Category Archives: parenting

Is it fair to have children closely spaced?

health, nutrition, parenting

I started writing this post over a year and a half ago, and I had to smile when I recently checked my drafts file, since so many of the topics that I wrote about then are still things I think about!

There’s a lot of strong opinion on the topic of ideal spacing of one’s children.  This is a highly personal decision that is fraught with emotion – I know I’ve had a negative knee jerk reaction to reading some of what is written on this topic, and I’ve had to remind myself that people are entitled to do whatever is right for them.

I’d like to address to a particular sentiment regularly expressed by real food devotees, the nutritional argument.  Those in the real food camp (where I consider myself) try to follow traditional food practices – to eat food as it was eaten for generations, because this has been key in the health of many generations.   As we’ve gotten away from this inherent wisdom of our bodies, our collective health has suffered.

Many people have noted the significant spacing between children in traditional societies, and felt that this is important to implement in our lives.  This is in order to give a mother time in which she can rebuild her nutritional stores after being depleted by pregnancy (and breastfeeding).  An unborn child can only ‘take’ from the reserves that the mother has in store; if it’s not there, his body won’t be able to use it.  And by carefully spacing one’s children, each child can be granted his “birthright of perfect health” (sorry, lost the complete Sally Fallon quote I wanted to share with you).

Now obviously, since I’ve had nine children born within fifteen years,  you don’t have to be a math whizzard to work out that I haven’t followed the ideal child spacing of three to four years between children!    And I’m not going to be an apologist for that.  Rather, I want to question what I perceive to be a dogmatic belief that ideal nutrition trumps the value of bringing children into the world, as well as the idea that you can eliminate any variables in the development of an unborn child.

(Parenthetically, something that is usually not mentioned when making the argument about what traditional societies did regarding child spacing, is that this was accomplished in large part because men had several wives and weren’t intimate with each wife for a lengthy period of time after childbirth.  True, we can replicate traditional spacing by using birth control rather than polygamy, but long term usage of chemical birth control (versus natural family planning) comes with it’s own related health concerns.  (Edited to add: how timely that after posting this I saw Kelly’s post about the dangers of birth control!  Definitely take a look so you can see some of the issues involved.)

There are those who feel passionately enough about this topic that they are willing to not have another child at all if it means that he won’t be conceived from a position of nutritional strength.  I respect that this is their belief and priority, and there would be a lack of integrity for someone who believed this to make any different choice.  For me, it’s not a choice I have chosen, even knowing all that I do about how prenatal nutrition affects a growing child.

I’m going to write a post (hopefully sooner rather than later!) detailing the physical differences that I’ve noted in the  jaw structure of each of our nine children depending on what I ate during pregnancy as well as birth order.  And though I can see that some have better facial bone structure than others, I don’t believe in even the tiniest part of me that because one had teeth that were more crowded than another and needed braces, that I shortchanged them or made a mistake by bringing them into this world.

I believe that there’s an inherent value to having a child, a spiritual piece of eternity that a mother can be part of.  That doesn’t mean that no matter what your current reality is, that having a baby is a good idea right now.  As I said earlier, this is an extremely personal decision and I can only share the criteria that I personally use in determining if pregnancy is a good idea at this time – a woman’s physical and emotional readiness to nurture a child.

While there are nutritional concerns that the expectant mother would benefit by addressing when children are close in age by being particularly careful that she has a high nutrient diet,  I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that there are benefits to a mother and child to being spaced more closely.  Each child has a constant playmate and companion, which often develops into a close relationship that is maintained over the years.  When children are each other’s entertainment, this makes the physical aspect of parenting much easier than for a mom of a singleton or those who are widely spaced.

A mother absolutely should not deplete herself  to the point that she has nothing left to give.  But there’s a lot of ground between absolute physical exhaustion, and striving for the physical perfection of child.  It’s this sentiment of idealizing perfection that I’m disturbed by in the real food community.  I’m not a fan of striving for perfection in any area, since I think it’s stressful, depleting, guilt inducing, and not productive.  (Excellence, yes, but definitely not perfection!)

It’s true that the mother of closely spaced children isn’t likely to be able to replenish her nutritional stores like someone who has worked on it assiduously for several years without the draw from pregnancy.  However, let’s not forget that there’s plenty a woman can do to eat well during pregnancy to improve her unborn baby’s health.  This is not an all of nothing process.  (I’ve written about guidelines for high quality prenatal nutrition here.)

And on the other side of the equation, there are no guarantees in life.  There’s a conviction in the real food camp that if you eat well enough, nothing can go wrong with your child’s prenatal development.  Guess what?  It doesn’t always work like that.  It’s wonderful that there are so many things that we can affect with good nutrition, and this is very empowering.  But there are always going to be potential issues we can’t control for, as comforting as it is to think that we can.

What do you think the ideal child spacing is?  How has that worked for you and your children?  

Avivah

(This post is part of Monday Mania, Real Food 101, Fat Tuesday, Traditional Tuesdays, and Real Food Wednesdays.)

Toddler repeatedly leaving bedroom at bedtime

parenting

>>my son (2.5) takes 3 hours to go to sleep now- he finds any excuse to come out of his room, and if i lock the door he screams and i cant bare it. hell ask for food, tissues, bandaids and anything else.  PLEASE any advice is gold right now!<<

I wouldn’t suggest locking the door when your son goes to bed, since it’s a scary thing for a child.  It’s much better to leave it open when he goes to sleep so he can see that even though he’s going to sleep, you are still there for him.

Here are a couple of things to consider before taking any action steps: is he tired when you put him to bed?  Is he taking a long or late nap during the day and he’s really not ready for sleep later in the evening?  If not, maybe he needs to take a shorter nap during the day, more time outdoors in the afternoon to burn off some energy, or more of a bedtime ritual to help him unwind.  If he’s tired and ready for sleep when bedtime comes around, go on to the next thing below.

The next issue is to be sure that bedtime is positive and not punitive.  Look, none of us want to stop doing something we’re enjoying, and for little kids, it’s more fun to be awake than to go to bed.  So we have to make an effort for bedtime to be nice time together.  To start, maybe you can sit next to him for a little while when he goes to bed so he doesn’t feel that bedtime means a sudden big separation.

Then, once you’re doing the bedtime ritual with a child who is tired and ready for bed, he needs to see you’re consistently having the same expectations of bedtime.  Before he goes to sleep, offer him a drink and remind him that once he’s in bed that’s it.  If he asks for something once he’s in bed, tell him pleasantly but firmly, ‘Now it’s time for bed, tomorrow when you wake up you can have a (whatever it is).’
Broken record with this – he needs to keep getting the same response again and again, without you escalating emotionally or verbally.  You don’t have to say this forever – if you’ve had enough after three times, you can tell him, “Mommy said we’re not getting/having that right now. Mommy’s not going to talk about it anymore.’  And then don’t talk about it. Just sit quietly next to him and put your finger to your lips with a little bit of a smile (so you don’t look mean and threatening) if he says something.
Can you visualize this?  Firm and loving.
Good luck!
Avivah

Struggling to feel mothering is enough of an accomplishment

parenting

I’ve been feeling kind of down lately, and went to sleep last night feeling especially discouraged.  There are a few reasons for that, one of which is that during cold weather it gets into my bones and I feel like huddling under a blanket all day.  (This is definitely related to living in a stone building without insulation or heating.)  Because it’s cold people stay inside more, so then I feel socially isolated and as a person who is energized by interacting with others, I get down when I spend so long hardly seeing anyone outside of my family.  That’s the reality of the winter – when I feel warm and I can see people when I go out, I feel like a different person.

But a bigger reason is that I’ve been allowing lots of negative and self-defeating thoughts to enter my mind and particularly because of the above situation, those thoughts have been finding fertile soil.  Usually I shake it off pretty quickly and wasn’t going to share about any of this, but then I thought that it would be good for people to realize that we all struggle sometimes.  People have often told me how positive and upbeat I am, but you know what?  It doesn’t always come naturally, and sometimes I have to really work at it.

So what are some of those negative thoughts that were having free reign running through my mind?  How lazy I am, unproductive, and not accomplishing anything with my life.  Then from there I went on to think about how so many people in the world are able to motivate themselves to do something impressive with their life, and I’m not.  And I won’t, because I don’t have all their strengths and I’m too busy and too tired.  And too busy making excuses about how busy and tired I am when if I really tried, I could be doing more.

Then I went on to think how everyone else has so many friends and family that care about them, and I don’t.  This has been exacerbated by the reality that my husband and I come from very small families with just one second cousin living in the same country as us, we’re living in a new community where we mostly know people in a casual way, and we’re making a bar mitva in a week and a half that will reflect that.

And yuck, look at how out of shape I’m getting.  I haven’t exercised for a few weeks (since I use a dvd on the computer and dh is now using my computer all day long), and of course when I’m in this kind of mood I won’t count my daily half hour walk to get my littles from school or the fact that my stamina is better than it has been for a long time.

So this is kind of how the negative cycle in my mind sometimes sounds, usually most focused on not feeling like I’m accomplishing anything in my life and not so much the latter two issues.  Basically grappling with my identity as a full-time mother.  A few weeks ago I was at a reception when the grandmother of the honoree spoke, and she said something that I really appreciated hearing.  She said that her children have often told her how accomplished she is, but to her, there’s nothing in her life that has been a bigger accomplishment than raising her children.

Afterwards I went over and thanked her, and told her I was struggling to find value in all that I do every day, since mothering isn’t recognized by the outside world at all.  But this is really the area where I’m most invested at this stage of my life and where I’ll be invested for the foreseeable future.  I told her that the messages from the outside that I needed to be making money or earning a name for myself in some public way sometimes find a foothold in my mind, and it’s hard to continually pat your own back and reassure yourself that what you’re doing is important.   Particularly since I don’t think I’m doing such an outstanding job as a mother right now – I feel adequate, but not amazing (which is how I usually feel).    Parenting is a long term project and there aren’t major milestones on a weekly or monthly basis that you can check off and know you’ve done well.

She told me she had a similar struggle since she has a sister who has a very successful career, and just being able to honestly speak to someone about this feeling I had, and to hear her validate it and share her own perspective from a lifetime of looking back at what was truly valuable, really was encouraging to me.  This is the kind of message I need to periodically remind myself of when I’m getting too focused on the short term view.

What else do I find helpful in breaking the cycle of negative thinking?  Writing a gratitude list – I’ve been doing this somewhat irregularly since I was 17, and have found it very valuable in keeping me focused on all of my blessings instead of what I lack.  I also mentally make gratitude lists, but I don’t find this as effective – there’s something about writing things down that makes them register mentally at a deeper level.

I have to consciously fill my mind with positive thoughts at times like this, even when it’s the last thing I feel like thinking of.  It’s like reprogramming my brain so it will automatically run good programs even when I’m not trying.

Can you identify with any of this?  How have you resolved any of these feelings for yourself?

Avivah

Young mom protects self and infant from intruder

miscellaneous, parenting

Some days it’s a really nice thing to see the news!  This story was from a few days ago, but since my husband’s laptop broke a few weeks ago, he’s using mine most of the day.  That means by the time I can use the computer, it’s usually late in the evening and I’m too tired to post.  But this is worth sharing even four days late.

An eighteen year old mother of a three month old baby was at home alone, a week after the death of her husband to cancer, when two men began trying to break into her home.  She called 911 and pleaded with them to send help immediately.  In the meantime, she loaded her shotgun and kept it aimed at the door while on the phone.  21 minutes later, no help had yet arrived, and the man battering her door down was finally successful and entered her home.

Having told the 911 dispatcher what was happening, she asked if she could shoot him if he entered her house.  And basically, she was told to do what she had to do if he entered.  As he came into her home, she shot and killed him.

There are too many news stories of horrible crimes, particularly against women, because they can’t protect themselves.  Being that one of these men had a twelve inch hunting knife with him, it’s pretty obvious that they weren’t there for a pleasant social call and this would have ended horribly if she hadn’t been armed.  You could almost cry for all that this very young woman has gone through, and that she had the nerves to do what she needed to do to protect herself and child is wonderful.

I think it’s critical to know how to defend oneself, though unfortunately I don’t know how to shoot.  It’s one of my regrets that I didn’t learn while I was in the US – my husband went to the shooting range but I was pregnant so couldn’t go with him, and then we never got around to it, though we talked about it.  It’s not much of a consolation that at least I learned how to load and aim a handgun.

The day before this story, a neighbor from the Seattle area in which I used to live told me last week that there have been a recent rash of burglaries in that area, about one a week.  She told me that one homeowner came out with his gun (Seattle being the liberally leaning area that it is, this was expressed with some shock) and held down the attempted robber until the police came.  I thought that was fabulous.  If  more responsible and law abiding people had handguns and knew how to safely use them, we’d see the crime rates drop like a stone, because criminals would think twice before attacking someone if they thought they might encounter serious resistance.

Avivah

Booked a hall for the bar mitzva today

aliyah, parenting

I’m not a person who waits until the last minute to do things; my feeling is by thinking and planning ahead, you can minimize pressure and stress.  So why in the world am I so not on the ball about our upcoming bar mitzva?

I started lists…and I left them incomplete.  I kept losing them, and forgetting what I decided, and then making more lists, and losing them…  Every time I thought about the bar mitzva, I felt down, almost depressed.  This is not typical for me.  On Thursday night, I told myself that it was time to stop procrastinating- after all, it was only three weeks away –  so I made calls that night to organize the details of the kiddush for the bar mitzva.

We were planning to have the  kiddush at the bigger shul that my husband davens (prays) at, followed by the bar mitzva meal, since that day is the actual day of ds’s birthday.  Getting off the phone, I felt even more discouraged and less motivated; I felt such a lack of warmth and connection.  I felt like I was pulling teeth to get basic information, and I felt so frustrated that I couldn’t get an answer to the basic questions of how many people usually showed up to a kiddush, a low and high end estimate.  Everything about the planning was making me feel lonely and alone.

When I got off the phone, like a flash of light I suddenly realized why I was so unhappy that it was keeping me from doing anything.  I didn’t want to make the bar mitzva in the very large synagogue area, which since it’s in the process of being renovated, has bare cement walls with high ceilings that make it feel cavernous.  The big open space would just highlight how few people we knew and make it feel more lonely.  I didn’t want lots of people who didn’t even know us to be there gobbling up cake, and even worse, I didn’t want no one to show up because they didn’t know us!

So I did a mental 180 degree turnaround, and determined that we’d do whatever we had to do to have it in a place that we could feel good about it.  This morning we went to take a look at another hall close by, and I feel like the cloud over my head about planning this bar mitzva finally lifted!   It’s a nice open space, with a warm feeling – not huge, but nice.  There’s a full kitchen to use, and an additional room that’s included in the price.  Even though we only needed it for about five hours, we have to pay the bigger amount since they charge for the entire Shabbos, and we have to pay an additional 100 shekels for electricity since whatever lights we need will have to be left on the entire Shabbos.  But that’s okay, since we’ll be able to use it from Friday noon through Saturday midnight, which will make getting ready so much easier!

It will definitely be more expensive than the other place – because the synagogue basement isn’t yet finished, the fee to use it is very nominal.  But I’ve said before, frugality isn’t about spending as little as you possibly can in every area – that’s called miserliness – but budgeting your funds so that you can spend your money and live your life in the way that is meaningful to you.  So although we do have to be very careful about our expenses, particularly since dh isn’t yet working, to be so cheap on a special event that none of us would enjoy it isn’t really a savings, you know?

Since we’ve delayed everything, there are no invitations printed yet that have to be changed, so dh was able to make that change today without any difficulty.  It feels so good now to jump into the planning for this now!

Avivah

Ds12 first time putting on tefillin

parenting

In traditional Judaism, a young man puts on tefillin (phylacteries) for the first time a month before his bar mitzva.  Today was that day for ds12.

Dh took him to buy the tefillin in Bnei Brak several weeks ago, and yesterday afternoon they took them out so ds could practice how to put them on.  At that point, they realized that something had been tied according to a different custom than ours ( tied to wrap going out, rather than in), so they went out to find someone who could help them in the short time they had.  Fortunately, dh had met someone here who is a sofer (scribe) and was able to quickly remedy the issue.

Dh went with ds12 to the morning service, where he put on tefillin for the first time.  To celebrate, they took a few bottles of soft drinks and lots of homemade baked goods to share with the other people in the minyan (mostly the classmates and teachers of ds12, hence the horrifying amounts of sugar): doughnuts (chocolate and plain glazed) – in honor of Chanukah, cinnamon rolls, swirl cookies, chocolate cake – he’s lucky he had older sisters who wanted him to have something nice to put out!

Here’s the young man of the hour:

Dr. Gordon Neufeld, author of Hold On To Your Kids, has lamented that in Western culture, there are no rituals to mark the passage from child to adult. The exception, he notes, is in the Jewish religion, where boys and girls mark this passage with the bar/bas mitzva celebration, as they accept on themselves a Torah lifestyle of their own desire and volition.

This has practical ramifications – once bar mitzva, ds will be able to fulfill a minyan (prayer quorum) just as an adult man can.  This is going to make the person who has a synagogue a few doors away happy since he’s called in the past for ds to come complete the minyan, and been surprised (since he looks older) and disappointed that he couldn’t come.

But for parents as well, it’s good to have something like this to remind you that your child is moving towards adulthood, and to treat them accordingly.  I every so often recently when talking about bar mitzva preparations,  have been giving an exaggerated sniff and saying in a falsetto weepy voice: “My baby is growing up.”  Though I do it jokingly, it’s true, he really is growing up.  I clearly remember when ds18 was at this stage, wondering how he got to this point so quickly.  And with ds18 now not living at home anymore, I’m very, very aware of how fast the time flies by.

In other news, ds12 and I measured against one another back to back tonight.  He is now definitely taller than me.  Ds18 was 5’8″ when he was bar mitzva, and since I’m a little short of 5’9″, he passed me soon after.  But ds12 has already passed me, which reminded me of something I told my oldest a few years ago when he was wrestling with his brother: “One day, he’s going to be bigger and stronger than you, so you better be nice to him!”  🙂  Ds18 is almost six feet, and he’s no wimp, but tonight he came home and when he saw ds12, he told him that he’s on track to be bigger than him.  ‘But’, he continued, ‘you have to be able to learn more gemaras (Talmud) than I can to really be bigger than me!’

Avivah

A gift-free holiday season

aliyah, frugal strategies, parenting

Has anyone noticed that I haven’t mentioned the holiday season even the tiniest bit?  I haven’t been purposely ignoring it as much as not really thinking much about it.

Usually, I’m pretty aware of the holidays coming up – I use the advance time to stockpile gifts for all of our family members that they’ll appreciate at prices that my wallet appreciates!  Sometimes this has been buying things at thrift stores or yard sales, sometimes it’s meant making gifts.  But whatever I did, I needed to think ahead to be ready.  (Here’s a post I wrote about my approach to holiday shopping.)

Though we’ve always made a very conscious effort to keep things simple in the gift giving arena, when you have so many children buying and making gifts for one another, things begin to take on a life of their own and it gets harder and harder to keep it simple!  (You can read about preparations for past Chanukahs – do a search for ‘chanukah’ or ‘chanuka’ in the search bar – as well as one of our favorite gifts of the last night of Chanukah that has become a family memory to be treasured!)  And of course we were living close to grandparents who were eager to come by with the goodies they had for the kids.  And even though the gifts we purchased weren’t expensive and were often things we would have bought them in any case, but saved them until Chanukah to give, there were still gifts, and it was hard for a certain degree of focus to not be on presents.

I think we did a good job of straddling gift giving and finding meaning in the holiday, but now we’ve decided that we’d like to use our recent move as an opportunity to reset our family expectations and focus more on what the celebration of this holiday is about.  So we’ve agreed to totally cut out the presents.

Tonight was the first night of Chanukah, and it was lovely!  Though everyone in the past had their own unique menorahs, we only brought my husband’s menorah with us (yep, the luggage limit thing again!).   We bought inexpensive tin menorahs for everyone; ds4 brought one home from gan (preschool) today, and he lit for the first time with us all.

The first night of Chanukah in our home

After candlelighting in front of the window that overlooks our street, we sang together and my husband and all of the kids danced (I don’t know why, but somehow I usually prefer to sit and watch them!).  After that, ds12 prepared latkes (potato pancakes) for dinner, while dh played Chanukah tunes on his guitar and dd15 played her flute – they started working on a Chanukah song that they can play together.  I was really glad we brought the guitar along!

Last night dd11 and I attended her school performance, which consisted on several dances and songs by the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade girls, followed by a one woman act, a play about the Inquisition.  Wow, was she talented!  I enjoyed it very much, and periodically whispered explanations in dd’s ear about what was going on.  I heard today that many of the Israeli girls for whom language wasn’t a barrier didn’t understand the concept of the Inquisition and the forced conversion of the Jews to Christianity, never having been exposed to that time in history, and weren’t able to follow the play.

That evening was the beginning of the active Chanukah season!  As I said, today ds4 came home with a menorah, a box of candles, and a dreidel from school, and tomorrow all of the kids (except maybe ds12, not so sure about his school) will be having Chanukah parties on their last day before vacation begins!

Thursday morning ds12 will be putting on tefillin for the first time and we’re sending homemade doughnuts and other baked goodies to the minyan (prayer service) that he’ll be attending.  Mid day we’ll be attending a bat mitva, and I hope that around 5 pm, ds18 will be coming home for Shabbos (after being gone for a couple of months) and bringing a friend.  A couple of hours after he gets home, we’ll be attending a local hachnasas Sefer Torah (dedication of a new Torah scroll) that will be attended by one of the leading Torah sages of this generation.

Then on Friday, friends will be coming from the Jerusalem area with their family to spend a few days with us, and that evening and the next day we’ll be joined for meals by a young family of four visiting from Germany.  Then sometime on Sunday a blog reader visiting Karmiel will stop by with her family and we’ll get to meet in person.  So we’ll have a nice full house to enjoy Chanukah with!

It’s really nice to see how the chief rabbi of the city has worked to ensure that there will be Chanukah events suitable for the religious public here.  We’ll be missing the puppet show on Thursday afternoon in order to attend the bat mitzva of a friend’s daughter, but on Sunday there will be an all day Chanukah event at a local park, and that evening is a special performance for women that I’m looking forward to attending with the older girls.  (Unfortunately, they didn’t go with us last night.)  There’s also an event for men the following evening.  I’m sure we’ll hear about more things that are planned as the week goes on.

It already feels like a wonderful holiday, and it’s only the first night!

What is your position on gift giving during the holiday season?  What are things you’ve done to keep the focus on things that are more meaningful, such as family time or spiritual traditions?

Avivah

Parent teacher conferences

aliyah, homeschooling, parenting

The first few days of this week were full, full, full of parent teacher meetings!  Today I’ll share a little bit about this as part of our aliyah process.

Dh went on Sunday night to meet with ds12’s teacher.  I think the expectations in this school of olim aren’t realistic because they have had so little experience with new immigrant, and it shows when they say what their expectations are.  It was recommended that we get additional tutoring for ds12 (his school is the only one that provides no support for olim/new immigrants), but I don’t think it’s necessary since ds is doing amazingly well, dh is working with him a lot, and since he’s probably going to repeat this grade in the coming year, anything he misses now will be caught then.

The next day began my meetings.  Officially the first one was just to go to the girls’ high school and meet ith dd15’s teacher, but additionally, I spoke with the principal, school advisor, and English teacher.  I spoke to their tutor on the phone the night beforehand since she wasn’t going to be there, and unfortunately missed speaking to dd17’s teacher – I didn’t make an app0intment to speak to her, and got to the school just a couple of minutes after she had left for the evening, which was fine since we can speak on the phone.

Of course, it was all just as I told dd15 it would be before I went – they all told me what a fine girl she is, how hard she’s working, etc.  Two of them were impressed that dd keeps a little notebook where she writes down words that she hears during the day (and every night she asks me to tell her what they mean!).   A couple of the teachers were extremely glowing about dd17 and dd15, and said it’s all a credit to how they were raised, but as nice as it is to hear, this kind of comment makes me uncomfortable.  I don’t think it’s honest to accept compliments like that which really aren’t mine, and I told the teachers that my kids deserve credit for the work they’ve done on themselves.  As a parent you can do your best, but how it turns out isn’t in your hands.  That’s not false humility – that’s the truth!

While there I took the opportunity to ask the homeroom teacher about some social dynamics in the classroom and how they were being dealt with – dd is in the most difficult class this school has ever had and the administration is struggling to figure out how to handle them.  Within less than two weeks of school beginning, I was already researching other options and seriously considering transferring her out, but after we discussed the options, dd decided she wants to stay where she is.  She’s getting a real education about what goes on in school, and has told me she wishes she could speak on the teen panel for the Torah Home Education conference now, after having been in school (she was on it this past summer) – she has plenty of perspective to share!   There are a lot of things that homeschooled kids take for granted about being homeschooled until they’re in a different framework where everyone hasn’t had that, and it’s nice for me that she can look back and now appreciate some aspects of our approach to learning that she wouldn’t have considered noteworthy before this.

The next morning I went to dd11’s school to speak with her teacher.  I had received a note about parent teacher conferences being scheduled for Tuesday evening, but those who wanted to could make appointments for limited slots in the morning.  I chose the morning knowing that it was likely to be more relaxed and with less waiting, while simultaneously ensuring I would be home in the evening for dinner and bedtime.

Her teacher mentioned that she thinks dd11 is having trouble because she was homeschooled until now.  “Really?”  I ask.  “What kind of difficulty?”  Well, she tells me, she is very well-behaved, attentive, pleasant, smiles at the girls and plays with them at recess, but she’s holding back by not speaking much to them.  Is she so closed at home also?  Ahem.  “Don’t you think it’s possible,” I suggest, “that she’s not speaking to them because she can’t speak the language yet?”   Oh, right.  “And don’t you think it indicates a degree of social confidence,” I asked, “that she’s interacting with girls that she can’t talk to, rather than sit to the side?”  Oh, yes, definitely, that’s a very good thing.

Then I told her that in my opinion, it’s because she was homeschooled that she’s made the transition so well.  Then the teacher began asking me all about homeschooling.  I avoided discussions of this sort when I first moved here; I had no interest in immediately becoming known as the person who was different.  But now I feel like people see who I am and I can discuss it in the proper context, without the ‘weirdo’ label attached to homeschooling or to our family.  After answering lots of her questions, I finally laughed and told her that I had come to talk about dd and her school experience, not homeschooling!

While I was in the school office, I learned that I had an appointment with ds9’s teacher that evening.  Ds9  had given the note to dh instead of me, and dh had forgotten to mention it to me, so I didn’t know about it.  The secretary told me she thought it was strange that I scheduled one meeting for the morning and one for the evening, instead of coming for both at the same time!  My efforts to avoid going out in the evening clearly didn’t work out as planned, and so I headed to ds9’s school that evening.

While waiting to speak with his teacher (the line was backed up), I meandered around into the girl’s school next door, and happened to meet dd11’s tutor.  As soon as she realized who I was, she told me, ‘Your daughter doesn’t like working hard.”  This doesn’t match dd11, so I asked her to clarify.  She told me that dd11 was very resistant to  the learning she tried to do with her, and that she doesn’t like to extend herself to learn.

Now, I had seen the homework dd was bringing home from this tutor and was dismayed that it flew in the face of the approach I had agreed upon at the beginning of the year with the principal and teachers – the focus this year is for her to learn the language so that she can communicate and understand what’s going on.  Dd is not going to be expected to participate in class, be tested, have to do homework, etc, for the first half a year.

During our conversation I learned that this very nice and well-meaning tutor wasn’t told about this, nor did she have any idea of what dd’s spoken Hebrew was like (basically non existent).  And so she went about tutoring her the way she would have tutored girls who were living here for a year or two and were already fluent in the language!  She felt it was critical for dd to be able to stay on par with her class, so she was teaching her Biblical Hebrew, isolated words that had absolutely no daily application, and dd11 was struggling to remember words that didn’t connect to anything.

Also unfortunately, the tutor doesn’t speak English.  She told me that was no problem because she would have dd look up the words in the dictionary.   When dd had first showed me the work she was doing with this tutor, I decided not to make an issue of this, since I knew it was a short term arrangement and someone very good would be replacing her soon, and dd was getting concrete assistance from her other tutor.  I realized while speaking to the tutor how much she really didn’t understand of the situation.  But it bothered me that she was still unfairly categorizing dd.

So I explained to her that dd11 can’t even say or understand more than the most simple of sentences, and didn’t understand most of what the tutor was telling her.  I told her that what she did was like teaching Shakespeare to a child who doesn’t yet know how to read .  And because the tutor didn’t speak English, dd had no way to express to her that it was all way over her head.

Her tutor felt so badly after we spoke and kept saying she wish she had understood all these things before, because it was clear to her how unhelpful her approach had been.  (I told her not to feel badly, that it was just how the circumstances were and no one’s fault.)  Then she told me that she saw during one of their very last lessons, she had given dd easy words, of colors and numbers, and all of a sudden she perked up and was involved – and it was only as she told me this that she realized that dd hadn’t been more involved then because she was lazy, but because it was finally something on her level!

If I had any inkling that no one had told her about how to approach learning with dd (this is arranged through the school, during school hours), I would have spoken to her.  But I had spoken to the other tutor, and the principal, and the teacher, and the new tutor, and everyone was on the same page with me, and I assumed this tutor was teaching in this way because it was her approach.  I don’t think it’s appropriate to tell people how to do their job, once they know what their job is – but she didn’t know what the job was, unfortunately.  I learned that over- verifying isn’t a bad thing to do.

I was really glad to have bumped into her and straightened that out, and then I went back to the boy’s school and met the math teacher of ds9.  She told me to tell him that she understands English well, though she can’t speak it, and that he can answer questions that are asked in English.  She also told me she sees he understands not only the math, but the Hebrew, and shared the following example with me: she asked the class a question, and ds’s seat partner answered it very quickly. She asked him how he figured out the answer so fast, and he told her that ds had written down the answer on the paper and showed it to him!

It was interesting speaking to her, since she came to Israel from Russia at the age of 13 (she’s in her twenties now), and understands exactly how hard it is to be a new immigrant.  It was nice to have someone right away get it, without me having to explain the obvious (eg the above examples regarding dd of the reality of not being able to talk to those around her).

Then I met the music teacher.  I had learned just a few days before that ds9 is the only boy in the class without a recorder, and asked the teacher about this.  She immigrated from Russia at my stage of life, with school age children, and she also was very understanding of the difficulties for a child his age.   I told her that I’d like him to have a recorder, and would send money to buy one at the office the next day (after learning that parents are supposed to buy one – I had never been notified about this).  She told me that she had given him a recorder to use on several occasions, but feels that he has so much to adjust to in learning Hebrew, that she doesn’t want to pressure him more.  She explained that music is like a second language, and felt that since next year this class won’t be having the recorder, it was better for him to not have the added expectation of himself to learn how to read music and how to play the recorder.

I appreciated her thoughtfulness, though I thought ds9 would feel left out continuing to be the only one in the class without an instrument.  But when I asked him about it, he told me he’d rather not play and is happy to sit and watch.

Then I finally spoke with his teacher (I got in about an hour or more after my scheduled appointment), who is such a caring and devoted teacher.  He asked me what our expectations of him are – isn’t that a thought provoking question?  I told him that some things are simply going to take time to improve, until ds can speak Hebrew.  He wanted suggestions for the ways I felt it would be best to engage ds in class – he doesn’t want to ask of him something that’s too much, but he doesn’t want to ignore him, either.  He understands English though ds doesn’t seem comfortable speaking to people in English unless they speak to him in English also.  Definitely limiting!

All in all, I enjoyed all of my meetings.  All of the kids’ teachers are good people who want them to succeed, and I feel like we’re working on the same goals.

For those of you who have moved overseas with children (or been children) who are in school, does any of this sound typical?  Better or worse than usual?  Any suggestions or tips you’ve learned along the way to make the system work better for your children?

Avivah

Illustrating recipes to make it easy for kids to help

parenting

Last night we had vegetable stew and cornbread for dinner, and guess who did almost all of the cooking?  Ds5!  This was thanks to the efforts of dd17, who involved him and found a way for him to independently prepare most of dinner.  You should have seen how proud he was, as he kept telling everyone during dinner that he made almost everything himself and dd17 hardly helped him!

Here’s what dd17 did.  (I was considering taking a picture of this to show you, but didn’t think it would show up well.)  She fully illustrated the cornbread recipe for ds5!  To start, at the top of the page she drew an ear of corn + a loaf of bread, then asked him what that was – to which he quickly answered, “Cornbread!”

She went on to draw each item – when it called for two cups of something, she drew two cups and then the item that needed to be measured out.  For tablespoons, she drew big spoons; for teaspoons, she drew small spoons.  She numbered the instructions, which was important for the next step.

When she wrote out the instructions, she wrote, “1, 2, 3, 5, 6” and illustrated that it was supposed to be mixed.  Then she wrote the numbers that were involved in the next step.  Thanks to these very clear instructions (which she explained to him to be sure he understood them all before he began), he was able to make the entire pan of cornbread by himself.

As far as the stew, he already knows how to peel and chop vegetables (yes, with a sharp knife – ds2.5 also peels vegetables, but doesn’t yet use a sharp knife), so that was mostly just a matter of putting it in a pot and dd adding the necessary liquid.

Do you know how much it builds kids up to be able to do something they view as ‘big people’ work, and do it well?  Ds5 was hearing “thank you”s and compliments all dinner long!  Getting your kids involved in the kitchen is an easy and natural step to helping them develop important home management skills.

Dd15 was telling me recently that she never understood why so many people were taken aback about her baking and cooking so well, until she saw how uncommon it is even for teenagers to be involved in the kitchen.  (She told me about a teenager who proudly told her about the cake she had made ‘by herself’ – the mother had measured the ingredients into the bowl, and the teenager had mixed it and poured it into a pan.)  And also, she’s now heard enough comments to realize that many people view cooking from scratch as a very difficult thing.   But for us, it’s just how we’ve always cooked, so it’s normal to our kids.

It definitely takes more time to get your kids involved when they’re young, because it’s easier and faster to do it all yourself.  It’s in the long run that it pays off, when your kids can prepare anything that needs to be made – I think by 12 a child is basically capable of mastering all of the chores that are part of running a home, but that doesn’t mean they want to do it or know how to do it.  They have to be taught, and it has to be something they’re given the opportunity to do – they won’t learn by osmosis! I’ve found that when I view the time I spend preparing your meals as an activity I’m doing with my kids, I don’t mind that it takes longer.  They’re busy having fun while being productive and learning important skills, while you’re getting something done!

Avivah

The Best and Easiest Chocolate Cake

aliyah, parenting, recipes

We made this recipe the last few weeks, and we had requests for this specific recipe from two of the three families who had it when they were at our home during that time.  What’s really nice about this recipe is that it’s really, really easy.  And that means that your child can make it by himself, and have the fun of serving it and impressing your family and friends!

Ds12 made this the first week, and then I had ds9 prepare this, who has very little kitchen experience.  When kids first begin learning to cook, you have to remember not to give them just the preparatory work (eg peeling, measuring), but to let them put together enough of it that they have pride in the final product.  It’s the gratification and pride that makes them want to be involved in cooking in the future.  In this case, they can put together the entire thing themselves with very little help.

So here’s the recipe!

The Best and Easiest Chocolate Cake

  • 1 3/4 c. flour
  • 2 c. sugar
  • 3/4 c. cocoa
  • 1 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 1 1/2 t. baking soda
  • 1 t. salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 c. milk (you can substitute water, coconut milk, or any non-dairy milk)
  • ** 1 T. vinegar (if you’re using Dutch cocoa – see explanation below)
  • 1/2 c. oil
  • 1 1/2 t. vanilla
  • 1 c. boiling water

Mix all the dry ingredients.  Then add in the eggs, milk, and remaining liquid ingredients in the order listed.  Pour into a 9 x 13 baking pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes.

***Here’s some interesting information about cocoa that I learned about from the woman who used to be the Girl Scout troop leader years ago for dd17.  This is especially relevant for those who are using US recipes but aren’t living in the US.  In the US, the standard cocoa used is natural and therefore acidic -Hershey’s cocoa is typical of the standard cocoa in the US.  In other parts of the world, Dutch cocoa is the standard, and this means it is alkalinized.  What this means is that though people in different countries are calling cocoa by the same name, the natural and Dutch cocoa actually work somewhat differently.  Since I’m now using Dutch cocoa for baking but this was a US recipe, adding 1 T. vinegar compensates for the missing acidity.

Avivah