Category Archives: parenting

Resolving my inner conflict about special ed and inclusion

parenting, Trisomy 21

In recent months, it seems my only opportunity to write is when I’m up in the middle of the night which thankfully doesn’t happen often, so I’m taking advantage of a pounding headache to catch up here with you!

After I shared about some difficulties in having my eight year old out of his school framework for the last nine months, someone asked me if I considered sending him to school. The answer is yes, I have considered it. I don’t see homeschooling as ideal for him at this point, because so much of my energies are used in management rather than actually doing the things I’d like to be doing with the boys.

However, I’ve felt stuck when considering the school options available locally, and also stuck because my two youngest boys with T21 are doing so well at home. Ironic that them doing so well is part of the challenge that makes it hard to send them to school, isn’t it? If they weren’t doing well, anything would be better, but I’d like to build on their success.

I’m going to try to consolidate years of thinking about this topic into one post and will undoubtably end up sounding simplistic. I have SO much to say about every aspect of this but I’m going to just stick to the briefest of bullet points.

It’s important for a person with a disability to be included as much as possible in normative life – we all learn from interacting with others, how to interact with others. My expectations for my children with T21 are the same as for all my kids, and I want them to be in an environment that would best prepare them for life. To me, that has meant pursuing an inclusive school environment rather than special ed.

However…they have needs that are different that need to be understood and honored in order for inclusion to be meaningful. If there isn’t an understanding or desire for inclusion to happen, then it’s effectiveness will be limited. This is the huge challenge in the world of inclusion.

I don’t believe that competitive environments serve children well, generally speaking. What is most important is a safe and supportive learning environment, where a child’s natural pace and internal desire is honored and appreciated. As a result when faced with a choice of various school options, I’ve generally chosen the less demanding educational framework for all of my children. (That’s a surprise for many who have asked me why my kids are such strong motivated learners!) Motivation comes from the inside and can’t be externally demanded, and a person must feel inner ‘rest’ (to use a Neufeldian term) before he will naturally seek more challenge.

So what does this mean regarding inclusion? The child with a disability in an inclusionary school setting is being expected to participate in a normative setting socially and academically. Ideally, this can be very stimulating and healthy.

It can also be a tremendous pressure. Pressure for the child, to constantly feel different and inadequate, to be working his hardest to barely keep up. To feel like his best is hardly cutting it. And I continually ask myself, is this the environment that will be most supportive of him emotionally, that will allow him to feel he is enough as he is, that he doesn’t have to prove himself? Can his many strengths be appreciated, or even noticed in that environment? Will his successes and hard work be recognized, or will he constantly be expected to do more and work harder?

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Let’s look at something entirely different: people making aliyah.

I’ve just recently moved from the most popular destination for people making aliyah – RBSA. Why is it so popular? Because English speakers can feel comfortable with lots of others who speak their language and understand their cultural mentality. Why does that matter? After all, if you’re an capable adult, then learn the language, get familiar with a different culture and integrate. That’s the ideal, right?

Right. And also, not right. Because we seek the comfort of being known and understood by those who ‘get’ us. Most of us don’t want to live in a state of unremitting challenge.

Recently a neighbor invited me to a small gathering of women; four of us were English speakers and one was an Israeli who understood English. At one point, the Israeli expressed her frustration that even though she understood what we were saying, she wasn’t getting the nuances and understanding the jokes. It was a lot of work and tiring for her to try to follow all that was going on, and she felt out of place despite our welcoming her completely.

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Back to inclusion. I want my children – all of them – to have meaningful relationships with others. To have people who get them, who speak their language. I want them to be appreciated, as they are right now. Sometimes we stretch them with stimulating opportunities, but I don’t want them to live in a constantly stretched state.

So my belief in inclusion, the reality of inclusion (at least where I live), and my deep conviction as to how children best develop have been somewhat in conflict.

Yirmi really needs interaction with people outside of our family and neighborhood, and the local school options weren’t a good fit. Several weeks ago, I went to visit a special ed school that is an hour away. I had heard very good things about it, but you can imagine that after years of being pro-inclusion that it was quite a mental adjustment for me to consider this. And I really didn’t want to send him so far away (though for perspective, he spent forty minutes on his bus to the school that was just a fourteen minute drive from our home).

The school was wonderful. Surprisingly, it was a better fit for what I was looking for than anything I considered in the center of the country, where there are supposedly so many options. (A friend in the north told me it’s a state of the art school that is considered one of the best.)

The facilities are amazing; the staff members were so warm and genuine in their interactions with Yirmi. We had a tour of the facilities, and at each room we went into (computer room, ceramic studio, gym, commercial kitchen, vegetable garden, petting zoo), Yirmi was the first one introduced to each teacher and Yirmi was the first one every staff member addressed. Their respect for and understanding of how to speak to a child with T21 (no talking down or overly simplifying) came through with every interaction.

I love the special three wheeled bikes they provide so older kids can ride independently even before they transition to two wheelers; the area where they ride bikes has been built as a model of a street corner, with a traffic light, traffic circle, bus stop and crosswalks, so that children are practicing road safety every time they are biking. I also appreciate that they have a Snoezelen sensory room, animal therapy, music therapy and hydrotherapy (in addition to the typical therapy options).

Yirmi was so happy to be there. It was very emotional for me to see how filled up he was by doing the assessment, visiting the different areas and interacting with the staff. I know that it’s been really hard for him to be so socially limited since we moved and his excitement was palpable.

They couldn’t tell me if they had room for him before meeting him, since there are multiple classes and placement is based on ability. They were impressed with both Yirmi and Rafael (who came along with us, naturally), and the principal said a couple of times it’s obvious how much we’ve invested in them, that they both have ‘high abilities’ (I prefer this terminology to ‘high functioning’).

Yirmi was able to visit the class he would be in, and was introduced to the other six other boys between the ages of seven and eight; at a quick glance it looks like five have T21. They teach reading using the McGuinness method, which I think is wonderful, and I’m glad he’ll be continuing to progress academically.

When he was asked if he wanted to go to school there, he enthusiastically said he did, and Rafael emphatically pointed to himself and insisted, “Me, me!” He also wants to go! (The group for his age is full, though, and as soon as Yirmi is settled, I’m going to find something close to home for him – his registration from September for a local preschool fell through the bureaucratic cracks when his file was lost, and it’s unclear if they still have room for him in the preschool that I originally signed him up for.)

Students can attend until the age of 21, and I appreciated seeing the older students as I passed them in the corridors. They didn’t present as the limited special ed ‘outcome’ that I had been concerned about. It was the opposite, actually.

So what does this mean for us? We completed enrollment and Yirmi was set to begin three weeks ago, but the local municipality has yet to arrange transportation for him to get there. That could have been done very quickly (since there are students from our area who already travel there) but hopefully at some point next week it will be in place.

Going back to school has been long overdue, and Yirmi is going to love it! I’m so relieved and grateful to have found a really good option that will provide a warm and stimulating learning environment for him.

Avivah

Why remote learning is hard and how to make it easier

parenting

When my fourteen year old son went to high school at the beginning of the year, it was a great fit for him. He really loved it.

For five days.

Then a student had a positive corona test and all the boys were sent home. Zoom classes replaced in-person classes for the next week and a half. Then he returned for one more week of school before the break before the fall holidays. And that was it.

Since then, it’s been zoom, zoom, zoom.

Sitting in his room for hours every day across from a screen, alone. I didn’t like it at all. At one point I instructed him to sit at a table outside, facing the orchard next to our house. He said that it was much better – I knew being outdoors with fresh air, sunshine and the sight of nature would be a much better learning environment – but the internet connection wasn’t reliable and back to his room he went.

But he was learning and continued to feel motivated and connected to his teachers.

Then the school reopened for local ninth graders, but the dorm remained closed. So my son and three others who are too far for a daily commute were left alone on Zoom. As non-ideal as it is when the teacher is teaching directly on the screen to all the students, it becomes much less ideal when he is teaching in person to most of the students and just a few are left on the screen, ignored in the proverbial corner.

My son has amazed me with his consistent ability to show up on zoom classes with a good attitude, day after day. But when the announcement was made about the regular classes resuming (though not for him) he got discouraged and upset. How, he asked me, is he supposed to ask a question or have any personal interaction with his teacher in this situation? Hope that his teacher remembers to look at the screen to see if he has a question once an hour?

After hearing this news, the next day he didn’t attend online classes – he had lost his incentive to participate.

That day was followed by Shabbos, which allowed him to decompress. He took a long run with a friend on Saturday night to a local spring to burn off the frustration he was feeling – he was still wound up pretty tight – and came back feeling much calmer and more accepting of the situation. Not happy about it, but able to deal with it. And he went back to his online classes.

Fortunately, the school asked for parental feedback and enough of us voted for a capsule that they finally opened the ninth grade dorm yesterday. (A capsule means, they keep the kids isolated as a group for an extended period; they each have to have a negative corona test to be allowed in, no entrances or exits are allowed once the capsule ‘closes’; no connection with other students not in the same capsule.) I was so happy to take my son to school yesterday. And he is SO happy to be back!

I believe globally we’re going to be paying the emotional and developmental price for this online learning ‘solution’ for years to come. Kids aren’t meant to learn like this.

>> BH my son just became a bar mitzvah. Thank G-d he has matured a lot in the past few years and all the skills I learned from you have been very helpful. Recently with the whole remote learning we see that he is unmotivated and takes very little initiative in completing his work. I wouldn’t say he was ever super motivated but he learned in school and did ok grades wise. Now it’s a disaster. I was hoping you could give me some guidance about how to build in my son an innate desire for learning and motivation to help him be more successful. Thank you! <<

For years, the main question people have asked of me as a homeschooler has been, “What about socialization?” It wasn’t hard for people to picture kids doing well academically in the home environment, but it became clear to me after hearing this question for so many years, that the most important part of school was social.

And now, students have had the most important component of school taken away, and parents are left focusing on the academics as if it’s an independent issue from the learning environment.

It’s not.

We really can’t directly create intrinsic motivation and desire for anything. This is an organic process that happens on its own, that is part of an emotional maturing process that comes from within the child. What we can do is create external conditions that support the child’s maturation process.

This consists of a lot of emotional connection, emotional safety and emotional space. Developing interests actually comes in the quiet spaces in our lives, not when we’re scheduled and kept busy from the outside. We have to find the emptiness to want to fill it. We can help our kids make room for an interest to develop by backing off and giving them room to find their interests. (This suggestion generally makes parents very anxious and the process of waiting for the interest to emerge requires a lot of trust in the inherent maturational process; it often looks like they are lazing around and zoning out for a while).

The ideal learning situation is when a student has an interest in the material and a connection with the teacher. In this situation, you’ll see students do super well – they stay engaged, the enjoy learning, they want to be there.

When one of those is missing, learning can still happen.

When both interest and connection are missing, learning will come to a standstill. And then you have the unmotivated student.

When all my son’s ninth grade class was on Zoom, he told me that hardly anyone was paying attention. Honestly, this is predictable – the question we should really ask is why are some students able to learn effectively on Zoom? (The answer is above – a combination of interest and connection with the teacher.)

How can you get a child who feels no connection to the material or teacher to care about it? You can’t.

You really can’t.

This is why people then try to use the carrot/stick approach. To promise incentives, and when that doesn’t work, to use penalties or punishments. That includes the withdrawal of our positive feelings about them.

My suggestion would be to pull back as much as possible regarding your expectations of his participation on Zoom. I know parents feel like they have to make sure their kids are showing up for their online classes, but understand it’s asking something unreasonable and unnatural of our kids to learn in this way. Perhaps you can look at his schedule with him, and ask him to pick the most important classes for him to show up at – like two or three a day.

(Honestly, I don’t think any of us adults would be able to sit through hours of classes on topics that we don’t care about, day after day. If we continued to show up at the screen daily, we would zone out and open another window on our screen, to read or watch videos of things that interest us more.)

Encourage him to find outlets or hobbies for all of that pent up energy. Teenage boys are meant to be moving around a LOT! If he wants to talk about why he doesn’t like online learning, be willing to hear him out without telling him why it’s important for him to do it anyway.

Let him know how awesome you think he is, independent of his school success. Honestly, it matters so little in the course of one’s life how he does in school. What is much, much more important is that he feels loved and appreciated, and has some feeling of success in an area that matters to him.

My thirteen year old was feeling kind of blah – hardly any kids his age around, no extracurricular activities available, politics in the shul that made it an unpleasant environment…Then of his own volition he began learning in the evenings hilchos shechita with a local shochet. He found a different shul to attend where people are warm and welcoming (he gets up for neitz – the sunrise service – and enjoys having breakfast there before coming home). Then he had a couple of extended jobs come his way working for people he likes, and making money. He feels purposeful and positive about his days now.

I don’t see the blah period as a bad thing; it’s actually an inherent part of his life getting better. There has to be awareness of having a space to fill, and a desire to fill it, before someone can make choices that feel better to them.

Avivah

The Biggest Little Farm – permaculture as a parallel for healthy parenting

gardening, parenting

Today I watched a movie that my husband saw on his flight from the US over 18 months ago. He told me then that he thought I’d love it; I finally enjoyed it with the boys today.

The Biggest Little Farm is a beautifully filmed true story of a couple that decides to leave the city, buys dried up farmland and uses biodynamic principles to turn the land into a lush, healthy biosphere where crops and animals live in harmony and support one another in a cycle that becomes increasingly more powerful as time goes on.

Ducks are used to remedy the massive snail infestation, nesting boxes are installed to encourage predatory birds to make their homes in the orchard where gophers are damaging the tree roots and birds are eating the fruits, and animal waste products are a critical part of the process of strengthening the soil. (When the person was enthusing about the waste cycle supporting soil health, one of my boys laughingly said, “Just like you, Mommy!” Yep, me and my appreciation of duck doo. 🙂 )

Afterwards I was musing about how an approach that trusts the effectiveness of natural principles always means keeping your vision on the long term and investing more upfront. No quick fix to get the results you want and sometimes it looks like those using mainstream approaches are getting ahead, but by working together with nature, your efforts end up supported rather than thwarted and your job becomes easier and easier over time.

Exactly like parenting.

It feels harder when your child is throwing a tantrum to listen and guide their emotions, rather than firmly tell them to stop crying. It seems easier to punish a child who isn’t acting the way you want (an example from the film would be to shoot the coyote), but those problems then only temporarily go away. And new problems are created with that approach.

When you build your child up with your belief in them and your belief what they can be (ie trust the natural principles and be willing to give them time to mature, just as true of plants as children) instead of breaking them down with your criticisms and frustrations (film parallel – douse the crops with heavy doses of pesticides), they become stronger and stronger, and need less and less management and feedback the older they become.

This film is a heartening vision of what is possible, and seeing what is possible rather than being told how the world is on self-destruct mode is certainly a much more appealing approach for me. And it’s possible on a very small scale – these are principles that I try to integrate into my gardening.

Another very enjoyable and educational documentary that we watched three weeks ago was Kiss The Ground – I found it free on youtube but when I just now did a quick search to link it for you, I don’t see it there now. It might have been pulled or you might need to search a little longer than thirty seconds. 🙂 It’s worth the watch; if I had to choose between the above two films, I personally preferred Kiss The Ground because it was so much more informative though the cinematography of The Biggest Little Farm was fantastic.

There is also a TED talk (this was the first thing that I watched on the topic, after lots of casual online reading) on the transformative power of regenerative agriculture, the approach detailed in Kiss The Ground, ‘How regenerative farming can help heal the planet and human health’ by Charlie Massy. Understanding carbon sounds like a bore but it’s really interesting and actually has the power to reverse decades of damage to our planet.

Avivah

My first grandson, gardening and other random stuff

gardening, homemaking, parenting

A couple of weeks ago my oldest daughter called to let me know she was in labor, and since the next night I was scheduled as the keynote speaker for the online Jewish Homeschool Convention on the topic of: How to Enjoy Homeschooling: Trusting your child, yourself and the learning process, I quickly jumped online to give you the details before I headed out to be with her.

Unfortunately, it was only two weeks later when I got online again here that I saw that in my haste I didn’t push the ‘publish’ button! However, there are recordings of the great lineup of speakers for a nominal fee, if you’re looking for some inspiration/perspective/encouragement.

Back to my laboring daughter…I now have a beautiful grandson, joining our three granddaughters.

When my husband and I had a new baby, for the most part we were on our own. It wasn’t until our seventh child was born that we had parents living nearby, but by then we were used to doing everything ourselves and they were used to us doing everything ourselves, so the main support for me after birth was my husband and children. When there was a shalom zachor/ bris to make, we (ie my husband and kids) made all the food, did all the setup, cleanup and organizing. It’s so nice how different it is for my daughter to have so many family members to lend a hand – all of the adult married kids were commenting on how very different it is from when they were growing up.

We were hosted for four days by our second daughter, who lives a short walk from her older sister and made us feel very much at home. Not an easy feat, when hosting seven people all day and night (in addition to hosting the bris) in a two bedroom apartment! We rarely go away – the last time was for my daughter’s Shabbos sheva berachos almost three years ago – and we all enjoyed it so much.

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I wrote and rewrote in my head various posts for Down Syndrome Awareness month over the last weeks, and didn’t post any of them despite my intentions. I hope to share about why another time (time allowing, which is the big challenge).

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The weather report said that rain is imminent and that caused a flurry of activity in the last couple of days. Firstly, since we don’t have a storage shed, we decided after Sukkos ended to leave our schach in place on top of the pergola, and then to top that with a rainproof covering. Yesterday we bought the heavy duty covering and last night got my husband and ds13 got everything covered and rain tight. Such a relief to have it done before the rain!

Then it was on to preparing a dry spot for our animals for the rain. Right now that means two ducks, four quail and three chickens. (We got a chicken chick to keep the sole surviving quail chick from the batch he incubated company, but then the chicken outgrew the quail and we borrowed two chicks from a neighbor to keep the chicken company!) The boys decided to take the chickens to a local farm for the winter, where they previously sent our two muscovy ducks when a neighbor complained about them perching on our mutual fence a couple of months ago.

Ds13 waterproofed the quail pen and ds11 waterproofed the duck coop, and then ds11 and I laid out a path of synthetic grass leading to the animal area so that they won’t track mud into the house when it rains. (At least not from that area!) Ds13 pounded in six foot posts and strung a tarp over it to make a dry spot to keep their bikes in the backyard.

We also cleaned up the little corner of my yard that has become a dumping ground for various project materials. Before we bought the used kitchen that we installed (I’ll do an update on that separately, I’m pleased with how it’s turned out), we got another kitchen that didn’t work for us (it was my husband’s first time making that kind of purchase- usually I buy those things – and he used it as a valuable learning experience.)

Though we gave away all those cabinets, I’m left with three slabs of granite countertops and two sinks that I might want to use when I redo the kitchen upstairs. Yesterday I spoke to the handyman I was told could do this kind of work but he said that he can’t do the finely skilled cuts for an indoor kitchen that I would want. So I’ll think a little longer about if there’s another project I want to use them- a potting sink for the garden, maybe? -before passing them along.

Then there were all the boards stacked messily and other odds and ends from various projects. We cut some of the boards down yesterday to make additional shelving inside the kitchen cabinets and neatly stacked all the rest, so now we can get rid of all wood that was left. It’s so nice to have it look nice and be possible to walk through that small area.

I’ve done lots in the garden, and there’s still plenty to do! There’s actually something quite nice about that; it’s not a pressure for me. I really enjoy gardening. I’ve been fairly steadily adding to the garden beds – I have nine fruit trees now, along with a grape vine and a pitango bush, so most of my additions have been decorative plants and a few palm trees.

My next project is to install a drip irrigation system and possibly sprinklers if that will be necessary for grass; I made an appointment with a gardener to come in a couple of days for a consult so I can understand what’s involved, and see what installation we’re ready to take on ourselves. Then I want to put down some sod grass so I’ll have something beautiful instead of a big mud puddle in the winter. There’s not much of a chance of successfully growing grass from seed with two ducks free ranging around!

I recently learned the term dehisence, and for the first time recognized what the seed pods of periwinkle look like. My eyes were opened to the possibilities of gathering seeds. I gathered a bunch of the periwinkle seed pods with ds13, then we went on to gather seeds from the yellow gazanias and orange marigolds. I told him he could sprinkle some in whatever garden bed he wanted, and we’d see what came up. I’m not such a fan of planting seeds because I don’t tend to get them to a big enough size to transplant into the garden before something happens to them, but I’m packing these away and in a few months will plant them to have ready for the early summer.

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On a communal note, we enjoyed hosting a minyan in our yard during the Sukkos break (our family members made up half the minyan!). We even had a sefer Torah, which was very special. Once the boys went back to yeshiva, we ended the minyan. However, we appreciated the sense of connection with other attendees that was created and would like to continue to help build a sense of community at a time that it seems to be disappearing. Beginning this Saturday night, we’ll be hosting a weekly melave malka/kumsitz for men and teen boys.

Not to leave out the girls, though! Because quiet time for me to write or prepare classes is so limited in my life at this stage – and being that I get up so early, it’s challenging to stay up late enough to give classes – I’ve hesitated about offering classes for women even though I’m a teacher to my core. But a recent conversation with a teen inspired me to offer a teen girls discussion group/kumsitz, beginning this Saturday night. The focus will be what is essentially at the heart of all my classes, regardless of the topic, living a life with meaning and joy. And since I’ve committed to doing it, I’m going to somehow find time to prepare and stay awake!

I thought I’d leave you with my weekly menu plan, but naturally my planner has temporarily disappeared and since I can’t remember it by heart, I’ll have to leave you with my good intentions instead. 🙂
Since ds13 has recently gotten interested in cheese making, I’ve spent a lot of money on milk and we’ve been enjoying homemade yogurt and cottage cheese for breakfast this last week. I can also tell you that lunch today was chicken jambalaya and dinner is supposed to be sweet potato peanut burgers but will be a simplified version since I didn’t feel like making something with that many steps later in the day. :):)

Sending you all my warmest wishes for a wonderful week to come!

Avivah

Why should I have to explain my child’s existence?!?

parenting, Trisomy 21

This month is Down Syndrome Awareness month, and what I’d like to do during the course of the month is share some experiences and feelings I’ve had as the parent of a child with Trisomy 21.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to pick up my three year old and eight year old from the park (who both have T21), where they had spent an hour with a babysitter. When I got there, I saw ds8 sitting at the top of the slide, waiting for the girl in front of him to go down (I don’t know how long he was there before I came). After a couple of minutes while I was speaking with my younger son, Yirmi (8) said to me, “She isn’t going down.”

I responded, “Ask her to go down.” He did, and she refused, saying she wanted to go up the slide. He told me she won’t go down. I explained to her when you’re on the slide in the playground and someone is waiting behind you, you have to go down. If you want to go back up, slide down and then go back up around the other side.

She refused, making up different excuses – she wants to slide with her sister, she wants Yirmi to move away so she can climb up the slide. During these few minutes that we were speaking, I glanced at her mother standing close by, expecting her to step in. But she was busy on the phone and despite her proximity didn’t seem aware of our conversation.

After Yirmi had been waiting at least five minutes and the little girl wouldn’t move, I involved her mother. After her mother asked her to go down and she refused, her mother lifted her off.

The girl began screaming, then threw herself to the ground, continuing to shriek.

The mother was speaking to her daughter to calm her down, and as I was getting ready to leave, looked up at me. “Right, he’s a special child?” “He’s a child like any other child”, I replied, feeling impatient at the question. “Yes, but I’m trying to explain to her why he acted the way he did, and she needs to understand.”

“Acted like what?” I asked. “She said he was bothering her.” Heat began to rise in me. “I was watching him the entire time. He didn’t do anything to her – he sat there waiting patiently for a few minutes – all he did was ask her to move once.”

She continued talking to her child, who then said she was scared because he pushed her with his toes when she wasn’t going down.

Now, here in Israel, believe me, kids don’t wait patiently for five minutes for someone on a slide. They do a lot more than push someone gently with their feet – yelling, pushing and hitting is typical behavior. So this clearly wasn’t the issue (especially since I was standing there and talking to her the entire time, I didn’t see it and she didn’t mention it then).

I put the boys in the car. (Edited to add: I didn’t feel good about the conversation to date and wanted to speak to her from a more calm place inside myself, so I went back to leave things on a good note.) The other mother asked me how to explain the situation to her child. I told her that I believe that it’s best when we focus on what is the same between all of us than what is different, whatever the difference is. If someone isn’t acting the way that you like, I teach my kids to give the benefit of the doubt and assume they are a good person. She agreed, but after more conversation with her daughter, said that her daughter is very sensitive, that this behavior wasn’t typical for her, and finally clarified that the problem is that my son being different upset her. So how to explain that?

Deep sadness and frustration filled me at this well-intentioned mother’s question. Sadness that my child goes to a park and does everything right – and somehow the situation is about him, rather than the behavior of the girl.

Sadness that he can’t be seen as any other child. Frustration that the situation isn’t being dealt with the way it would if any other child had been sitting on top of that slide and she refused to move. Not liking something about someone isn’t actually an excuse for behaving badly, you know?

Frustration with myself for not being more patient and understanding and explaining better, while putting my two little kids in the car and then having them calling for me to come already while I’m speaking with her. When it’s been a long day and I’m tired and all I want to do is get home and give them dinner and put them to bed. When I just want my kids to be able to play and have fun at a park, without any conversations or explanations.

Frustrated and sad at the thought that kept circling around my mind afterward, “Why should I have to explain my child’s existence?”

Avivah

The bar mitzva hardly felt like corona times!

parenting

On Thursday afternoon the bar mitzva excitement began to build, as family members trickled in. I count it as a minor miracle that no one was in quarantine – the statistical odds weren’t in our favor!

(My mom and son in RBS left early in the week, when there was talk of a lockdown in that area. The entire yeshiva of ds21 is locked down with the army coming in to prevent anyone from leaving. It was a bummer when he got covid during the summer break and could only be home with us for the final week of vacation but thanks to that he was allowed to leave.)

We began our bar mitzva celebration on Thursday night with a family meal, attended by our immediate family members (my mom, all our children and grandchildren), which totaled 20 people.

My husband prepared a slide show which we viewed at the end of the meal, and of course I immediately got a lump in my throat watching. They are so little and….boom. Suddenly they’re bar mitzva and I’m wondering where the years have gone…

One of the very first pics of him on my blog, June 2010, 2 3/4 yrs.
Ds13 at his bar mitzva seuda!

We then had an outdoor dessert reception for men and boys. We had a nice turnout, and though the music system failed, people sang instead and it was still very nice.

We projected the slide show through a window to the yard and kept it replaying throughout the evening, so people could enjoy it – and they did.

I had expressed my desire to my older daughters for the bar mitzva to feel special for our son, and they prepared some things in advance for him. One daughter printed a large photo of our son and it was displayed where people could sign it.

We ended the evening with maariv (evening services) and our son led the services. I was amazed at how naturally and comfortably he stepped into this with so much confidence, and asked my husband if he prepared him. No, he told me there was no official preparation at all, he picked it up on his own by attending shul.

(By the way, this is a premise of ours that informs our homeschooling approach – that when a person is ready and wants to learn something, he will.)

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On Shabbos, we were all able to attend shul in the morning. We are blessed with a very large shul with not very large attendance (so plenty of space between everyone), and the women’s section is a completely separate entrance so it has a separate total of people allowed to be there (due to coronavirus regulations). I didn’t take being able to be in shul for the Torah reading for granted, as many people can’t at this time. My mom and daughters and I agreed that this was the best setup we’ve ever had – we could see and hear more clearly than any other bar mitzva (this is our fifth bar mitzva).

His leining was beautiful. It was especially emotional for us to hear him, with him having been such a late reader, and here we have a young man who read his Torah portion so smoothly and with so much confidence. (He now reads comfortably in English and Hebrew, which a dyslexia expert told me doesn’t happen. Good thing we didn’t listen to the experts!)

We then had a kiddush outside in our garden. We are so blessed to have the space to do this. My daugher-in-law and daughter collaborated to make a beautiful cake with edible tefillin decorating the top.We had loads of baked goods prepared and I was sure we’d have tons left over, but we had an amazing attendance and hardly anything was left. It was surprising and heartwarming to have so many people come, and very appreciated.

I think it being held outside made people much more comfortable about coming – there were people there who are very, very strict about masks and social distancing who hardly go out, and I was pleasantly surprised that they joined us. I was especially honored that the rav of the shul attended. He is an elderly man in a wheelchair who doesn’t go out much; I had no expectation that he would be there and it was truly an honor for us that he came.

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Weeks ago when discussing his bar mitzva, my son asked if we could spend Shabbos in RBS and celebrate there, because he has no friends to celebrate with here. But he was so happy with his entire bar mitzva, and we all felt the same – it was a wonderful experience for everyone.

I feel some additional gratitude, with the impending three week lockdown set to begin less than a week, that he was born when he was, as just one Shabbos later this entire event wouldn’t have been possible!

We enjoyed having all of our family together, and before we knew it, Shabbos was over. There was the initial expansion as people arrived on Thursday, and then a sudden deflation as they left. On Saturday night, nine family members left; first thing Sunday morning two more boys left, and then the last three family members left on Sunday night. Now there are just six of us left at home, and it’s with much gratitude that we can look back on the wonderful event that we shared together.

Avivah

This Shabbos – our corona bar mitzva!

homemaking, parenting, personal development

When it was announced months ago that celebrations would be curtailed because of corona, I told my kids it was good that my son’s bar mitzva wasn’t until September. Because hopefully things would be back to normal by then.

Well, they aren’t back to normal and tomorrow night (Thursday) is the bar mitzva! Thankfully we are a nice sized group consisting of our single and married children as well as my mother (20 including our three granddaughters), and we will have the bar mitzva seuda together.

I really don’t know what to expect as far as participation of others outside our immediate family for the dessert reception afterwards or the kiddush on Shabbos morning following davening (both to be held outdoors in our garden). It’s going to be interesting to see how things unfold!

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I was feeling very pressured yesterday morning about all that needed to cooked/baked/cleaned as nothing was done and I had two days left to do it all. Two days with most of the older kids not home to help, and two young children at home who need a lot of active supervision. Two days when my husband would be traveling to Jerusalem for work, so no car to take care of any errands or shopping and obviously he won’t be around to help out.

To add to that, my fridge hasn’t been working properly, and since it’s under warranty, the technician was supposed to come this week. He didn’t come and when I called to reschedule, he won’t be coming until next week. The Shabbos setting hardly cools the fridge and the food spoils by the end of Shabbos, and isn’t working optimally during the week. So that was a deterrent as far as cooking in advance.

I sat down to make a list of menus for the bar mitzva meal, the dessert reception, the three Shabbos meals and the Shabbos morning kiddush. And I saw a message from my oldest daughter.

She informed me that she and her sister were in touch and would be bringing the following baked goods, and then listed the items. And she went shopping to buy some things I needed today. And my amazing daughter in law called to ask how she could help, and bought all the paper goods and is bringing another dessert with her.

They were all very concerned about how much needs to be done and that I have minimal assistance to do it all. I very, very much appreciated knowing that others are thinking of me and understand the logistical challenge.

Just like that, I went from feeling alone and overwhelmed, to feeling loved and supported.

Then this morning I got up at 4:30 and got two hours of focused preparations underway before anyone was up, and amazingly continued getting things taken care of while they were awake. (I made a huge pot of matbucha, three 9 x 13 pans of potato kugel, three pans of noodle kugel, two pans of apple crumble, one pan of chocolate cake, two pans of baked apples, roast, beet salad, roasted radishes, cleaned and reorganized both fridges to make room for all the food I’ll be making, and did lots of laundry and dishes. And made breakfast and dinner and raked up lots of small pebbles and rocks into piles in my garden so they can get toted out. And was pleasant with my children throughout the day – I count the last item as really important because when there’s a happy event, it’s important to me not to spoil it with tension about what has to be done).

And then my eleven year old took my eight year old to the park while I took a nap midday.

And my mother read them books.

And then a lovely young lady came to help with the younger boys (starting this week I arranged for her to come daily for an hour in the later afternoon) but since they weren’t available, she mixed up a cake batter alongside me in the kitchen.

And then someone called to offer to do any shopping I need tomorrow, and to pick up my two younger kids and watch them so I can get things done. And called back to ask if I prefer she send a salad for the bar mitzva meal or for Shabbos.

And then my daughter called back to say that she’s bringing even more desserts with her, and what else can she make?

It can feel a little lonely making a celebration in a new place, during this time of dramatically reduced communal social interactions. But all of these pinpoints of love and offers of help meant so much to me.

Avivah

Parents not allowed in schools??? No, this is not okay.

parenting

I’ve been so glad that my three year old has been able to be home since March with us. He’s doing so well in all areas and it’s with sadness that I signed him up last week for preschool. Sadness that quickly turned to alarm.

First, the pluses of what I found. I didn’t want to send him to a special ed school in a different city; it would be a very long day with a lot of travel, and I have a strong preference for an inclusive environment for him.

I signed him up for a local multi-age religious preschool (3/4/5) with a small class of just 15 students and two teachers. Rafael is also entitled to get a one on one assistant to support him in the mainstream environment. The students all live locally so these are children he will see in the community outside of school hours.

This is just a few minutes from my house by car, and since it’s multi-age, he can attend the same preschool for several years. That means less transition and more security from having the same teachers, same building and many of the same classmates.

HOWEVER – the regulations for schools throughout the country are that parents will no longer be allowed to enter the preschool (or any other school). Children have to be dropped off at the entrance gate to the school.

This is incredibly alarming. Why in the world can anyone go anywhere else – the store, the beach, the synagogue – and not into their child’s school?

I presume that most teachers are good and responsible people. But a child’s most significant protection has always been from involved parents.

A young child going to a new school for the first time needs the security of his parent’s presence. The way I’ve handled introduction to preschool in the past is to prepare them in advance, by introducing them to the teacher and show them the classroom. (In the daycare we sent to, the staff facilitated this for everyone – three children at a time were invited with their parents to come for an hour or two to help the familiarize the child with the class environment and a couple of peers to start off with. )

Nov. 2019, two days before Rafael started preschool last year. Can you see how apprehensive he looks because the photographer and place are unfamiliar to him – anxious despite sitting on my lap with my arms around him, with his siblings just an arms length away?

Last year, I stayed with Rafael a couple of hours on the first day, then left him for an hour and came back early to pick him up. We eased into a regular schedule over the course of a week or so, with me staying less and less each day, and leaving him for longer periods until he was comfortable with it.

Now I’m expected to drop him off at a building he’s never seen, with teachers and classmates he’s never met ?? Without my presence to reassure him? No way.

I’ve spoken to our foster care social worker and shared my conviction that this is emotionally unsafe for young children. She’s spoken to her supervisor, and they agree with my concerns.

However, the official response is that as a foster child, Rafael has to be registered for preschool regardless of my concerns. If I was a biological parent, there’s not a chance that I’d agree to this. To leave our children without parental supervision and physical involvement in their schools is a very dangerous precedent.

No matter how kind, how well intended or responsible everyone involved is, a parent is a child’s best advocate and protector and barring parental entry to schools is a dangerous move.

Avivah

Nine year aliyah anniversary – loving spending time with all our married kids

aliyah, parenting

Nine years ago this week, we arrived in Israel with eight of our children (one was waiting at the airport to greet us), ages 2 – 18.

Coming with children above the age of ten isn’t recommended, due to the challenge in adjusting. And we had five children in that age range.

We made the decision to move very quickly in order to move as an intact family unit; if we waited any longer, we would leave older children beginning their independent adult lives behind. Our hope was that as our children married, they would choose to live in Israel and we could continue to stay connected in person.

On the anniversary of our aliyah flight we had a family barbeque. All three of our married children were there with their families. One has been with us for two weeks, one was here for a week; they both returned home to Jerusalem later that night. Another married child arrived from Jerusalem that night for a five day stay.

Ds18 managed to evade being in the photo but otherwise we had everyone except for dd19 together.

Our nineteen year old daughter missed it (she left a few days ago) but otherwise, everyone was here. When I got on the plane nine years ago, this was the vision of what we wanted to have – meaningful connection with each of our children between us and our children, and them with one another, as their personal lives expanded outside the immediate sphere of our family.

My husband and I switched places as the photographer so here he is with everyone. 🙂

Moving to a new country with a new language and culture is going to be a challenge no matter what. And there were a lot of big bumps in the road for us in the early years.

Due to events in the US, a lot of people more people than usual are considering aliyah. I know it’s scary to think of starting over, it’s hard to leave the familiar. Where will you live, will there be social and educational supports for your family, and how will you make a living?

Those are real issues that need to be addressed. And there’s probably going to be a good dose of hard in the adjustment.

But hard doesn’t last forever. And even in the midst of the hardest of the hard, none of us regretted making the move to Israel.

I’m fortunate that when I believe in something, I can see the potential difficulties but assume we’ll make it work. (That’s also the same thinking that allowed us to make a move to a different part of the country – twice! – in the last nine years.) And truly, it always works out for us.

If your heart is calling you to move to Israel, don’t let your fears get in your way. You definitely need a plan. And even more, you need a reason to move, a vision of what you want to have because this is what will keep you going when things are bumpy. And finally, you need to believe you can and will succeed.

Avivah

Last minute search – how and why we chose the high school we did

parenting

From the time that we shared our plan to move to northern Israel, almost every single person has asked, “What about schools/special ed services?”

Great question. And my not so great answer is, I really don’t know. I do know that there are no options where I live in Yavneel itself.

As far as high school goes, there is a very small learning program locally that we hoped would be a good option for ds14 and allow him to live at home, being that I have a strong preference not to send to a dorm. However, it’s not going to continue next year and even if it would, it wouldn’t meet his needs for an extended period. (It’s been great for this in-between time, though, and I’m very grateful it’s here.)

And that’s why just three weeks ago, we began the search for a suitable high school for ds. However, it’s not ideal to embark on this search long after registration has closed and the roster is full, to put it mildly.

After several conversations with ds14, it became clear that he doesn’t want to board with a family, and that knocked off the top option (it doesn’t have a dorm).

The head of the program locally asked someone who knows all the school options to come and meet him to see what he thought would be a match for him. Interestingly, he suggested the yeshiva in Karmiel – the same one that we chose not to send to, even when living in Karmiel!

When I heard this option, I had a strong knee jerk reaction to say, ‘Absolutely not!!!’ but it’s a sign of maturity to consider things with new eyes, right? It’s an excellent yeshiva with a nice student body (two of the students are still good friends of his), we know a number of the families that send there, it has the sense of being somewhat familiar because it’s located in the area we used to live in (it eases the transition when living away from home), there is less travel time than the other options, and it’s affordable.

These were all positives and I was grateful when ds had his interview and was accepted.

Then he went to visit the school.

I assumed this would be where he would go since he had a good feeling about it, and despite my personal preference for a broader academic/social focus, what matters most to me is that it’s a good fit for my son.

However, he came home very clear that he wouldn’t go there. I asked him for reasons and he responded, ‘You always tell me to listen to my intuition. And I’m telling you I don’t want to go there, I don’t know why exactly.”

I told him that while it’s enough for me, it’s helpful for all of us to know what he doesn’t want to help us hone in on what he does want. (He did go on to share some things that didn’t fit for what he wanted.)

We then contacted the principal of the high school that ds21 attended. This is a school with a strong academic program for Judaic and secular studies. Ds21 smoothed the path for us by being in touch with him directly a couple of weeks before and telling him about his brother.

When my older son attended this school, he had something like twelve kids in his class. There are now two classes of 25 for the incoming freshman class, which is their full capacity. Registration has been closed for months.

However, we were now approaching them as the parents of a student who was a remarkable asset to their yeshiva – when my husband took ds for an interview, they told him that ds21 was a ‘foundation stone’ of the yeshiva. (When ds21 spoke at his graduation as his class representative, he was introduced with the statement: ‘We can’t overstate how much this student has done for this school’.)

This was a really good experience for us. We weren’t begging someone to accept our son, or dealing with an administration acting as if they would be doing a big favor for us by taking our son. They told us that although they were at maximum capacity, they were going to accept ds14 anyway.

Ds14 had a really good feeling after visiting. When he was introduced to another staff member as ‘B’s younger brother’ and then asked if he minded being referred to as such, he said, no, he didn’t mind. ‘But’, he added, ‘by the time I graduate, people are going to be referring to him as my older brother!’ I love that he felt confident and comfortable enough to say that.

We’re all really glad to have wrapped up the search for a school, and ds14 is feeling much more relaxed knowing where he’ll be going in a few weeks. (If school opens – which is very much not a given!)

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I want to share a little more about my dilemma in choosing a school. Why didn’t I go right to the second school?

I always have this conflict about appreciating a conservative religious program and not wanting the pressure that usually comes along with it. I feel it’s important that kids have room to be without a long list of expectations on them. Not because any of my kids would have a problem with the rules, but because whenever there are strong demands, there is the potential to create strong resistance and kickback. (This is a hugely significant consideration for us.) I think it’s asking for problems to put your child in a very small box without much room to maneuver.

This is my main issue with mainstream charedi yeshivas at the high school level, and my choice has always been to send to a more open school, where our kids end up being the stronger ones religiously. There is a danger is this, too, that a child will be pulled down by their peers.

The second yeshiva has a student body that is coming from homes where parents want a dual curriculum, like us. This is the norm in the US and why we are very comfortable with it. I very much appreciate the strong education they provide that allows students to compete with anyone in the country when they graduate. But here it’s not the norm in charedi society, and most charedi parents would consider a program like this a religious compromise.

Note: the school has a charedi staff and orientation. Most of the students are coming from what I would call ‘open charedi’ homes. It’s not for kids who are struggling religiously. When they graduate, many of the students go on to strong mainstream charedi yeshivas (some go on to other options). However, the broader academic approach means the student body has more technology use and exposure to things that would be less common in the mainstream charedi world.

Although the school is also much more expensive than the first option (four times the price!), our main concern was the potential social influences. This is a choice we make very carefully every single time, after a great deal of thought and discussion about the child, his personality and what will best support him.

Avivah