Category Archives: parenting

Praying at gravesite of Sheloh Hakadosh

miscellaneous, parenting

Last night I was feeling very pressured by all the significant things going on in my life in a very short period of time that require my attention.  My husband plays tennis twice a week, draws and plays guitar so he has some really good ways to unwind.  But I don’t do any of those things, and last night I was trying without much success to think of what I enjoy doing that would be relaxing and renewing.  I googled for a list of relaxing things to do to get the brainstorming started but none of the things on the list really spoke to me.

In the middle of feeling all this pressure last night, someone emailed me with an invitation to join her on a trip to Tiverya (Tiberias) today.  My first thought was, that’s the last thing I’m interested right now when I’m much too close to overextended without taking on any additional activities or trips!  But I emailed back and asked  her what she was going for.

This morning I got her response – she was planning a trip to the grave site of the Sheloh Hakadosh because today is erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan and it’s a particularly auspicious time to say a prayer he composed for success in raising your children, and praying his prayer at his gravesite is even more powerful!  She remembered me mentioning having some education related concerns that I was dealing with and thought I would appreciate being able to go.   She was more right than she knew!

As soon as I got this message, I had instant clarity about what would be helpful for me in relieving the pressure I was feeling – to go to this particular grave site today!  I thought how amazing it was that Hashem sent me the answer to what I was looking for the night before through this woman’s email before I even was able to recognize it as what I needed.

Who would have thought a year ago when I posted about this special prayer that this year I would have the amazing merit to be standing next to the grave of the incredibly holy person who composed it?  Not me.  I didn’t even have any idea where he was buried.  I was happy enough just to remember about the prayer in time to say it!  And this year Hashem sent me the opportunity to go, just at a time when I really needed it.

I had a very powerful davening there.  Really powerful.  Sometimes you have to work hard to connect when you’re praying in a formal way, and sometimes everything just flows from your heart.  Raising children takes so much energy in every way and particularly after making aliyah – when all family members simultaneously go through some degree of trauma  – there are so many areas to ask for help with!

I don’t really have people to talk to about all that I’m dealing with – because of the time difference, technological challenges of using Skype and voip phone lines and everyone being busy, I’ve hardly spoken to my closest friends since I moved here, and even if I could, there are things I’d be unable to share because to do so would be a breach of my children’s privacy.  This has been a real loss for me at a time when having good friends who really know me was more important than ever before and being able to talk with them is something I’m very aware of missing.  While I usually keep in mind that G-d is always available to help me, I sometimes forget that He’s there to listen to me as well!  And I really needed that.

I somehow didn’t think that there would be many people there, but there were busloads of people being dropped off and picked up, and the streets around the grave site were closed off to traffic.  It was very full but not so crowded as to be claustrophobic (which would be a big detractor for me since I don’t concentrate well when there are people squeezed in close all around me).  There was a very special atmosphere and I felt so fortunate to be able to experience being there.  This is really the best of what living in Israel is about – feeling tangibly closer to G-d and to the people and history of the Jewish nation.

After we finished our prayers we stopped for something to eat at the boardwalk area – it was supper time by then – and it was really nice to relax outdoors with the pleasant breeze blowing, enjoying delicious freshly made pizza while enjoying adult company.  It was an added dimension of renewal for me, as was the beautiful drive there and home.  The Galilee is a stunning part of Israel, and I especially enjoyed seeing the Kinneret (Sea of the Galilee) – when viewed from up high, it’s even more beautiful and picturesque (what makes it that beautiful shade of blue?).

I hoped to post this earlier in the day so you’d have time to say this prayer if you wanted to, but we went directly from there to our monthly video shiur, and I didn’t get home until 11 pm.  But there’s still a few hours to go for those of you in the US (and that’s where most of you are!), so here’s the link for the prayer in both English and Hebrew  – http://artscroll.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/prayer.pdf.

May we all be blessed with joy in raising our children!

Avivah

Real life learning for littles at the playground

homeschooling, parenting

Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately – I’ve started giving a weekly class on the Torah portion of the week (initially I didn’t intend to give this more than once a month but am really enjoying it) and have three older kids that need help in finding a different educational framework for the coming year (which honestly I’m not making much progress on yet).  I’m also planning to start a new parenting workshop here in Karmiel next week.  So though I have many things to share about, there’s not much time to do it!

This week right after my class ended, my husband brought the littles to meet me at the park near where the class was held.  It was a very crowded time, but that’s the main reason I wanted to be there, since I knew there would be people I’d enjoy speaking to that I don’t usually get to see.  The littles set off to the playground equipment to play, but ds4 soon came to me in tears.

He told me that it wasn’t fun to play there, that there were big girls (a group of ten year olds) who were taking over the play equipment.  I know he prefers to go to quiet parks where he can enjoy himself without older children racing through the play structures, pushing the little kids to the side, and I generally take him at times and places that we’ll all enjoy ourselves.  After all, it’s pretty reasonable for a child to want to have fun when they go somewhere to have fun, don’t you think?

Interestingly, I was talking to a preschool teacher when he came over to me, and she right away said, “That’s how life is, he has to get used to it now.”  It’s interesting because he didn’t ask me to do anything, to take him home – all he said was it wasn’t fun for him because of the older kids playing at the same time.  All he needed was a little bit of validation and understanding that this wasn’t a framework that he felt good in.  Sometimes it seems adults are so resistant (afraid?) of giving children any room to experience their emotions.  In this situation, I realized there wasn’t anything to be gained at that moment by discussion, so I agreed with her that children need to learn how to deal with difficult situations.  I didn’t say that I thought that it would be harmful for them to learn it at that time and in that way!

Anyway, I take ds2 and ds4 to the park pretty regularly, at least a few times a week.  And generally it’s a very positive experience for all of us!  We regularly spend two and even three hours at a park where there’s no one there but us (sometimes ds6 is there, also), and I always love watching the emergent learning process in action.  We usually go to what we call ‘the corner park’, a park just a couple of buildings away from us.  It’s a very simple playground, nothing that you would think could hold the attention of young children for long.  It had a climbing structure with one swing, a couple of slides, and a huge sand pit – and usually they don’t play with any of the playground equipment.

Last week when I took them, I was watching them play while listening to children in a private gan (playgroup) a couple of houses away, and it was so interesting to contrast the type of experiences children approximately the same age were having, especially since so many people think that children in a home framework are unstimulated.

During our most recent visit to the park, I sat on the bench the entire time – ie, I wasn’t involved in initiating or structuring any of their activities.  Most of the time ds2 (almost three) and ds4 were interacting, sometimes they were playing independently of one another and having their own experience.  (It’s important for children to have time of their own to just be without having to interact with others, even siblings.)  While we were at this simple little park for a couple of hours a few days ago, here’s some of what they experienced:

  • dug in the sand
  • found and collected rocks
  • wrote letters on the brick sidewalk with chalkstone they found in the sandpit
  • experimented with chunks of concrete with little pebbles cemented to it how to get the little pebbles separated from the concrete, throwing it until they broke apart and had little pieces (they had a strong feeling of accomplishment with this!)
  • climbed a tree
  • rode scooters
  • blew a recorder (one of them brought it to the park)
  • found dried seed pods that fell from the tree, opened them up, collected and counted the seeds
  • chased butterflies
  • stopped to listen to the birds singing, speculated about what they might be saying
  • gathered plastic containers from the recycling container nearby to use as sand toys
  • filled the recycled bottles with water from the fountain
  • made sand structures with wet sand
  • watched an airplane go by, talked about the difference between helicopters and airplanes and what they are used for
  • swung on the swing
  • picked flowers and blew on the petals to see if they would fly away
  • were given a couple of small boxes by a man going by, and used them to make molds for their sand ‘chocolate’
  • watched the ants working and carrying small bits of food and leaves to their homes

This is just a sampling of a typical visit to the playground, and it’s filled with so many discoveries and exciting things for small children.  (And if you want to be academic about it, there was science, social studies, math, writing, language arts and physical education happening.  :))  I love taking them to outdoor spaces when there aren’t loads of people around – there’s something about the outdoor air and the general sense of quiet that absorbs excess energy and allows children to center themselves, when they aren’t distracted by other people.  For children to really be able to learn, they have to  have their attachment needs fulfilled so that they have the extra emotional energy available to explore.

Conversely, you can go to the same park when crowded with children, and the experience will drastically shift.  Instead of allowing a child to discover inner quiet and make special discoveries, his energy becomes focused on navigating the inevitable social situations that arise.  That’s not to say that there isn’t a value in that – particularly if a parent is actively involved in guiding new social situations and limits the interactions when they see the child is past the point of gaining anything, it can be positive.  Sometimes a child will find or make a friend and it can be a great time for them!  But you can see how, for example, for ds4 above, he was in a situation of trying to protect his boundaries (emotionally and physically), having to compete with others for space or attention, and not only was there no space for learning to happen, there was no space for him to even have fun.

I’m in no way suggesting that there’s only a value in going outside when no on else is there!  What I do want to share is how for meaningful emotional, social or academic growth to happen, a child has to be in a place where he feels secure and connected to the adults in charge, and has to have space for independent experiences that aren’t orchestrated and controlled by adults.  This is so easily accomplished in a relaxed outdoor setting.

How can you know when a child is primed for learning?  When we pay attention to and respect our children’s cues, it becomes very obvious when this is happening, by watching their body language and listening to what they tell us.

Avivah

Accepting toddler toileting difficulties

parenting

This morning I woke up and thought to myself, “If mothers knew before they had children what they signed up for – how many different needs they’d simultaneously be expected to deal with of children ranging across all age spectrums – they’d never sign up for this.”  Sometimes the task of being a responsible mother for all of our children feels daunting.  What I remind myself at times like these is that while I clearly can’t do it all on my own, there is a Higher Power who can and will help me if I just remember that I’m not expected to do it all, and I just need to ask for help.

You may be guessing that I have a lot on my mind right now with parenting.  Right you are!  One thing I was grateful for was that last night, before the newest issue that is giving me an opportunity to grow in new ways as a mother came up (and as a parent, there will always be something!), a different issue resolved earlier that same day.  🙂

That was a toileting issue of my soon to be three year old son.  I started working with him on learning to use the toilet about seven months ago, and he immediately got the idea of urinating in the toilet.  That usually is the harder thing for kids to understand, so it was nice that we were in for a quick and easy learning process.  And we were.  Except for the fact that urination isn’t the only p0tty learning that toddlers need to learn, and I was cleaning up stools daily that are much easier to deal with in diapers than underwear, every single day.

Since I don’t have a dryer and here in northern Israel, we had a record rainy season this year – I think it rained 29 days straight in January – this meant that I ran into an issue of not being able to keep up with my toddler’s laundry needs because it took two or three days for his clothes to dry on the rack inside.  In light of that difficulty, I decided to put him back in diapers and start again when the weather got warm.

And that’s what I did, sometime before Passover.  However, I was seeing the same issue with no end in sight.  A friend told me a number of her children had the same thing, and the root cause was was an issue of the anal sphincter not being able to release unless they were in a standing position.  I wasn’t sure this was the issue ds2 was having (I thought something about it was frightening or intimidating to him), but it was good to hear from another mom who understood the unpleasantness of having to change dirty underwear two or three times a day!

After feeling a bit frustrated by the mess and lack of progress on this front, I stepped back and asked myself what difference it really made if it happened sooner or later.   Trusting that it would happen when ds was ready,  I was able to let go of my desire for it to happen by the time he turned three and interact with him as I cleaned him up each time from a positive and non-pressuring place.

Side note – many times as a parent, you don’t see progress in a given area, and it becomes critical to reinforce to yourself your belief in your child and the growth process.  Development won’t always happen when and how we expect it, but it will happen when the child is ready.

Not long after I shifted my attitude on this, I saw ds looking like he needed to go to the bathroom, and asked dh to run him to the toilet to sit there (I had someone else who was falling asleep on my lap, in case you’re wondering :)).  He got him there in time for him to finish having a bowel movement on the toilet.  This was the first time ever, and ds came out and told me what he did, feeling very proud of himself.  We didn’t say much about it, other than telling him it sounded like he felt good about that – his toileting successes are his, and I didn’t want him to think it was about pleasing me.

The next day, he asked for help unbuttoning his shorts before going to the bathroom himself, and soon called to us to tell us that he was finished, and sure enough, he had done all his business in the toilet.  The day after that, I was on the second floor of our apartment and without telling me until after the fact, he again went to the bathroom on his own!

So ds2 is now reliably bathrooming (I think I just made up that term :)) on his own.  It was a good reminder that sometimes you think that something is going to be an issue for a long time, and suddenly – literally overnight – a child can move through a stage and be ready for a totally different level of readiness.

Avivah

Dealing with defiant child

parenting

The following is a question that I recently answered online on a parenting board; this was asked anonymously.  Since I felt it was such an important issue with so many misconceptions surrounding it, I spent a long time composing a response and am sharing it here.

>>my oldest is 11.5 and I need advice He has been going to sleep late and then going late to school because of it. He just called me up from school to ask if he could go somewhere that finishes late. I told him no – because he left for school after 9:30 he cannot be home late tonight as a consequence. His reply was “your going to get it mommy” and I know if he says this he will come home and do everything possible to make my life miserable including hitting his sisters. How would you deal with this? this is a difficult child we are dealing with.<<

I don’t generally have time to respond at length to parenting issues on discussion boards, but I still sometimes find it interesting to see the questions and responses.  In this case, the advice given by another poster was a hard line discipline approach comprised of escalating consequences to push him into obedience and submissions, and a number of posters agreed that this was the way to handle this situation.  I, on the other hand, felt it would be disastrous in the situation described, and addressed why I felt that approach wasn’t beneficial or productive.  Here’s what I wrote:

“Firstly, there are so many things about your post that are important – to understand how attachment, child dominance, and the roots of frustration and aggression all go together. It’s more like something for a book than a post, but I’m going to share the following to flesh it out a little bit.

A parent is meant to have the lead in a parent/child relationship, and when a child is is the lead, the roles have been reversed. The child calls the shots, feels in control, and the parent responds from the passive position. The dominant behavior you see is a sign of an alpha child rather than a reflection of the child’s personality. (Here’s something worth reading if you’d like more details on what an alpha child looks like.)

There are a number of steps involved in dealing with an alpha child, and one major step involves taking the lead – but you must simultaneously be dealing with the underlying attachment issues for this to be able to happen. What you’re describing absolutely is an attachment issue – realize that the reason taking things away has the potential to be effective (in the short term) is because your child is more attached to those things than to you – and using someone’s attachments against them is a very risky parenting strategy. 

Don’t think creating attachment and unconditional love means you become a doormat to them – this is a huge misunderstanding of the terms – you must have standards that you uphold, but you don’t give your child the message that you only love them when they behave according to your standards. Children must know we love them not matter what, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept whatever behavior they want to exhibit.  When you invoke consequences and keep upping the ante, when you use what they care about against them, you are desensitizing them to caring, not to respecting and loving you more.

As parents, we want to raise our children, not just control them. I’m not saying all of this as someone whose kids get away with whatever they want – not at all – but the tough love approach can only work unless you really work on the emotional connection aspect and are able to convey a clear message of love for the child as he is right now, otherwise you’re going to push your child further from you.  (When a person is pushed to do something beyond the level of his feelings of emotional connection, he’s going to respond with counterwill, which is a defensive reaction to any perceived coercion – and alpha children are full of counterwill. “I don’t care what you say/do, I’ll do what I want.”)

So to begin to deal with the aggression, the alpha behavior, etc, the first step is to emotionally connect with your child.  (Thwarted frustration turns into aggression when a child is unable to adapt and move to futility; a child can only move to futility when his heart is softened, which can only happen when he has a strong emotional connection with his primary caretaker.)  Flooding a child with frustration (eg consequences) who doesn’t have the ability to feel his feelings of disappointment and sadness is going to provoke him to aggression.

Basically, attachment is the primary thing to work on in the beginning because behavioral issues like these are symptomatic of deeper relationship problems.  Start by conveying your love, appreciation, and enjoyment of your child when around him.  He’ll be tough for a while, but your goal is to soften his protective shell and show him that you’re his ally, that you’re there for him and aren’t giving up on him no matter what.”

At this point, there were further responses by other mothers sharing their frustration with the difficulty in parenting these challenging children.  I could really feel the discouragement and a strong sense of despair, almost as if there was nothing to do for children like these – some mothers mentioned that their children had been to therapists and were on medication, but it wasn’t making a difference.  I was concerned, though, about what seemed to be an attitude of making the success of the relationship dependent on the child’s behavior.  So I wrote the following:

“It’s so, so challenging to have a difficult child, it’s so painful as a mother to feel like a failure, to feel that our best efforts are thrown in our face again. Maybe it would help if you were able to see the pain that is at the root of their behavior?  You’re seeing very hurt children who are afraid of rejection and feel very unloved at some level.

Don’t think of them as manipulative or trying to hurt you; it doesn’t serve you.  Everything a person does makes sense when you understand their developmental needs.  Children who are this tough on the outside have hardened their hearts because their deeper emotional desires for closeness with a parent weren’t being filled. I’m not saying that to guilt anyone, and I’ve had to admit the same thing in my own relationships with some of my children at times.  Being honest about where we’re lacking is the first step in finding an answer.

I have nine children and let me tell you, it doesn’t matter how perfectly what you did worked with everyone else. In the past I’ve made the mistake of insisting in my own mind when I’ve felt frustrated that it’s my child’s fault that he’s not acting the way he should because if all of my other kids were so wonderful, it can’t me me, right?  (And don’t you think a child feels this, no matter how nice you are on the outside? You bet they pick up those vibes.) Yes, it can and is me and my responsibility.  We have to get our egos out of the way and focus on what the child needs, not on getting the strokes we want.

The process of raising children is very individual and you have to find the specific key for the heart of every child.  It doesn’t matter if it looks like you’re doing everything right from the outside.  It doesn’t matter if it worked with all seventeen of your older children.  It doesn’t matter if your house is clean and you make nice meals or buy them nice clothes.  If your child doesn’t perceive it as an emotional deposit for him, if it doesn’t reach your child, it’s not right for him, and it’s the responsibility of a parent to find the key.

I spent a long time trying in my first post (ie the first part of this post) trying to figure out how to condense some very significant principles.  I did this rather than share specifics of how to address behavior, because when you get down to it, parenting is about who we are to a child, not what we do.  If you understand and address your child’s unseen needs, then it will be productive, and someone else using your same external strategy isn’t necessarily going to get the same results.

For children who are emotionally toughened as what has been described, they won’t back down, they will continue to escalate, and they will continue to distance themselves from you if you try to push consequences.  Connecting with your child emotionally is the only way you’re going to change things, and first and foremost, that means a change in the way you think of your child.  Stop blaming them for ruining what would otherwise be your wonderful life.  And then it means a change in the way you interact with your child.  And it’s going to mean learning to feel and express unconditional love for your child.  This is the process of growing with our children that we were put here for.”

Avivah

Two little kids, pregnant, and overwhelmed – a response

homeschooling, parenting
>>I have two kids two and under and just found out i’m expecting my third (my mom doesnt even know!), and I feel so totally overwhelmed. I’m nauseous and tired and most days I wake up wishing it was the time my husband comes home. My daughter doesn’t nap (shes 2 and a half) and my baby (11 months) usually has to spend his days napping on the go bc i’m trying to keep my toddler occupied. I feel guilty he doesn’t get the right amount of sleep (i’m crying just thinking about it). I feel guilty I can’t stay calm most times she decides to hit/bite her little brother just as she sees me slightly occupied. I feel guilty I don’t know how to handle her tantrums most times. And worst, I feel guilty that I spend most of my day wishing they would just leave me alone. I look tired and down, and I hate that because I’m usually cheerful and happy. 

But I feel the most guilty that I can’t imagine how people homeschool, and that I think I’m turning into the mother who can’t stand being around her kids. The mother who is relived the kids are going back to school after one day off. The one who cringes at the thought of the kids being home for one whole week during summer break in between camp. I don’t want to turn into that mother!

The worst is that I don’t just want to send them to a daycare because I can’t handle things. I feel like a child should be at home until the age of 3. Though at this point I’m seriously considering sending my daughter somewhere for half a day.

I just don’t know how you did it! How did you possibly homeschool while your family was growing? It feels so impossible and daunting.  As much as I love the idea of homeschooling, I really don’t think it’s for me. But I do want to do the best thing for my children now and being a miserable mom isn’t helping. Do you have any piece of advice for me?<<

The very first thing I’m going to say is, don’t compete and compare.  When I’m feeling under the weather, thinking about everyone who is more competent than me just depresses me!

Realize that everyone has challenges, and just because you think someone is doing so much better than you, it may or may not be accurate.  Fifteen years ago, I had three young children (ages newborn, 20 months, 37 months).  At that time, my days were non-stop work and I didn’t feel especially relaxed at any point until my children were asleep.  I would go out with them and think to myself how everyone I passed was clearly managing so much better than I was, because everyone looked so happy and content.  And then I suddenly realized, if someone looked at me, they’d be thinking the same thing!

Sometimes in our minds we set people up to be much more perfect and saintly than they can every possibly be in real life.   It helps to remember that everyone has their struggles, and everyone has their tough times.  If we didn’t, there would be no purpose in us being here in this world, since our souls were put here to grow from our challenges.

You can only do the best you can with the tools you have right now.  Some people have more physical or emotional resources than others, and sometimes you yourself will have more or less ability to accomplish what you want than you do right now.  Live the stage of life that is in front of you, doing the best you can.  All you can do is take the next right step.  Sometimes we look too far in advance, and it doesn’t help us.  While I think it’s important to look to the foreseeable future to think about what you’ll encounter so that you can be more prepared when you get there, that’s only advisable if you can actually do something today that will make tomorrow better.

Trust that tomorrow will come, that better and easier days and stages will come.  In some ways it’s easier for me now with nine children than it was with three very young children.  At that point, I couldn’t imagine coping with a bigger family (I dreaded the thought of more children, to be quite honest), since I had my hands full taking care of the family I had!

When you’re pregnant, realize that it’s not really a good time to assess your abilities.  During the first trimester of this pregnancy, I had to consciously remind myself that I’m a competent person who was legitimately very low energy right then.  Without that, my negative mental recording would start playing over and over, focusing on all that I wasn’t doing in the way I felt I should be able to do it.  When we’re at our worst, it’s not the time to make blanket assumptions about who we really are.  Our true self is our highest self; the lower self is just a mask.

Your children are so young!  You don’t have to think about homeschooling them!  Don’t wonder how anyone does it.  Just think about getting through each day with all of you in one piece.  At tough times, that’s an accomplishment to strive for!   When they’re old enough to think about this, you’ll be in a different stage of life and have developed different coping strategies.

I don’t want to tell you to put your children in daycare to give yourself a break – this is a very individual decision – but I do think that you can give yourself a huge break by letting go of the guilt.  It doesn’t serve any productive purpose.   Unrealistic expectations of oneself can be as oppressive and real as a physical load on our shoulders.  The burden we place on ourselves when we tell ourselves we ‘should’ be able to do this or ‘should’ be able to do that is very often abusive, and very rarely productive.  To borrow a twelve step program slogan, “Stop ‘shoulding’ on yourself!”

When you can do more, you will do more.  If that time isn’t now, be as accepting and loving to yourself as you possibly can.  We women hold standards for ourselves that are damaging because they set us up for failure before we even start!

Avivah

A trip to the eye doctor – why bother to go with an 18 year old?

parenting

Someone asked me yesterday for an update regarding the army status of ds18 and dd17.  Dd17 received her permanent exemption from army service a couple of weeks after my post on the topic.  After lots more paperwork and visits since my post on this a while back, ds18 was told that he will be given a deferment for a year, dependent on some medical forms they want him to have filled out.

This morning ds18 went to the doctor to get the first of these forms filled out, and then was told he also needed to make an appointment with an eye doctor to get the second form taken care of.  He mentioned to me that he had a 7 pm appointment for the eye doctor, and I later overheard him asking dd15 if she wanted to come to translate in case he needed help with the language, since her Hebrew is better than his.  Since I needed to drop off some paperwork for the lawyer (as mentioned yesterday) around the same time as his appointment, and the law office was at the halfway point from our house and the doctor’s office, I told him I’d be happy to go with him if he’d like (I checked this with dd15 first; I didn’t want to horn in on their time together if this was something she wanted to do with him).  He accepted.

As a parent of maturing children, there can be a feeling of conflict between wanting to give to them and take care of them, while also giving them the chance to be independent and do things for themselves that they might be uncomfortable with.  Often this means pushing them beyond their comfort zones, to do things alone that you could easily take care of for them.  And sometimes you need to step back and away from the issue of independence and grab the opportunity to be nurturing!

It’s really an issue of balance and of knowing your child.  When we got here, I felt I needed to push ds18 to deal with some big things that came up as a result of making aliyah (like mandatory army service) on his own, because it was way outside of his comfort zone and something he would have gladly deferred to us to deal with.  I knew he had the ability to do it, and that taking care of these foreign issues on his own would give him the confidence that comes from acting in spite of your fears of not knowing/being enough, and comes from dealing with challenging things and rising to the occasion.

I’ve been very impressed with how ds18 has gotten lots of technical and legal things done on his own in a country where the language and mentality is a challenge for him, and has done it with a really great attitude.  So I don’t need to worry that by offering help I’m creating passivity or dependence on my assistance.

We do things for people we love not because they can’t do it on their own, but because we want to show them we care.  A wonderful way to nurture someone is to offer to do something for them before they ask for your help.  It’s nice to be responsive to requests, but so much more powerful when you initiate the giving exchange.   This is apparent when you think about marriage – you offer to bring your spouse a drink or pick up something unsolicited from the store that you know they’d like because you know it will make them happy; giving them what they ask for is nice but doesn’t have the same emotional punch.

When I heard ds18 talking with ds15, I saw an opportunity to be the care provider in the relationship, something that gets harder to do as your children get older.  But don’t think this was a one sided proposition!

I really am loving watching my teen children grow up – I don’t tell them enough how amazing and special each of them is – and when I tell them, they think I’m biased because I’m their mother.  I probably am biased, and that’s okay – it doesn’t mean my perception isn’t accurate!  Each of them has very different personalities and strengths, but are all growing into such wonderful people that I sometimes feel very humbled to be their mother.  So while I took the opportunity to accompany ds18 with the intent to give to him, it ended up a treat for me to have three hours to spend together with him (we took care of a couple of other errands while we were out).

Avivah

Ds18 is home!

parenting

Ds18 is home for Pesach!  He got here Thursday night, and everyone is so happy to have him home!  It’s kind of funny how excited everyone gets about him coming – it really underscores that he doesn’t live at home anymore.

Ds comes about every 2 – 3 months and usually stays just for the weekend.  Most recently he was home for the bar mitzva in January.  Everyone looks forward to his visits so much – he’s a fantastic big brother and every single person loves spending time with him.  (He learns daily with ds6, ds9, ds13, reads and plays with the littles, and spends time talking with each of his sisters.)  This is the longest visit home he’ll have with us since last summer – he’ll be here for two weeks, and ds4 is already saying he wants ds18 to stay here forever.

This past Shabbos was so, so special.  The singing was wonderful and it was really nice having meaningful and stimulating conversations with all of the older kids together that don’t happen in the same way when he’s not here.  Having all of our children home really makes a difference – it’s not the same when even one person isn’t there – and ds18 truly enhances our home environment.  Something nice about raising your older children well is that they are then a good influence on their younger siblings.  🙂

It’s not always easy watching your kids grow up and move away, but that’s what parenting is about, giving them the roots and then the wings to live their own lives.  And there’s so much joy….

Avivah

Just in time for Pesach – the plague of lice

health, parenting

Head lice are more common here than the US (probably because insistence on kids going to school lice-free isn’t strictly enforced), and knowing that, I’ve kept a watchful eye on everyone since our move.  And it’s consistently been fine.

But recently when all the kids were sick for a while, it wasn’t on my radar to think about this and I overlooked one child scratching his head, something I would have usually jumped on immediately.  It wasn’t until two weeks after that that I checked the kids last week, and I saw signs of lice in three of them.  It was actually amazing that so few of them had it, being that it spreads so quickly and easily when children put their heads next to each other.

Of the three kids who had signs of lice, two had a very small amount that was easily taken care of.  The third was so heavily infested that I felt almost hopeless for the first few hours I was working on him on day one.  But when I started on day two, there was such an obvious difference thanks to all I did on the first day, and I’m happy to say that the issue is now resolved!

Since I lived here when my oldest four children were young, I had to deal with lice on an ongoing basis, so I’ve developed my approach to handling it that has been pretty effective.  There are many tips available about how to get rid of lice, but I’m going to share what I do.

Firstly, never use the poisonous lice shampoos like RID.  They are dangerous, and even carry warnings on them not to use them too frequently.  Not only that, I don’t think they’re very effective!

I’ve seen suggestions about using vinegar, mayonnaise, Listerine and other things to wash out the hair and smother the lice.  But unless it makes you feel like you’re doing something, it’s just extra work without much added benefit.

The first critical step is to make sure there are no live bugs in your child’s hair.  I have a two pronged approach to this – I check manually and I use a fine toothed metal lice comb to thoroughly comb through their hair. (I bought the least expensive one available at the pharmacy – 35 shekels.  Don’t bother with the cheap plastic ones, which don’t work at all.)  I absolutely don’t rely on lice combs on their own, since I used to see how much they missed, but if you use them regularly and well, they’re probably enough.  It’s like someone speeding – the cops might not catch you the first few times, but eventually you’ll get ticketed.  So if you  keep combing you’ll eventually catch the lice even though the comb will miss a few times.

It’s helpful to condition the hair well before combing.  (Ideally, combing their hair after every bath and shower should be done proactively to prevent lice in the first place – I wasn’t doing this, but now it’s been instituted as standard protocol for everyone.)  I comb firmly against the scalp, to get off anything that might be there.  Lice live close to the scalp, so that’s where you’ll generally find them, not further down the hair shaft.  I do this every day or two once for about two or three weeks if I see a sign of lice, since new eggs can hatch and then mature after the point you think there are no bugs left.  The newly hatched eggs are tiny – about the same as a speck of sand.  You’d have to look closely to even realize that it’s a louse and even then you might be hard pressed to believe it!  They don’t reach sexual maturity until 5 – 10 days, so you don’t have to worry about them laying eggs until then.

After being sure that there are no live bugs, you’ll need to attend to the removal of the nits.  This is a painstaking job (though I personally find it gratifying and don’t mind it), which is where the term nitpicking comes from!  A nit looks like a tiny teardrop shaped bump on a hair – you can tell it’s a nit and not dandruff by touching it.  A nit is firmly attached to a hair, and the only way to get it off is to pull it off each hair individually.   Dandruff can be flicked away. (A couple of kids had dandruff, and I asked them to do a vinegar treatment to get rid of dandruff before I checked them to make it easier for me – I didn’t want to look at every fleck on their heads.)

Nits are different colors depending on their age, so based on this you tell what’s been freshly laid and what’s oldest and about to hatch – white when just laid, getting darker brown and finally black right before hatching.  This can be of practical value to know when there are so many nits that you give priority to those that are the oldest – this is what I did with ds over the two day period I was cleaning him out; I took out the darkest nits and left the lighter ones for the next day.  I know some people rely on combs to get the nits out, but I really don’t think they work for nit removal – what I think you’re relying on is that the nits that hatch will eventually be caught by the comb.

Look particularly behind the ears and by the nape of the neck for both lice and nits.  For some reason, lice seem to love these locations.  I give these areas extra checks and go through the hairs in this area extra carefully.

A couple of myths to debunk:

– You don’t have to disinfect every corner of your house when a child gets lice.  The things people do in this area don’t do anything but make themselves crazy  – the vaccuming, bleaching, etc.  Lice need the head of a host to live, and nits certainly can’t hatch once they’re removed.  I kill every louse that I remove if it’s big enough; the small ones go into a container of water while I comb and then are flushed down the toilet. I wouldn’t drop the nits onto a pillowcase 🙂 but you can do what you want with them; it really doesn’t matter.

– Lice do jump.  I’ve read that people say they only can crawl from one head to another, and it’s true that heads need to be next to each other.  But I’ve repeatedly seen lice jump several inches when I’ve been combing them out.

Prevention: comb out regularly, use a rosemary essential oil/shampoo on your hair (lice don’t like the smell), and if you see a child scratch his head, immediately check them.

I’m happy to be going into Pesach having dealt with this, so that when we talk at the seder about the plague of lice, it will be past history!

If you’ve ever had to deal with head lice, what are the tips that have worked for you?

Avivah

Message from bereaved Tolouse wife and mother

miscellaneous, parenting

Last week, a gunman claiming sympathy with terrorist group Al Quaeda murdered four Jews in front of a Jewish school in France: Yonatan Sandler, with his two children Aryeh (6) and Gavriel (3), in addition to eight year old Miriam Monsonego.  As a particularly tragic aside, I read that three year old Gavriel was named after Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was murdered by terrorists in Mumbai, India.

As a mother, it’s beyond me the kind of pain the mother of even one child who is killed must be feeling.  To think of losing one’s husband and two children within just minutes is horrifying.  I don’t this woman and in all likelihood never will meet her,  but she’s been on my mind all this past week.  How is she coping?  How will she find the strength to go on?

(The Sandler family earlier this year. From the left Gavriel (6), Rabbi Yonatan, Aryeh (3), and Eva carrying baby daughter.)

Today someone forwarded to me this message from Eva Sandler, and I wanted to share it with all of you.  It’s in difficult times that a person’s true essence shines through, and the strength of this woman’s faith is something we can all learn from.

>>My heart is broken. I am unable to speak. There are no ways for me to be able to express the great and all-consuming pain resulting from the murder of my dear husband Rabbi Jonathan and our sons, Aryeh and Gavriel, and of Miriam Monsonego, daughter of the dedicated principal of Ozar Hatorah and his wife, Rabbi Yaakov and Mrs. Monsonego.

May no one ever have to endure such pain and suffering.

Because so many of you, my cherished brothers and sisters in France and around the world, are asking what you can do on my behalf, on behalf of my daughter Liora and on behalf of the souls of my dear husband and children, I feel that, difficult though it may be, it is incumbent upon me to answer your entreaties.

My husband’s life was dedicated to teaching Torah. We moved back to the country of his birth to help young people learn about the beauty of Torah. He was truly a good man, loving, giving, and selfless. He was sensitive to all of G‑d’s creatures, always searching for ways to reveal the goodness in others.

He and I raised Aryeh and Gavriel to live the ways of Torah. Who would have known how short would be their time on this Earth, how short would be the time I would be with them as their mother?

I don’t know how I and my husband’s parents and sister will find the consolation and strength to carry on, but I know that the ways of G‑d are good, and He will reveal the path and give us the strength to continue. I know that their holy souls will remain with us forever, and I know that very soon the time will come when we will be together again with the coming of Moshiach (the messiah).

I wholeheartedly believe in the words of the verse: “The L-ord has given, and the L-ord has taken away; blessed be the Name of the L-ord.” I thank the Almighty for the privilege, short though it was, of raising my children together with my husband.  Now the Almighty wants them back with Him.

To all those who wish to bring consolation to our family and contentment to the souls of the departed: Let’s continue their lives on this Earth.

Parents, please kiss your children. Tell them how much you love them, and how dear it is to your heart that they be living examples of our Torah, imbued with the fear of Heaven and with love of their fellow man.

Please increase your study of Torah, whether on your own or with your family and friends. Help others who may find study difficult to achieve alone.

Please bring more light into the world by kindling the Sabbath candles this and every Friday night. (Please do so a bit earlier than the published times as a way to add holiness to our world.)

The holiday of Passover is approaching. Please invite another person into your homes so that all have a place at a Seder to celebrate the holiday of our freedom.

Along with our tearful remembrance of our trials in Egypt so many years ago, we still tell over how “in each and every generation, they have stood against us to destroy us.”  We all will announce in a loud and clear voice: “G‑d saves us from their hands.”

The spirit of the Jewish people can never be extinguished; its connection with Torah and its commandments can never be destroyed.

May it be G‑d’s will that from this moment on, we will all only know happiness.

I send my heartfelt condolences to the Monsonego family for the loss of their daughter Miriam, and I pray for the speedy recovery of Aharon ben Leah, who was injured in the attack.

Thank you for your support and love.<<

May we all be blessed with strength during difficult times, and may we never be faced with tragedies such as these again.  And please, do something, some good deed in the merit of this special family who was suddenly torn apart.

Avivah

Ds4 is now out of preschool and at home

homeschooling, parenting

It’s amazing to me how many things I want to write about and how many things I either don’t get to or get to after a long time!

One of these things has been the process my four year old is going through in the last couple of months.  Beginning in February, he increasingly requested to stay home.  It was making mornings much less relaxed since he would be ready to go out the door, and would suddenly balk and refuse to leave. This made ds9 and dd11 feel pressured, since they walk him to school and didn’t want to be late for class.  Sometimes he’d get almost to school and suddenly something very small would happen, and he’d refuse to go to in and they’d have to bring him home.

I asked him about why he didn’t want to go, but he wasn’t really able to articulate it.  Which is normal, since he’s only four!  I let him stay home once a week, then twice a week, wanting to see where his feeling about not wanting to go to school was coming from.   He was happy to stay home even if it meant taking a long nap instead of doing fun activities at preschool.

So this continued through the month of February, with him staying home more and more often.  By the time we had our family trip to Tzfat at the end of February, he was staying home most of the week.  After that trip, ds4 went back to preschool just one more time a week later, for the Purim party at his school (which was held after school hours).

I know you’d think it would be a no-brainer for me to let him stay home full-time, being the long time homeschooler that I am, but it wasn’t.  I kept thinking that it will be easier for him next year if he starts kindergarten understanding and speaking Hebrew well; that’s the main reason I put him in preschool and I had to work through my conflicting thoughts about this.  It’s also very different not putting your child into school, than actively pulling them out of a framework – I really had no desire to  insult anyone and having to start explain myself.  In this country, having a 2.5 year old at home with you is strange, and having a four year old with you is so outside of the norm that I think most people have never seen it.

But I saw that ds4 really didn’t want to go to school, and saw no point in insisting a four year be somewhere that wasn’t serving his needs if I had a better option – so I decided to keep him home with me for the rest of the year.  (I waited a month before making this decision, to see if he just wanted to stay home occasionally or if the long term choice would be better.)  I called the school to stop payments, and one of the secretaries told me that I’m making a mistake, that next year is kindergarten and it’s so academic that he won’t be able to keep up if he’s not in preschool this year.  I politely told her that I have a child in the kindergarten this year and know exactly what the learning expectations are (actually, the kindergarten teacher is fantastic and all the learning is through games – she’s very against all the academic pressure that many kindergartens have), and I thought he would be okay.  (When I told dd15 about the secretary’s comment, she lifted an eyebrow and skeptically said, “He knows the English and Hebrew alphabets, his colors and numbers, and can do basic math – how is he not going to be ready for kindergarten?”)

I wondered about the secretary’s comment because it really didn’t seem logical to me, and what I think is that many people don’t really stop to question what their children are learning in school, or what the value of it is.  When I told her ds4 would be staying home with me, it prompted an instinctive response from her that I must be wrong if I was doing something different than what she did.  It wasn’t an unpleasant conversation because she’s a nice person, but it’s never fun to be told by someone (particularly someone who doesn’t really know you) that you’re being an irresponsible parent.  She also said she didn’t know if they’d be able to stop our monthly payments, and would speak to the person in charge about it.

A couple of days went by and I didn’t hear from them.  I really didn’t feel like pursuing this, but it had to be done so I called back and this time got a different secretary.  As soon as she heard my name – oh, my goodness, what a difference!  She started talking to me in such a friendly and warm way, but I was sure I didn’t know who she was.  I soon realized that the kindergarten teacher had told her just a short time before I called about her dilemma – she needed to leave half an hour early and after hours of calls the night before, she couldn’t find anyone to substitute for her – until I heard about it and volunteered to come in and help her out.  Who would have thought a tiny thing like that would be mentioned to anyone?

This secretary right away understood the situation and and made a special effort to call the person in charge at home, who was out that day, to get the financial piece straightened out for me.  So dd4 is officially now off the school books and I have the money that would have otherwise gone to tuition to use towards supplies for him at home.

So how is he doing at home?  He is so much happier and calmer.  Before we moved, I remember often thinking that he was so sweet it was hard to imagine ever getting upset with him.  He was just so full of love and cuddles all the time.  This is something that changed once he went to school, when we began seeing an upswing in resistance, defiance, and aggression.   Some of my older kids wanted me to clamp down on his behavior, but it has to be recognized that a child who feels very securely attached to you emotionally and one who is away for five hours a day are going to behave very different, and have to be responded to with the root issue in mind.  (I have to add here that the behaviors we were seeing are considered ‘typical’ issues for this age  – but what is typical is that most young children have too much separation and frustration in their lives, and it has to show up somewhere.)

Fortunately, I’m home in the mornings – it’s not like I have to be out of the house and I can’t have him home with me.  And I since I have ds2 at home, it’s not like I’m used to having the morning to myself, though having ds4 home definitely changes the dynamic.  Dh and I both feel grateful that we have the luxury of being able to do have him at home now.  So once it was clear that going to preschool wasn’t a good option for him, the logistics of making this decision were pretty easy; I realize that many parents wouldn’t be able to do this even if they wanted to and have no judgments about that.

What was the issue with school?  I wish I could elaborate on what I’ve seen in the preschools and why I feel they are a concern, but don’t want anyone who reads this locally to think I’m saying anything negative about his teachers, who are warm, caring, and dedicated.  One point I will share is that he was in a class of 33 other boys, and I don’t think he felt connected to those taking care of him – when you’re a teacher managing such a large group, your priority is on management, not attachment.  This is reality, not a criticism.  (And this can easily be an issue in a much smaller class.)

So it’s not surprising that he’d rather be home with me, where even if I only read him a book for five minutes and ignored him the next few hours, he’d have more emotional connection and security than he did in preschool (we spend a lot of time interacting together in the morning so I’m not saying that I ignore him but that even if I did, he’s still be coming out ahead).  It’s not surprising that with so much time to connect with me daily, that his frustration and aggression level dropped dramatically (ds13 said, ‘Wow, he’s such a nice kid again now that he’s staying at home!”) and that the supposed discipline issues kind of evaporated.  And now he falls asleep for a very long nap voluntarily every day about an hour before he used to come home from school –  so he’s consistently well-rested now.

What’s better for him about being at home? He feels loved and secure, and gets lots of time with me.  He doesn’t have to vie with a huge group of other kids for a minimal amount of attention.  He doesn’t get lost in the crowd as a result of being a well-behaved child (I saw this happen at the party we were on his final day – it was like he was invisible even when he was standing right where he was supposed to be, waiting to be noticed and responded to).

There’s absolutely no question that he can learn lots more at home than in preschool, in a much more fun and relaxed way.  He has lots of time for free play, we read and cook and clean together…it’s really nice when it’s so easy to change a troublesome situation and meet your child’s needs.  And it’s really nice to have him home.

Avivah