Category Archives: homeschooling

And let the wall come down – demolition fun for the boys!

frugal strategies, homeschooling, parenting

After weeks of mentally working through lots of details to see if my renovation brainstorm was doable or not, our newest project has begun!

I’ve been thinking and thinking how to increase the size of our main living area. While at 30 meters it’s a nice size for an Israeli apartment, it doesn’t feel especially spacious as our family continues to expand! I’ve had several ideas about how to maximize our  living space but vetoed them because all cost a LOT of money. But my latest idea actually seemed like a real possibility!

Here’s the idea: my younger boys’ room is behind a shared wall with the living room. For a while I’d been thinking of knocking this wall down once my youngest daughter gets married, and then moving the boys into her room. But since she’s only 17 marriage isn’t on the agenda for a while and in any case, that plan would mean I would lose a bedroom, which I really don’t want to do.

But…if I knock down that wall, and then turn the boys room into an open kitchen (and the kitchen into the boys room), the main area gets bigger, we don’t lose a bedroom, and the space becomes used much more efficiently.

The current kitchen is perfectly sized for a bedroom, while the boys bedroom is a large, awkwardly shaped room. It doesn’t have any direct light – all light comes from the enclosed patio off of it that is basically useless for anything other than storage – who wants to walk through a bedroom to get there? By opening up this wall, the light in that room and the air flow in the main area become significantly better.

Turning a bedroom into a kitchen and a kitchen into a bedroom is a big project. The plan is to keep the costs down by hiring out the the skilled work such as plumbing, electricity and laying gas lines, then doing all the rest ourselves. During my researching stage, it seems that just about everyone I mentioned my idea to was skeptical about our do-it-yourself intentions, which would be disheartening if I listened to all of those voices!

I’m going to be reusing the cabinets from the kitchen that we put in three years ago, which are really good quality and I’ve been very happy with them. One big question I have is about using the caeserstone countertops again or not. They were so expensive and would be workable in the new kitchen but I didn’t love how they looked then and after three years still don’t like how they look!  (I’m thinking very seriously of building our own laminate countertops but am concerned about running out of time before I can finish them.)

After all this thinking, the project has begun! The boys moved the set of bookcases that were on the wall I wanted to demolish – the plan was to clear the area so our handy man could take it down, but once it was clear they were disappointed that they weren’t going to ‘get a crack at it’. I then agreed to let them take a few swings at it using the heavy hammers I bought them the day before (I had them remove tiling along the base of the walls to prepare for retiling those areas). After all, doesn’t that sound like a good healthy outlet? (I did go over safety precautions and repeatedly told them ‘safety first’!)

I didn’t think they would make a dent in a concrete block wall. After all, this is physically very strenuous work; professionals would bring it down using a power saw that made strategic cuts in the wall and then a full sized sledgehammer (which my kids would hardly be able to lift, let along swing!)

I went out to do errands and came back an hour later to find two holes in the wall. It was so exciting for them and for me, too! I wish I had been able to get pictures of the entire process.

They kept at it the next day for hour after hour until they had the entire wall down.

Ds9
Ds9 – after this picture was taken they finished taking down the wall to the left

This was far from an easy task! The wall was mostly concrete block but at some point they ran into a huge horizontal pillar of solid concrete reinforced with rebar that spanned the length of the wall. I told them to hold off on knocking it down until I clarified if it was safe to remove it. I had already checked that the wall wasn’t a supporting wall, but what I saw led me to think that this was some kind of structural element.

Ds12 swinging on the final piece of rebar enforced cement
Ds12 swinging on the final piece of rebar enforced cement

I asked our handyman about it and he said it’s structural for the wall itself, not for the building, and safe to remove. Safe, but it was an insane amount of work.

Who did it, you may be wondering? Ds9, ds10, ds12, and ds16 helped out as well. They seriously know how to work, these boys! Not only did they do the demo using only hand held hammers, but they shoveled hundreds of pounds of broken concrete to load the containers for the construction waste removal company to remove. (So far we’re up to six full huge heavy duty ‘bags’ – here in Israel this quantity is known as a balla. It’s a LOT.)

We also decided to take down a small wall that separates the living room from the hallway. That wall creates some privacy but it also cuts off some usable space in the living room and we have a different idea of how to keep the privacy while opening up the space. That wall was a much easier job, since it was drywall.

Ds10 pounding a hole into the drywall
Ds10 pounding a hole into the drywall
Ds6 getting into the action!
Ds6 getting into the action, banging away at the wall!

This has been an empowering and enjoyable project for the boys, albeit exhausting! There’s something about doing a significant task and really putting yourself into it that builds up a child (and an adult, too!).

Avivah

 

Why do I want my son to attend gan safa?

homeschooling, parenting, Trisomy 21

First of all, the exciting news is in – Yirmi has officially been accepted to gan safa!

“Do you mind sharing a little bit more about how and why you decided to put Yirmi into the school system and not to homeschool him at this point?”

When it comes to homeschooling, there’s what I want to do and then there’s what I  actually do. If the two lined up, Yirmi would continue homeschooling.

There are two things that currently concern me: 1) acquisition of Hebrew language and 2) acquisition of friends.

I live in RBS, the largest English speaking community in Israel. It has some wonderful unique features that make living here a pleasure; the flip side is that as a homeschooler Hebrew is something I need to work to expose my kids to, and I’m not finding this easy to do. The most effective way to learn Hebrew is by being in a Hebrew speaking environment and having Hebrew speaking peers. I’m not providing that.

Secondly, though Yirmi enjoys playing with his brothers and their friends who come over on most days, he doesn’t regularly play with friends his age. This isn’t because there is a lack of kids around or because he doesn’t play appropriately (he does), but because I don’t get him out in the afternoons. I’m not regularly setting up the playdates that mothers have invited him to, I’m not getting out to the park  – while I’m not beating myself up for this, I’m being honest about my limitations because our kids need us to be honest about what we can really do, and to find alternatives if we can’t do it.

After years of being the mom who took her kids everywhere, who took her kids to the friends they were invited to (since most mothers would rather invite kids over than go out), who after moving to Israel took her kids to the park daily for years… I’m tired. And while I’d like to have more energy to take him out daily, I don’t.

“Can you share why you prefer gan safa to special ed?”

While gan safa is officially part of the special ed framework, in my area it is filled with typical kids who have language challenges of some sort.  (It’s not coincidental that our sizeable English speaking population has a high number of kids in gan safa – in other areas I’ve been told that gan safa is filled with kids with significantly more learning challenges.)  Kids who are cognitively more limited are put into a different gan system (gan ‘pigur’); kids with autism are put into yet a different system (gan tikshoret).

I’d like Yirmi to participate in an inclusive environment as much as possible. With the law that just passed here in Israel, I don’t know if it will be realistic anymore once he gets into grade school.  It will unquestionably be much, much more difficult than it has been for kids with special needs until now, and it hasn’t been a walk in the park for any of them even with favorable laws to work with. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But at least for now, he can benefit from a mainstream environment.

I’ve been asked why I don’t want to put him into the typical gan classroom. Going into school will be a huge transition. When taking into account not yet speaking Hebrew and having expressive language delays, it would be overwhelming for Yirmi to be in a class of 35 kids. I think all kids benefit from being in a smaller class environment, and gan safa is usually a class of about 12 kids with three teachers. Honestly, I think all kids would do best in an environment as supportive as this, but certainly it sounds like the best fit for him at this time, when taking into account the various options.

I don’t have any information on the specifics of the gan yet, but hopefully this will be a wonderful new experience for Yirmi!

Avivah

 

 

My significant life changing purchase – a car!

frugal strategies, homemaking, homeschooling, parenting, personal development

Thank you all for your good wishes on our new granddaughter! She was named yesterday and I’m looking forward to taking the younger boys to meet her later this week.

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In other significant for us news, we have become car owners!

When we moved to Israel almost seven years ago, we decided not to buy a vehicle because buying, maintaining and fueling a car here is so much more expensive than in the US. Public transportation is very good and a car seemed like an unnecessary luxury, particularly when we came here without a job and wanted to stretch our savings as long as possible.

It was a good decision then that really made sense,  and for the ensuing six years it continued to be a good choice. We felt comfortable not having a car, there was no sense of deprivation or doing without – in fact, it was a relief to me not to have to deal with a car.

However, this last year and particularly the last few months (since both of my older daughters got married) have become increasingly challenging for me. Since my five year old doesn’t consistently walk moderate distances when he’s tired and as of last July I refused to put him in a stroller, traveling by bus with him is something that I try to minimize. Without older children who can keep an eye on the younger ones when I go out, just getting the weekly grocery shopping done has become a pressure and that’s where my ‘free’ time goes.

I was increasingly feeling maxxed out with the little time for myself needing to be almost painfully carved out, and the time strain that was being created was significant. A couple of months ago, someone asked why this was an issue for me, since after all, I’ve been homeschooling for 18 years and was used to my kids being around. I told her, “I used to have a car and I could take the kids with me if I needed to go out; I wasn’t stuck and unable to go anywhere.” However, I didn’t consider the significance of my answer to her until last week.

That was when I recalled our brief conversation and it suddenly became obvious to me that this major issue that has significantly impacted the quality of my life would be shifted if I had a car.  Previously, I kept thinking that the issue would be resolved as my son became more mobile; car ownership was so off my mental map that it simply didn’t occur to me to revisit the initial decision we made when we moved here.

Well.

That conversation was suddenly catapulted to the front of my consciousness when I saw a car listed for sale on my local neighborhood list that seemed like it would be a good fit for us. I spent a couple of hours considering if it was ridiculously self-indulgent of me to have a car before calling my husband to let him know I thought we should seriously consider purchasing a car. My husband readily agreed since he had already mentioned several times in the past that at some point he wanted to get a car but I was the naysayer. (When we ran the numbers to check the anticipated expenses, his only question was, “Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”)

Once I allowed myself to recognize how much having a car would shift this major energy block in my life, things moved very quickly. We bought a car the very next day.

I can say without exaggeration that after using it for just a few hours this afternoon and evening (and knowing this is something I can regularly do) my life has changed. No hyperbole.

This afternoon I was able to pop my tired five year old into the car and take him with me and ds9 on an errand. This errand is something I’ve wanted to do for almost three months but logistically it was too hard to do without a car.

So we zipped over to get it taken care of – in ten minutes it was done. The boys enjoyed watching the workmen cut down the mirror and reframe it, an experience they wouldn’t have had before since I would have left them at home. I’ve always loved having the kids be part of those daily experiences – each on its own is nothing major but they add up to enriching and expansive experiences.

Since we had plenty of time before swimming lessons began, we went to go the local community center to get ds5 a bus card with his photo on it. This errand has been on my list for months. He’s almost six and I wanted to get him one since he turned five. Now he has one!

We then noticed some activities taking place in the community center, which I learned were for families who have children with special needs. Maybe I never knew about this, maybe I was told about this and mentally dismissed it as completely irrelevant for us because getting out was just too hard.

In any case, today we joined them. It was so nice to watch ds5 play (he knew another child there from his Pesach camp), to chat with another mom, and to feel so relaxed. Relaxing and going out with my five year old haven’t been synonymous for me for quite some time.

From there we went to swimming lessons, and the biggest, most significant thing happened when the lessons were over.

We were home in five minutes.

Five minutes.

Instead of 45 minutes.

Instead of coaxing him to walk a little more. Instead of tugging at his hand and picking him up and then insisting that I can’t carry him and he’s going to have to walk, yada, yada, yada while he sits down and from sheer exhaustion refuses to move. Then finally getting to the bus stop, getting on the bus, and after getting off coaxing him again to walk the distance from the bus stop to our home. All over again.

We were home and I was still smiling and ds5 was still smiling and ds9 (who has lessons at the same time and is part of this weekly round trip experience) was still smiling. I had energy to give everyone dinner.  My husband probably did a double take when he walked in and wondered if it was really Sunday since I smiled and had a conversation with him with no mention of being so tired that I was about to collapse. Instead I enthusiastically told him how amazingly enjoyable ds5 is to spend time with when I don’t have to marshal all my resources to physically get him where he needs to go.

At 8:30 in the evening, rather than being comatose on the couch, I took ds12 to his swimming lessons (for the first time this season), and enjoyed watching him for 45 minutes before driving home together. (Today I learned that my two sons in group lessons are the best swimmers in their groups. They wouldn’t have told me because they don’t know that when they’re swimming and can’t hear what’s being said, the instructor tells the other students to watch what they’re doing. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been there in person to see it.) It was really nice having this opportunity to spend time with ds12 and make a deposit in my relationship with him.

And here I am writing this now. It is almost 11:30 at night and I’m still able to think and reflect. The clarity of how deeply exhausting this aspect of my life has become after just one afternoon of not having to go through it is almost stunning to me.

Today I got things done quickly and easily. And that was nice. But what was even nicer was feeling doors swinging open. Doors of increased outings with my kids, increased time freedom and flexibility, increased community involvement and social connection, increased being present for others and myself.  And none of it feels hard. 

Letting go of hard required me to first be really honest about how constraining things had become. When things shift gradually over time, there’s not a sudden negative situation to deal with – and that makes it harder to recognize because one gets used to it bit by bit.  I started to recognize how many ‘nos’ I was saying to myself – and was willing to be open to a solution from a different angle.

It’s interesting that when ds19 called and I told him we had just bought a car a few hours before, he wasn’t surprised. Since I had never entertained the idea myself until a day prior, obviously I hadn’t discussed the possibility with our children and I asked him why he told me the purchase was predictable. He said that in the last year when I’ve periodically rented a car, it was obvious to him how much more relaxed and happy I was.

What was obvious to him took a lot of soul searching for me!

Avivah

Simple Shabbos preps, celebrating birthdays,reassessing school plans

frugal strategies, homemaking, homeschooling

Last Shabbos we had all of our children and their spouses with us for Shabbos, for the first time since the sheva brachos after the second wedding. It was SO nice to have everyone together; we’re a good sized crew and fill up every space of our dining room table with all the extensions in (seats 16). I’m unsure about where we’ll put anyone else when the time comes!

We celebrated my husband’s birthday while everyone was there. We have a family tradition that everyone shares something they appreciate about the person celebrating the birthday. I especially appreciate that all of our in-law children contributed. My older kids commented that they can really see that the younger boys have gotten the hang of this. When they were younger, they would say silly things or repeat whatever the person before them said. But now they’re able to share meaningful appreciation.  Definitely a family tradition that I’m glad we instituted.

This Shabbos was super quiet – just the younger six boys were home. I made a super simple Shabbos: challah, dips, soup, chicken, sweet potatoes and salad for dinner, with fruit compote for dessert. Day meal: chicken, dips, potato kugel and two salads as well as a plate of carrot rounds (cut by Yirmi) and another plate of tomatoes, with fresh fruit (plums, melon and kiwi) and popsicles for dessert. It’s nice to see that the kids are satisfied with no baked desserts – they keep thanking me for the fresh fruit I’ve been buying!

I made homemade chummus this week. For a long time that has been one of the few things that I buy ready made (other things include mayonnaise and mustard) because my kids like the store bought stuff. It wasn’t very time consuming or difficult to whip up a huge batch – I soaked 1.4 kg of dried chickpeas, cooked them up and made over 4 kg of chummus – the actual prep time was probably about 15 minutes. My version isn’t as creamy as the store bought but it tastes good; it’s definitely better for them since it has no additives, and I use higher quality ingredients, like extra virgin olive oil and fresh lemon…and it still comes out cheaper.

When I make a dip, I prepare a large amount and then fill several smaller containers for the freezer. That way I don’t have to make each dip fresh every Shabbos (I usually serve 4 – 5 dips). This week I pulled out matbucha (a cooked tomato dip), carrot dip, and I had dill dip in the fridge from the double batch I made last week, along with the chummus.

This week I got whole chickens on sale for 12.90 shekel a kilo. Usually I cook them whole, though chicken breast is much better when cooked separately, since it needs less time to cook than dark meat and ends up being on the dry side. I decided to experiment and cut the fresh chickens up myself rather than buy the more expensive cuts separately (chicken breast on sale is twice the price).

So I cut them into different cuts: quarters (in our family this is the preferred cut for Shabbos), wings and necks (for soup), chicken breasts (I made homemade cold cuts for Shabbos lunch with half of them, then put the other half into the freezer – this is my preferred cut for the week for myself). I’ll have to watch a youtube video on how to efficiently cut up a chicken and get a sharper knife before I do this again – it was worth it financially but time-wise was less efficient than I would have liked. Once I’m better prepared, I’m game to try again.

 

I’m happy to share that Rafael (17 months) has been accepted for one of the coveted spots for the special inclusion program at the day care center we applied to. Though I would prefer to keep him home with me next year, that won’be allowed and this program seems like a good option. I’m grateful the process for getting him in was so smooth – believe me, I don’t take that for granted.

Meanwhile, we’ve been researching schools for our twelve year old son. After repeatedly being stonewalled by the school we were interested in, my husband and I finally had a powwow and reassessed if this was really what we felt would be in his best interest. We decided today that we want him to continue homeschooling for another couple of years and will put him into school for high school. He is literally the easiest child to homeschool – he’s fluent in English and Hebrew, is a voracious reader and interested in everything and basically educates himself. It’s really nice to have some clarity and closure on this school decision, because we’ve been in limbo for more than four months and limbo isn’t a fun place to be.

As far as Yirmi’s school plans for next year, I’m also in limbo. I decided to send ds12 and Yirmi to school for the coming year around the time we were making two weddings. I was feeling I wasn’t giving the kids as much time and attention as I would like, and that was a big part of my decision to put them in school. But as time passes and I regroup, I’m able to look at all the gains that they’ve experienced even during the busiest times, rather than focus on what I didn’t do. Also, I’m now back in the groove with regular activities and that feels good to me.

My definition of education is focused on much more than the transmission of information; I place a lot of importance on large amounts of unstructured time for play, time outdoors, physical movement, music, creativity, life skills, money management, time with family, and lots more. Things that aren’t really on the radar in the school setting.

All that is to say that we’re in the process of reassessing our intended plans for Yirmi for the coming year. I’ll write more about whatever decision we make and why, once we make the decision. 🙂

Avivah

The Magic of Ordinary Days

homemaking, homeschooling, marriage

The Magic Of Ordinary Days – that could have been a good title for my blog in years past. For years I shared about our daily lives, the hows and whys of what I did, how I managed, my feelings about it all.

Often people asked me how I found the time to write so frequently, and my answer was that I loved it.It was something I did for myself just as much as for all of you.  I loved connecting with others and sharing ideas, and the blogosphere was a place of personal connection for me and many others during those years.

And then something changed. Something in the culture changed, something that I couldn’t put my finger on for a long time. I could feel the shift happen but wasn’t able to verbalize what was happening or why it was happening.

But understanding it or not, my blogging changed over the last few years. As the invisible energy of social media and blogging has shifted, the nature of what I write about and how I share changed to reflect that. I still mentally compose blog posts in my head almost daily, just as I did for so long…but instead of being written up at the end of the day, most of those thoughts and experiences stay with me.

As both a blogger and blog reader I miss what the blogosphere used to be and while I’m not wishing to turn back the clock, today I gave myself permission to feel that missing-ness of what once was.

In the ‘old days’, today I might have shared about my son’s reaction when one of his silkworms escaped the box he was in and got stuck on a piece of tape, and how I responded to his sadness. He was so agitated that it was suffering but didn’t want to be the one to put it out of his suffering. And then the discussion continued to the possibility of sharing some of his silkworms with others, as he told me that he realizes it’s getting to be a big job to take care of so many and he’s not enjoying it anymore. We have to help our kids recognize and verbalize their needs.

Or I might have shared about roasting a large bunch of red peppers that I got an amazing price on  and different ways to preserve red peppers in the case of a windfall like mine (I made roasted red pepper dip with ground walnuts, some for Shabbos and some for the freezer); I would have shared the recipe, too.

I might have shared about chatting with my ten year old son as I worked in the kitchen, enjoying time with him as he peeled the large fava beans that I soaked. I really love the energy of the conversations that happen when there’s just one child and me working together.  We’re planning an experiment with the fava beans this week – to roast them with savory spices for a Shabbos snack.

I might have told you what I said to my five year old when he picked up his little brother in an awkward way and brought him to me, framing what he did positively and verbalizing what a loving and helpful older brother he is. Our children rise to our expectations; we can scold them and make them feel bad or we can look for the good intent in their actions and respond to that.

Maybe I would have told you about my vegetable order that included a larger than number of fruits. The two boys who came out to help me bring the order in exclaimed when they saw what I got and asked what the occasion was. Since we’re moving away from desserts that have a lot of sugar in them, recently I’ve been serving canned/baked/fresh fruit, nuts, seeds and munchy things like that. The kids are enjoying it and all said they don’t miss the sweet baked desserts. This week I’ll make baked apples, and got kiwis, grapes and apricots to serve fresh.

Or I might have shared my thoughts about some of the marriage related questions that have been coming my way in parenting discussions, and why I think the best thing you can do for your child is to love your spouse (or in the case of divorce to be positive and respectful of your ex-spouse). And how to positively interact with your spouse when they annoy you and you just can’t see much to appreciate about them.

Or maybe I would have told you that after many weeks of no videos, why I allowed the boys to watch two educational cartoons on the occasion of my son’s ninth birthday tomorrow. (Remember when he was born? He’s the one who was three weeks late!)

Or maybe I would have shared about consciously making time and space in my life to do things just for pleasure, not outcome related at all. I loaded my Kindle for the first time in a long time with books and it’s so renewing for me to open it up and have really good selections in it. I’ve been doing a little bit of reading in bed before I go to sleep. I haven’t done that for years.

Or maybe I would share with you about our current family read aloud, about why I love it and how much my boys love it. How reading together is a special bonding time for us. And about how to use books with great values and storylines to stimulate their minds and build character, without any heavy moralistic messages.

Or maybe I would have told you about a phone conversation with someone visiting Israel right now – a friend I told you about meeting eleven years ago on this blog, when we met in line at a grocery store in Amish country. They were in front of us and one of my kids whispered to me, “They have seven kids just like us!” We weren’t used to seeing mothers with lots of kids shopping together in the morning hours.  Turned out we were both homeschooling and expecting baby #8 (who were later born within a few weeks of each other).  Our brief conversation continued outside in the parking lot, and when I learned this lovely Christian woman was Jewish, I invited her family to our home – just a two hour drive away! And they accepted, coming for Chanuka and for Shabbos; we visited them at their home in PA as well. We became friends and after all these years we’re still in touch! They’ll be coming with their youngest two children for dinner next week.

These were things I thought about sharing with you today.

In years past, I would have shared about all of these things and more.

And for today I’m enjoying sharing all of this with you.

Not because I’m planning to change how I blog or explain why I don’t do this anymore or why I should or shouldn’t or anything else.

Just because I felt like sharing with you –  just like the old days. 🙂

Avivah

Letting go of things that hold us back from who we’re meant to be..and what we’re changing in our home

homeschooling, parenting, Pesach

It’s so easy to get busy, busy, busy with all of the physical preparations for Pesach – the cooking and cleaning and cooking and cleaning and yet more cooking and cleaning…that we often don’t have time and energy left to consider the deeper messages of this holiday. The physical act of getting rid of the chametz (leavened foods) in our homes is intended to be a reflection of releasing the spiritual and emotional ‘chametz’ – those unwanted activities or attitudes in our lives that are holding us back from developing ourselves fully.

The Pesach seder is an incredibly powerful spiritual time when we create the space to acknowledge what holds us back, who we have the potential to be, and being willing to release whatever it is that we’re holding onto that is keeping us from being that person.   I’ve told you already that part of my preparations for the seder are taking a long nap erev Pesach; another thing is to take the time to contemplate before the seder

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I recently finished reading Hatchet together with our boys, the fictional story of a teen who survives a plane crash and is left to alone in the Canadian wilderness. Slowly and with great effort Brian learns to survive- to make a shelter, create a fire and find food.

Almost two months after the crash, he is able to retrieve the survival pack from the plane. In it he finds lots of items that will make his survival much easier – including a gun and matches. Previously he had to learn to make a fire using natural materials and had to understand animal habits in order to hunt them.  After taking out each of these two items, he immediately felt different, removed from the world he had worked so hard to understand in order to survive – and he wasn’t sure he liked how that difference made him feel.

I thought of Brian when I read this article,  in which the advent of the smartphone is compared to the development of the phonetic alphabet or the newspaper in its momentousness. “I don’t think people realize how radically different it is to be a human being with a phone in your pocket,” Dugoni said.

Kind of like how Brian felt different with the tools of civilization in his hand, tools that served to separate him from the level of consciousness he had developed without them.

There is an increasing awareness of the ways that the internet and more specifically, smartphones are changing our lives as a society. I’m not referencing this from a religious perspective, but a place of concern about what these changes mean for the emotional and social development of individuals, families and our entire culture.  (Here’s a worthwhile read sharing a number of thought-provoking points: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?)

I don’t have a smartphone – but my internet usage has often been something I’ve felt uncomfortable with.  It’s convenient and there are definitely pluses – a huge one for me has been the ability to connect with many people irrespective of distance. However, ironically, though I joined Facebook since it was suggested as a way to reach more people – and yet as a direct result of being on social media, my time spent writing  dropped significantly! There are a few reasons for that – one is that it’s much easier to be a passive consumer of someone else’s sound bites than to take the time and effort to compose my own thoughts.

But despite my awareness that my online use isn’t always beneficial to me, it’s so compelling that often-  very often – I continue browsing longer than serves a productive purpose. It’s not surprising and I’m not unusual in that regard – it’s a medium that was developed to be addictive, to create the desire for just a little more and a little more, to just keep scrolling down just one more time….

I’m not talking about viewing things that are inappropriate or offensive – even with wholesome internet use like mine, one’s time can easily slip away without being fully aware of it. And I have to admit that my online activity displaces time that could be spent on other things, things that would be of more benefit to me and those around me.

So I’ve had to ask myself some hard questions, about who I want to be, what I want my family to look like, and is my online time aligned with that? My husband and I have been discussing this in recent weeks, and here are some changes we’re in the process of implementing.

First of all, my husband (who was given a smartphone by his employer over a year ago) decided to buy a simple cell phone and stopped using his smartphone. (It’s relevant to note that he was judicious in his use of his phone, consistently turning it off for hours every day. ) It took only one day for him to feel to express how freeing it has been to not have the smartphone in his pocket – it has a real presence.

Our family screen time policy is conservative by most accounts – our kids don’t independently use the internet, and when they do they do use the internet, the main thing that they do is listen to classical or frum music or audiobooks (borrowed from the US library we are still members of).  Sometimes I will show them short clips that I think will be of interest to them – sometimes something cute or touching, sometimes something educational. Is that so bad? No, it’s not.

But when I asked myself, ‘do I want my children to associate computer use with being the central source of entertainment?’, I felt uncomfortable.

I want my children to have time and space to connect with themselves, with others, to kick around a ball, get lots of fresh air and outdoor time. I don’t want them inside holed up around a screen, even if they’re listening to something of educational value that is enriching in some ways.

While I’d love to eliminate the internet from my home and have seriously considered it a number of times (I would have it in my office, which is outside my home), since I use an online program that is an important language support for ds5, I can’t get rid of it entirely. However, we’ve made a move toward dramatically reducing screen time for our kids. Their computer time increased in recent months when I was busy planning two weddings back to back, and they weren’t excited about our decision to cut their online time.

However, we didn’t just say no and take it away without any replacement of some sort. Ds12 and ds10 both got mp3s, which have been loaded with lots of Torah stories and music. It’s been especially nice to listen to these stories together – I love how they are filling their minds with valuable concepts and information at the same time they’re having fun!

And now for me. Sigh. I’m the most challenged in this regard. I try to keep the computer turned off during the day, because once it’s on, it’s easy for me to browse online. Then when I go online – usually once every day or two, I try to have an idea of what I want to accomplish and to have a time limit. Like I said, I’m trying! I can’t say that I just stopped cold turkey and it was easy. It’s not easy at all, but recognizing this is a habit that isn’t serving me in living my life as fully as I’d like makes it easier to move toward something better.

So far, I’m getting more sleep (well, usually – I have to admit that I’m writing this at 3 am after being up late cooking for the seder!), I’ve read more books, my kitchen is cleaner and when my kids speak to me, I am much less likely to ask them to repeat themselves after not hearing them fully the first time because my mind was somewhere else. 🙂

It’s a process. It’s not about perfection. I’m doing what I can to move in the direction I’d like to go, and there will be missteps and sometimes steps backward, but hopefully we can continue moving forward overall!

So that’s a bit about some of my spiritual chametz, something that has been constricting and limiting, and now we’re trying to root it out and release it!

Avivah

Our meeting with the Ministry of Education officials and the results

homeschooling, Trisomy 21,

It’s been so busy with the engagement and wedding preparations, but I wanted to share with you about the meeting we had at the Ministry of Education.

We got to the Ministry early but were refused admittance since the guard said he didn’t have authorization for us to enter that day; he refused to call the people we told him we were meeting with and told us it was our problem to call them ourselves. Since I had never had direct phone contact with any of those who would be on the committee, I was stumped as to how we were supposed to do that.

He also refused to let us sit on the bench on the opposite side of the checkpoint just two steps away. Finally, ds5, exhausted after traveling two hours to get there, lay down on the floor and put his arms under his face to use as a pillow. Then the guard let me sit with him on the bench. 🙂

I decided the only thing we could do was wait for them to let us know we were late and call in an authorization for us to go in; fortunately it wasn’t much longer before I received a call from the secretary asking if I forgot that we were supposed to meet that day.  Just as I answered that call, an experienced guard came in who knew how things were supposed to be done and directed us to where we were supposed to go (the new authorization wasn’t waiting there, either!).  Not the most auspicious beginning for an important meeting!

We entered the room where three officials were waiting to meet with us together with all of the children we are homeschooling, and I right away noticed their eyes fall on Yirmi (ds5) and linger there.  While they were asking us about ourselves and we were responding, Yirmi went over to one of the officials, tapped her on her arm and asked her for paper to draw. The woman was quite warm and friendly to him, and he returned happily with his paper to his seat while we continued the meeting.

Then they started questioning the kids. Ds11 felt the most pressured; as the oldest sibling present, most of the questions were directed to him.  Some of what he was asked: if he wants to homeschool, if he wants to go to school, doesn’t he think it would be better if he could do what his friends are doing, does he think he’s on the same level as his friends….

Ds11 responded that he was happy homeschooling, he wasn’t interested in going to school, his friends in school don’t especially like being there and aren’t learning more than he is.  As she kept asking and asking, I could see in his eyes that he couldn’t understand why she kept asking similar questions to those he had already answered.  It felt like she was working to elicit a negative response from him.

She asked him what he would do if I let him go to school for one week; he answered but at this point, I decided this line of questioning had gone on far enough.  I asked rhetorically, “If a  child wants chocolate for breakfast every day, should I give it to him?  I’m the parent and I’m the one who will decide what is right for my child educationally.”

She disagreed, and told me that an eleven year old is mature enough to make these decisions for himself. Clearly we have a different perspective. 🙂

They asked each child all about what his academic schedule, extracurricular, friends. When one of the officials pulled out a book in Hebrew and pushed it toward ds11 to test his reading, I saw another son’s face blanch. He is reading in English and Hebrew, but due to dyslexia it’s not yet on the level of what is typical for a child his age. He’s doing amazingly, though, and we all see huge progress on that front! (I shared about the approach I’ve taken and the materials we use for him here.) But understandably he didn’t want to be tested out loud by strangers.

I motioned to him reassuringly and told him aloud that he didn’t have to read if he didn’t want to. I felt it was really important for the security of our children that they knew that I would protect their boundaries.  Another son also said he preferred not to. The official was about to put away the book and I told him he didn’t ask Yirmi if he wanted to read! Yirmi loves to read books and of course he enthusiastically agreed!  He isn’t reading aloud yet and there’s no rush on our parts; our focus is on input, input, input and not on testing the output (ie testing).  We’ve recently started Hebrew with him – because he sees his brothers learning with dh and is constantly requesting to learn with him as well – and we’ve been doing flashcards in English for years.  But he looked very cute looking into the book studiously and then beaming up at them.

There was extensive questioning about how I would address Yirmi’s educational needs, and didn’t I  know how much benefit the child and the parents get from the special education system? My focus is not on expressing negativity about a different system but on what I feel I can offer in the home environment, and that’s what I shared.  I added that I don’t feel I have to know everything and am quite comfortable reaching out for support and help when necessary.

When the  meeting was finally over – it was probably about an hour long – as soon as we walked out one of the boys right away asked if they’re ever going to have to do that again. They hated it! And I hated that they had to do it – it’s an intimidating process even for adults and too much pressure for a child.  Afterward I found out that legally I could have refused to bring them but I thought that it was mandatory since the school year had already started. (That’s what I was told.)

Dh and I felt the meeting went as well as could be hoped for; they were clearly charmed by Yirmi and him being so natural and comfortable lightened the atmosphere for everyone.  Overall I felt comfortable with the officials and so did dh.

The next day dh happened to pass one of the officials who was waiting outside a building he passed, and the official told us they had all been very impressed with us. That was hopeful but nonetheless, I didn’t jump to any conclusions about what the outcome would be – particularly about Yirmi. I’ve been told it’s very difficult to receive approval to homeschool a child with special needs, particularly if those needs are immediately apparent (like with Trisomy 21). And this is where my main concern about this outcome lay.

When the email came, I held my breath while I opened it. There was an individual file for each child, and after opening the first one, went to Yirmi’s.  It said the same thing as for all of his brothers.

The results? We received authorization to homeschool each of the following children: ds11, ds10, ds8 and ds5.

Yes, we received the first authorization (as far as I know) in the State of Israel to homeschool a child with Trisomy 21!!!

pic taken after the meeting was finished, l- r: me, ds5, dh, ds8 (behind), ds11, ds10
After the meeting, l- r: me, ds5, dh, ds8 (behind), ds11, ds10

I feel like writing a bunch more exclamation marks and jumping up and down and can’t think about this without tearing up with happiness.  We were ready to go to court to appeal if we were denied permission, but I kept picturing a peaceful and pleasant outcome of our meeting with the Ministry of Education officials. My mantra I repeated to myself over and over again was, “It can be easy, it can be easy.”

I have to add here that this was a huge personal victory for me. I had so much anxiety about this process for so long, and once he got to age 5, finally put my concerns to the side and did what needed to be done. My thinking had caused me to feel disempowered and threatened, and I consciously worked to release the fear I felt about dealing with these officials. They’re only people.  It’s so easy for fears to grow and grow, unless we recognize them and let them go.

What does this mean for now? The approval is for one year, which means it will need to be renewed for the coming school year. Since home visits are part of the homeschool requirements, we will be seeing one of these officials another two times this year when she comes to visit. One positive outcome of having a social worker regularly come into my home as part of the foster care process is that I’ve become much less sensitive about having officials in my home.  I don’t agree with having home visits as part of the homeschooling oversight process and think it’s invasive and inappropriate, but I’m not threatened by it.

We’ll take it one year at a time and trust that things will continue to work out for the best!

Avivah

Keeping thoughts positive about our upcoming meeting with Dept of Ed.

homeschooling, personal development

My husband was feeling under the weather this week and took a day off of work to stay home and rest.

At some point in the morning, he was doing a puzzle with a couple of the boys and looked up at me and said, “It’s such a beautiful environment here.  Thank you for all that you do – I know it doesn’t happen by itself.”

Often I look around at my home and family, and feel a deep sense of contentment: of being right where I’m meant to be, doing what I’m meant to to do, living my life every day with the people I love. I don’t ever take it for granted. It’s been a choice that I didn’t make one time, but many, many times.

It’s been a choice when feeling conflicted and pulled about finances, homeschooling, living in a different country.  But our decision to build our family in a given way has been a consistent. In our home there are a lot of people, a lot of personalities, a lot of things that are happening and moving parts in so many directions!

And now we come to a place of once again consciously making the choice to create this environment for our children.

We recently filed a new application that included Yirmi as he has reached the age for official homeschooling.  On Sunday morning we have an appointment – together with ds5, ds8, ds10 and ds11 -with a committee at the Department of Education regarding our homeschooling application.  I don’t find it appropriate for adults to question children about the educational decisions their parents have made for them, but no one has asked my opinion on how to run things in our government. 🙂

Yirmi, age 5- at day camp this summer
Yirmi, age 5- pic taken at summer day camp

I had a lot of anxiety about this process for a very long time – from the time Yirmi was an infant, actually.  I felt that submitting this application for a child with special needs would be voluntarily walking into the lions den. But as I’ve said before, making decisions from a place of fear isn’t a good place to be at.  If I’m feeling fearful I need to look at my thinking – and then I ask myself if I’m giving away my power to the officials at the Dept. of Education.

I can’t control what the people I will meet will say or do or think of me, but I do have a choice about the thoughts I allow into my mind!

  • I choose to picture a pleasant and positive meeting with all involved.
  • I choose to picture permission to homeschool all of our children, and particularly Yirmi, being granted quickly and easily.

I’m choosing to keep my thoughts focused on a positive outcome, rather than fearing our quality of life being threatened if permission is denied. I trust that the same One Who gave me these children to raise will help us through this process. That thought has helped me replace my anxiety with feeling empowerment instead. I was pleasantly surprised when I got the call about the meeting that I felt very calm – even after hearing the name of the person we’ll be meeting with (someone with a reputation for being very difficult to deal with).

I won’t write more than to say that this is a significant meeting, particularly since I’m not aware of any other child with Trisomy 21 being homeschooled in the entire country. So we’ll be blazing a new trail. 🙂

Another camp picture
Another camp picture 🙂

We’re looking forward to receiving our legal approval and to sharing our good news with you! We welcome all positive thoughts and prayers on our behalf as well!

Avivah

Shifts in our home as the teens move out of homeschooling!

frugal strategies, homeschooling

It has been a busy summer and has only gotten busier as the official school year has begun! I’ve hoped to write in detail about some of the following points, but due to time constraints will just touch on some updates!

First of all, dd16 is now in seminary!  She travels daily to Jerusalem and I get to see her a few minutes in the evening, if I’m luckly.  She is really loving it so far.  My experience has been when my kids have wanted the school experience, they have thrived because it was something they chose and are emotionally invested in.

Next big change around here is that ds15 is now attending a local yeshiva high school.  It’s a new program with a small first class.  He leaves around 7ish in the morning and gets home about twelve hours later, so it’s a long day and that’s an adjustment.

Ds18 is in a post high school yeshiva (and I never got to tell you about his high school graduation and how he spoke beautifully when asked to represent his class…) and has said that everything is better than he expected. His yeshiva has a no cell phone policy, which has some benefits.  But it also means that in addition to seeing him once a month instead of once a week, I hardly speak to him.  I count myself lucky if I speak to him ten minutes a week.  And that’s longer than he’s speaking to anyone else on the phone during the week!

Dd21 is working on building up her industrial design business. She works from home, and that makes my transition from not having homeschooled teens around to keep an eye on younger siblings a little bit easier.  But she’s supposed to be working, not babysitting, so I really try to keep this to a minimum.

Dd22 is working locally and I enjoy that she’s living at home so I get to see her a bit in the evenings.

And ds24 and his lovely wife are doing well and it’s always nice to see them together!

So that leaves just the youngest five boys at home during the days – officially four are homeschooling this year.  It’s going to be a big shift not to have the older kids around.

I do like my children.  And I miss them when they’re not around.  But I’m grateful they’re growing into independent adults even if it means some pangs and inconvenience for me.

I’ve been busy in the last month doing lots of decluttering and reorganizing of my home space.  The kids (dd21, ds18, dd16 and ds15) built a pergola for our yard with swings and an integrated set of monkey bars, and we build another pergola on our porch that completely covers the porch.   They are all hard workers and did an amazing job.  I realized just yesterday that the one large beam remaining from building the pergolas is perfect for a balance beam for the kids, and yesterday set that up on the porch for them. It’s a nice to feel very settled as we begin our homeschooling year that everything was mostly in place to support us, inside and out.

I’ve also been giving a lot of thought in the last couple of months to what I’d like to focus on in the coming year, personally and with my family.  Doing this clarification process is always powerful for me.  I also just finished locally giving a four week family mission statement workshop series, helping others to navigate this process that personally has been so valuable for me.

Yesterday we finally had a speech evaluation for Yirmi, eight months after I started the application process.  We also had an OT eval a week ago, and Yirmi is now authorized for weekly therapy if we want it.

And just a couple of hours after completing the speech evaluation, I headed to Jerusalem together with ds11 to meet with the Ministry of Education’s representative regarding the new homeschooling application that I filed for this year to include Yirmi.  The rep is hoping that my past request made when living in the north was technically completed so that it will make the process of approving our new application simpler.

However, I got a call today from the local department of Education in the north asking me to remind them of the status of my file!  I thought they should be the ones with a record of that but sometimes I can have unreasonable expectations. 🙂   He wasn’t clear if an official exemption from the compulsory education law was granted or not.  However, the representative did remember me and that I had done all the necessary steps, and it’s clear that I’m not the one who dropped the ball in completing the legal paperwork.   If they don’t have a record that I was granted permisson to homeschool, we’ll need to begin the entire process again.  More on that as time goes on.

In addition, yesterday my bulk order arrived – I make an order twice a year.  Mostly this is several cartons of coconut oil, but this order also included a 20 kg bag of coconut flour and 11 kg of almond flour.  I’ve been wanting to make desserts that are gluten free for everyone in the family – until now we’ve made special desserts for ds5 that look as similar as possible as the gluten filled treats that everyone else gets.  While white flour and sugar still remain much less expensive than these ingredients, buying in bulk makes the cost of baking gluten free more reasonable.

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful summer and your autumn is off to a great start!

Avivah

See the possibilities in your child, not the limitations

homeschooling, parenting, personal development, Trisomy 21

Can you believe that Yirmi just recently turned 5?

Until Yirmi was born and we received the birth diagnosis of Trisomy 21, I knew very little about what that entailed.  I had the stereotypical perceptions of people with Down syndrome based on very limited personal connection.  When Yirmi was born, my eyes were opened to a much broader, more appreciative and more accurate way of seeing people with differences.

Though people tend to assign a lot of significance to the differences (skin color, religion, political affiliation, income level, abilities), we’re all more alike than different, and we all benefit when we place more emphasis on what makes us similar.  More than anything – every one of us wants to be valued for who we are.  And this has been my focus in raising Yirmi.

Yirmi and his big sister, May 2017
Yirmi and his big sister

We had a 3 hour appointment with a developmental pediatrician very recently (the first since leaving Karmiel 2.5 years ago), who was blown away by Yirmi.  She kept exclaiming that she’s never seen a 5 year old with T21 like him in her decades of working in the field.

She said that he is bright, communicative, emotionally present, focused, takes initiative, and has the confidence to try new things in a new environment.  She told me that these aren’t qualities that she’s seen in a child with T21 of this age, particularly combined with a language delay like his (‘Usually these kids are shut down.’).

A week later I took Rafael for his intake appointment, and again she remarked on how taken she was with Yirmi.  “He’s so emotionally intact.”

y trampoline 2

Why is it the norm for a child with T21 to not be emotionally intact?  To not be confident or communicative in new situations?  To not trust their abilities?  To not be willing to try new things?  To not keep trying to be understood?

Could it be in part because of how those with whom they interact regularly treat them?  Are the frameworks in which they spend most of their time focused on what they can’t do instead of what they can?  Are they being defined by limitation instead of possibility?

Having fun with Daddy!
Playing on the trampoline with Daddy!

People have told me Yirmi doesn’t act like he has Down syndrome, or that he must have it ‘just a little bit’.  What does that even mean??? What limited perceptions are those comments based on??  You can’t have T21 just a little bit – either you’ve got it or you don’t.  He definitely has garden variety Down syndrome, present in every cell of his body.

Though professionals have told me that Yirmi is doing very well, it’s not because he’s inherently different or better than any other child with T21.  I’m not holding him up as an ideal or trying to imply he’s the most amazing child with T21 ever. Comparisons of performance and impressing anyone else isn’t my goal – he is who he is and and regardless of percentages or testing or anything else, he is enough as he is right now.

Having said that, in line with the 80/20 principle, I believe 80% of children with T21 can be doing just as well if given similar support.  I don’t think he should be as unusual as the professionals say he is.  Actually, I think a lot of kids with T21 are already doing great but probably most of them are also being treated like outliers.

I passionately believe that every child deserves to be treated with respect. With respect for where he is right now, with support for whatever limitation he has at this time, and with belief in who he will be in the future.

It’s not hard to do this.  It’s really not.  It may be counter cultural, but it’s not hard.  People think I must ‘work so much’ with Yirmi.  I don’t see what I do as work; he’s not my project to fix.  What I do that I think is of the most value is to parent him the same as all of my other children – I look at what his needs are and try to find integrated ways to support those needs in our daily lives.

Integrating support in a fun way - trampolining!
One example of how we integrate support in a fun way – trampolining!

In my opinion, the most challenging thing is to recognize the aspects of your thinking about your child that are limiting, and then to change those thoughts.  Your actions will follow your thoughts, and your child responds to your thoughts about him.  If you think your child is capable, you’ll have different expectations and take different action than if you think your child has significant limitations.

To consciously shift from a paradigm of limitation to possibility means seeing the potential in your child and acting in alignment with what you trust he will become, long before you see that in him. 

If he can’t yet talk or can’t yet walk, it means believing that if you keep giving good quality input, that you can trust the timing of the output (ie performance) even when it’s taking a lot longer than you would like. At age 4, Yirmi still hardly said any words.  Now a year later, we’re seeing an explosion of speech.  And I trust that we’ll continue to see significant gains with time.

Shifting that paradigm means reflecting your child’s positive inner value to him even at times that he’s immature, irresponsible, unreliable, hypersensitive, or mean.  It means trusting your child’s potential and holding on to that vision even when external circumstances might give you reason to feel discouraged.

And that’s something that benefits every child,  regardless of diagnosis!

Avivah