Avivah Werner

Category: Parenting

  • Accepting toddler toileting difficulties

    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

    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

    >>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?

    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!

    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

    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

    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

    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

  • Seven month aliyah update: emotional transitioning

    Today marks seven months since we’ve moved to Israel!

    I’ve been thinking alot about making a big lifestyle transition like this – I don’t know if you can overstate what is involved.  Some people are so flexible and fluid that they won’t be as aware of the transitions they have to make on a daily basis, while others will be aware of every bit of effort.  I’ve seen this with a number of people, including our own family.

    Dh and I were recently discussing how each of our children has transitioned to living in Israel.  Two of our middle kids have been having the most difficulty, and I commented to him that we have to remember that seven months isn’t really that long a time.  I’ve heard people say that for adults it takes about three years of living here to really feel integrated, with constant and gradual adaptations that need to be made during that time.  I don’t think it takes children that long, but I do think that 1 – 2 years is very reasonable for children of this age.

    Had we moved to a city with lots of English speakers, I think in some ways the transition would have been easier for the kids – at least in the short term.  The older kids (13, 15, 17) are all glad we came specifically to a place without many Anglos, and told me that they definitely have been forced to learn Hebrew much faster and better than they would have in an Anglo enclave.  It was important to me that my kids learned Hebrew, and it’s well-known that in Anglo enclaves the kids are delayed in this area, and often don’t learn to speak Hebrew well.

    But for those who are having a hard time picking up the language, friendships aren’t happening for them, and this is something that isn’t an issue for them when they interact with English speakers.  Dd11’s tutor was at our bar mitzva seven weeks ago, and saw her interacting very comfortably and animatedly with English speaking guests – the tutor told me later that when she saw this, she realized that this was who dd11 really was, not the shadow of personality they see in school.  It totally changed her picture of her.

    I think we’re fortunate in that I’ve never placed a huge emphasis on friendships outside the family, and this experience of not having friends would be much more painful if they were used to their social orbit being filled by peers.  Our children still have each other, and this isn’t a small thing.  However, I think it’s difficult for them to spend hours in an environment every day in which they are basically social wallflowers.

    I think a lot about how to support them in this, and take a two pronged attitude towards this.  One is that I try to support their Hebrew language learning at home.  The other isn’t concrete, but I feel is much more significant – I work to shore up the relationship with them, the goal being that their inner needs for emotional connection and being known are being met.  I want them to have a full enough sense of themselves that they can withstand the daily beating that their self-esteem is taking.  It still won’t be fun for them, but at least it won’t be too damaging.  That’s my goal, anyway.   Dr. Gordon Neufeld explains that a parent can protect a child without even being physically present, by having established a strong and deep emotional attachment with them – because what you think of them informs their self-image more than what those around them think of them.

    A couple of quick points about what a transition to a new country entails.  The first thing that comes to mind is the language.  When you can’t express yourself, you can’t be seen for who you are, and it is very difficult to interact with others knowing that they really can’t see you for yourself.  Since one of the deepest desires of a human is to be truly known and valued, language struggles aren’t just a superficial issue.

    Since moving means leaving behind your family and friends, you’re leaving behind your emotional base at a time when you are most challenged to replace it.  It’s a lonely feeling.  This can be alleviated by moving to a place with more Anglos and a wider support system, but that doesn’t yet exist here.  We were very much on our own, and I think our expectation that we’d have to be our own support network was what saved us from the frustrations and compounded difficulties that others experienced who came here expecting more outside support.

    Another issue is that different cultures have different unspoken rules.  I’ve tried to teach my children to be polite and considerate, and the way these qualities are expressed here are different; I’m not sure that what in the US was constantly commented favorably upon serves them well now.  Ds13 told me he realized that when he spoke in a way to his peers that would have been understood as being nice in the US, boys didn’t respond well to it.  He has learned that here, being very direct is respected, and has changed his communication style with his peers as a result.

    This is a reality among all cultures – there are inherent differences even when there’s a common language.  I had a British neighbor (who later became a good friend) who early on in our relationship told me how frustrating it was to speak with me – what to an American was considered friendly and open seemed intrusive and nosy to her.  So I learned to tone down my ‘Americanness’ when I spoke with her.    And here we’ll all need time to learn the culture and figure out how to effectively be part of it without losing who we are.

    All in all, I think we’re in a good place.  Some of us are thriving, others are getting used to things more slowly.  No one says they are unhappy or wish we didn’t come.  However, time takes time, and I think it’s important to allow each of our family members their own time frame for adjustment.

    If you have experience or insights with living in a culture different from one you were raised in, I’d love it if you shared!  How long did it take you to really feel like part of your new culture?  Did you ever really make the transition?  Whether you did or didn’t, what do you think were the critical factors for your experience?

    Avivah

  • Developing an attitude of gratitude

    Today I was home with eight sick kids.  Yesterday there were seven, and the day before I started off with only four!  A couple hours into that morning I had to go pick up dd17 from school because she was sick, too, and the rules are that they couldn’t let her go home herself, so we had five sick kids home by noon. 🙂

    It’s actually been a nice period – I’m not glad everyone is sick, but it’s nice to have everyone home at once.  My living room is filled with kids lined up on blankets on the floor (their choice – they seem to be enjoying the chance to camp out together) and on all the couches – our homestyle infirmary!  But after a couple of people responded to me mentioning having eight sick kids home today, I was thinking about how easily it could be turned around to be something to grumble about.  It reminds me of a kids’ book we used to have – there was a dual storyline; on the top of the page was the positive interpretation, and on the bottom of the page was the negative interpretation of the same event.  And that’s really how life is, very open to our interpretation of things.

    Many years ago I started keeping a gratitude notebook.  I didn’t do this consistently – it’s been on and off since I was about 18 or 19.  Since moving here, I’ve gotten out the habit of writing a gratitude list every night before bed, just because I didn’t think to keep a notebook next to my bed when we moved (got to do that now that I’m consciously thinking about it!).

    But even so, I’ve still tried to make mental gratitude lists, and often will write things down when I have a scrap of paper in front of me.  Tonight I was writing some things in my planner at the end of today, since I had empty space in today’s date, and decided to share some of them with you.  Don’t think I have a perfect life and nothing to focus on but the positive – I have challenges just like everyone, but it  helps me keep my spirits up when I focus on the many blessings I experience every day.

    As you’ll see in my list below, I don’t write about the big things – being able to walk, talk, see, breathe – which are in and of themselves so huge and amazing that if we really thought about the significance of them, we’d never find anything to complain about.  I write about the smaller mundane things.  We all have lots of these, but sometimes we have to attune our eyes to seeing the blessings around us all the time.

    • no missiles fell in northern Israel today (they’ve been raining down in the south these last few days from terrorists) and we don’t have to live with the fear that we have thirty seconds to get to safety
    • kids are all sick but are sleeping a lot and with the exception of one, not complaining much
    • was able to salvage most of the carrots that were beginning to get soft due to heat
    • ate three healthy and nutritious meals today
    • dh took stroller down the stairs of our building for me when I went to the park with the littles so I wouldn’t have to carry it
    • took the littles to the park and enjoyed the wonderful feeling of sun shining on us
    • a neighbor smiled at me on my way into the building
    • my mother brought another kilogram of powdered vitamin C when she visited six weeks ago, and I got a few bottles of grape juice on sale last week – just in time to have on hand for this bout of sickness
    •  had plenty of toilet paper for the kids to blow their nose on (we’ve used about twenty plus rolls in the last few days)
    • my arms and legs were feeling very weak and achy this morning, and I was afraid I was coming down with what the kids have – but pushed myself to do a fifteen minute workout since I mentally committed to it last night – and when I finished, all the achiness was gone (the benefit of pumping my lymph system?)
    • got all the laundry washed – no dirty clothes left anywhere in the house!
    • washed all the dishes and enjoyed seeing an empty sink for a little while
    • the clothes dry quickly in warm weather like this
    • got call to remind me about parenting class (I had mentally mixed up the day it was held with another class) and thanks to this didn’t miss tonight’s class
    • parenting instructor voluntarily made a call for me to school advisor of one of kids’ after hearing difficulty I was having reaching him
    • instructor understood significance of idea I shared despite my concern that in Hebrew I couldn’t express the depth properly
    • after two weeks of work, dh’s employer told him he wants to give him a raise (he was told when hired that it would be four months before it would be considered)
    • had a refreshing afternoon nap
    • someone gifted us with four school sweatshirts at our front door (don’t know who but we appreciate it!)
    • got a ride home from the parenting class to right in front of my building
    • someone saved me some food from dinner and I didn’t have to prepare something to eat when I got home
    • dh went out to buy more toilet paper and diapers without me mentioning it and saved me the trip
    • diapers happened to be on sale just when we needed them
    • we’re centrally located and don’t need a car; a walk to the store is just five minutes
    • borrowed two English books that I’ll enjoy reading with the kids
    • littles were still up when I got back so I could tell them goodnight
    • once they went to sleep, enjoyed listening to a Torah lecture with dd15
    • took the clothes that had dried in before it started raining

    There are a lot more things I could write about, but you get the point!  I try to write or think of at least ten things a day, which isn’t hard once you get used to looking for them.  However, that can be intimidating in the beginning.  I heard the suggestion at a lecture to try to stop once a day and just think of two things to be grateful for, and this alone can help shift your perception dramatically.

    Focusing on noticing all that I have has been huge for me in helping me become a more positive person.  I’ve also increasingly come to believe that we draw more miracles and blessings into our life when we notice all that are already present.  So if you want more good things to come into your life, start noticing all that’s already there!

    Avivah