, it’s too much”, I’m going to feel tense and stressed.

So I try to replace these kind of thoughts with more calming thoughts like: “I have plenty of time, it’s fine, I’m doing great, everyone is working together with me”. This is really helpful, because it’s our mostly our thinking about a situation that cause us to become dysregulated, more than the situation itself.

When I keep my voice calm, it keeps me – and everyone else – calm. If I’m feeling annoyed, dropping my voice to a lower key and speaking slower helps me feel more calm, whereas if I speak faster and more urgently, I get more upset.

Lastly, shift your external environment to support you. I find music to be a wonderful tool. Often I put on upbeat music in the mornings and get the kids dressed while singing and doing funny dance moves with them. Sometimes I’m thinking about all I need to do that day and starting to feel tense, and I put on relaxing music or affirmations to listen to while I prepare their lunch boxes. (Ideally their lunch boxes would be prepared before waking them up and in warmer weather I do but in the winter I like to stay in bed where it’s cozy for longer. :))

Don’t beat yourself up for not always being calm. I want to be calm and collected no matter what is going on around me, and have to forgive myself for not always being able to do that. However, over time I’ve significantly increased my capacity to stay calm in the face of challenging behavior.

Avivah