Avivah Werner

Category: Parenting

  • Explaining money limitations to kids

    >> i am wondering how you deal with money and your kids. as the children get older, there are certain things that they need- and certain things they just really really want- that we just can’t afford. my husband thinks we should tell them our finances- like, “there is only $28 in the bank until the next payday, so we can’t get you x”. that gives me the heebie jeeebies. i think we do a good job of teaching our kids the value of money- so they don’t generally ask for frivolous things.

    i know some people who tell their kids ‘this is just not how we choose to spend our money right now.’ that avoids the kids feeling poor, but i think sometimes it isn’t fair, because it implies that you are choosing to let them do without, when really you wish it could be different. i don’t want my kids to be afraid to need things or to feel like we can’t provide for them or to be complexed about our finances. i would prefer is our finances were none of their business, but as they get older, this gets harder.

    so, i hope you will see through to the main ideas here- giving over god values while being comapssionate, while balancing everyone’s needs.<<

    I decided to ask my kids for their thoughts on this before responding.  So at dinner last week, I told them the question, and asked them what they thought.  There was a long silence and they all looked at me blankly.  Then one of them said, “What do you mean?”  So I explained, “Sometimes we have money limitations and can’t buy you what you want – so how do you feel about that?”  And then they said that that situation has never happened!

    Since we’ve had times of being extremely financially limited, I certainly have had to curtail expenses, so I guess they have selective memories. 🙂  I think they have the feeling of not having been deprived of something because they know the difference between wants and needs.  If they have a need, they know we’ll take care of it.  If they have a want, they realize that even if we have the money, we may not choose to spend it in that way – it has to be something we feel is valuable.   So the focus becomes on what the value of the purchase is, not our finances.

    I feel it’s really important that kids feel secure in their parents’ ability to provide for them.  And this isn’t about how much you make, but the attitude you project.  I remember years ago we were living on a very, very small income – honestly, it was too small and very stressful just trying to pay bills.  Somehow the name Bill Gates came up, and my kids asked who he was.  So I said he was a man who created Microsoft and became very rich.  My oldest son was about 10 or 11 and he asked, “Is he richer than us?”   I said yes, he was even richer than us.  My son said in an awed voice, ‘wow, he must really be rich!” 😆

    I’ve always tried to focus on all that we have, and this is particularly important at times when you really are tight financially.  You can always look at those who have much more than you and feel deprived, or you can look at all of those (most of the world) who don’t have adequate food, shelter, clean water – let alone all the extras we take for granted.  It may sound like something that works to tell a four year old, but none of us are too old to count our blessings.

    If I would tell my kids we have $28 left in the bank or not would depend on if we had a savings account and if it was something that was causing me anxiety.  If I knew that we had some kind of cushion, I’d be very comfortable saying I’d spent the budgeted money for the month and am not willing to buy something with a credit card since I don’t have the money right now; they can see you’re being fiscally responsible and feel secure that you have savings of some sort.  ‘Not now’ is a different message than, ‘never no matter how needy you are’.  I routinely tell my kids that I have $x for food (generally a small number since I spend most of the monthly budget at the very beginning of the month) for the next two or three weeks, but I feel no pressure about it – in fact I enjoy the challenge! – and they know that we’re well stocked so that doesn’t leave them wondering if we’ll go hungry.  I wouldn’t say that if I had an empty pantry and my option was feeding them one meal a day.  If you literally have only $28 in the bank, I would absolutely not say anything about that – you’d be anxious and fearful, and so would your kids. Better to just say you don’t have the money right now.

    I’m comfortable explaining that we have a limited amount of money and we have to make choices.  Everyone has some kind of financial limitation, so I don’t see this as an indication that we’re poor or something unique my kids have to suffer with.  In fact, I see this as an important and positive concept for children to understand, something that many kids (and adults!) nowadays don’t have much of a concept of.

    Sometimes our children need help recognizing when they are making choices that limit what they get.  For example, if you can afford a certain item at a thrift stop this month (obviously in reasonable condition) but have to wait until next month for that item at the mall, and your children insist that only the mall works for them, then it’s not about you depriving them.  It’s about the choices that they’re making.  My kids enjoy going with me to thrift stores since I only buy good quality items in excellent condition, so their association with thrift stores is positive – they see it as a way to pay low prices for nice merchandise.  If I bought what looked like other people’s throwaways, they’d have different associations.  Also, they know that if I can’t find what they need there, I’ll buy it at a retail store, so I think that also affects their perception – it’s not like they have to take whatever I get them regardless of how they like it.

    As our children have gotten older, they have some things they’d like and they use their own money to buy those things.  If they really want something and I’m not inclined to buy it for them, then they can get it themselves.  They work for their money and they’re allowed to use it as they see fit. But sometimes I put limits on this – for example, sometimes on our shopping day one particular child will request to buy junk food with his money.  I don’t mind if he gets a small amount, but just because he’s willing to pay wouldn’t make me more likely to get  processed breakfast cereals than if I was footing the bill – I just don’t see it as beneficial.

    I understand that feeling of wishing you could give your kids more when you run up against a financial limitation.  Generally I feel like we can give our kids most of what they want and need, but sometimes we can’t and I feel a tug when I say ‘no’ to something I want to say ‘yes’ to.  As my kids get older, I’ve run into more of these situations.  I think that’s where the struggle is, when we feel we’re depriving our children because we just don’t have enough, that they really are deprived.  I said above that I’ve taught my kids to differentiate between wants and needs, and sometimes I have to remind myself about this.  Otherwise, we parents can always find something to feel guilty about!

    Avivah

  • Getting stuck ring off

    A couple of weeks ago, my ds7 found a heavy duty metal ring (kind of like a washer but rounded, not flat) and slipped it onto his finger.  He went to sleep with it on and when he woke up his finger was swollen slightly above the ring and we couldn’t get it off.  I wasn’t too worried, because I figured if it went on that easily, it should come off with a little bit of time and effort.  I was wrong.

    We tried pouring dish soap on his finger, we tried oil, we tried icing it down and then putting dish soap and oil on it, but no luck.  The metal circle had a tiny gap where the two sides almost connected, so we tried prying it apart with pliers.  No luck.  It wasn’t hurting him so it wasn’t urgent, but I obviously wanted to get it off before it could cause problems.  When someone mentioned that jewelers have tools to deal with this kind of situation, I decided to take him.

    So off we went today to the jeweler.  The jeweler tried using the tool he cuts rings off with, but the metal was so thick and so hard that it hardly made a dent.  He tried using a special kind of saw, by taking off the thin blade, slipping it under ds’s finger, reattaching it and then sawing away from his finger so he couldn’t be hurt.  No luck.  He tried a stronger blade in the saw.  Nothing.  Then he took out some dish soap.  Do you think it helped?  Nope.  He and the other jeweler each grasped one of their special pliers and pulled as hard as they could on each side to try to increase the gap.  Didn’t budge.

    The jeweler was very concerned and told me he honestly didn’t know what to suggest for me.  I felt sick to my stomach wondering how we were going to get this metal circle off his finger if the people who specialized in this couldn’t do it.   He said maybe a pediatrician would have experience with other kids doing this and ideas who we could ask, so on the way home I stopped at our doctor and asked her if she had any inspiration.

    She suggested the emergency room, an idea I firmly refused.  I told her there’s no way they’d have the tools or skills to deal with it, and after they botched up the last time we were there with this child I don’t have much confidence in their ad hoc strategies to dealing with unusual situations.  At that time he was four and had something stuck in his ear, and after waiting 3 hours for them to get the instrument they needed from another part of the hospital (and no, it wasn’t being used by anyone else – I told them I’d be happy to take the ten minutes necessary to go get it but they said it was against their policy), they took an inappropriate sharp instrument and bloodied his inner ear (fortunately not puncturing his ear drum) but still didn’t get it out.  The ENT we took him to afterward was appalled.  I was thinking I’d have to go to a hardware store and ask if they knew any machinists who worked with miniatures.

    But then our pediatrician said she’d ask the dentist next door if he had any ideas.  He came in and took a look and confidently said, ‘No problem, I can get that off.’ I was thinking that once he saw what he was dealing with he wouldn’t be so confident, but I was grateful for his willingness to try and off we went to his office.  He took this miniature golf club looking instrument and tried to enlarge the gap.  After trying for a few minutes with no improvement, he said, “Wow, this metal is really hard, it’s not moving.”  My heart was starting to sink again when he said, “I’ll have to drill it off.”

    So we went to the back room and he took out his tiny little drill he uses for cavities, and drilled off the ring.  I was so relieved!  Ds11 and dd9 stayed in the waiting room of the pediatrician for this, and ds11 told me afterwards he didn’t want to come and hear that the dentist also couldn’t get it off – watching the jeweler try so many things that weren’t working left he and I with our hearts in our throats.

    I didn’t have time to get them something to visibly show my appreciation before they closed this afternoon, but tomorrow morning I’m going to purchase some nut/dried fruit platters to thank both the dentist and jeweler.  I’m so, so, so relieved and grateful to have it off, and though I hope none of you ever run into this situation, if you ever do, now you know to go straight to your dentist’s office!

    Avivah

  • Needing time for self

    >>and the more I see the pic the more I just cant stop being baffled at how you dont lose your mind from having this clan home every single single live long day. I just cant imagine how you dont need your space for a few hours every day to just do your thing without needing to respond to some child’s request. For the life of me no matter how many blog entries I’ll read, I will not be able to fathom the concept of being home with your entire family every single day of the year.<<

    I’ve written about how can I stand to be around my kids all day, and I think part of the answer is that there are some things you just can’t understand until you experience them.  It’s not just that my kids are home all day and most other families have their kids in school during the day, but the mindset about it that is a big difference.  But I wanted to respond to a different point since it touches on something I’ve been thinking about these last few days.  And that is the importance of having time for yourself.

    Don’t think I have a superhuman ability to push off my own needs to take care of everyone else 24/7.  I really enjoy spending time with my children, but occasionally I feel like I need more ‘self time’ than what I’m getting.  It’s not about them and how well-behaved they are or aren’t; it’s about me not carving out time for myself.  When I ignore my needs, I get the same feelings of burnout that everyone else does and I feel less calm and happy and more irritable and edgy.

    I’ve been recognizing a few warning signs that I’ve been neglecting making that quiet time in my day.  When my mind gets too full or feels too busy, it’s like I subconsciously do things to create some space that aren’t effective or helpful.  Things like sometimes looking through my kids when they talk to me, giving instructions that aren’t clear because I’m too busy thinking about the next thing to be precise in what I’m saying that moment (pick ‘that’ up, put ‘this’ somewhere) or starting a thought and then not finishing it, and spending too much time on the computer (which can have a zoning out effect).

    But the clearest warning was that a few days ago I told my husband I wanted to go away by myself for a day or two.  Not that I’m going to do it, since I have a nursing baby and taking him would defeat the purpose, but I was really feeling like I needed to be left alone for at least a day.  No noise, no people – just a hotel room where everything stays where I put it, no one needs me for anything, and I can rest and read as much as I want!  Sounds good, doesn’t it? 🙂

    I find that feeling overextended or run down usually develops gradually, until you get to the point that it’s so obvious it kind of smacks you in the face.   Particularly since I’m going into the busiest season of the year with Pesach (Passover) less than a month away, it’s important to reevaluate how I’m spending my time and why.  That helps me to realign what I do with what I really believe is the best thing to do – which I haven’t been doing.  I’ve been doing everything I think is important and lots of other stuff, too!  The important stuff isn’t the problem – it’s the not so important stuff that I let myself get busy with.

    And physically I know there’s an effect – the baby is 9 months old but the extra weight hasn’t come off as I expected it to (and no dietary improvements have shifted this).   I’m pretty sure my metabolism isn’t functioning well due to my adrenals being exhausted and my cortisol level being out of whack (which changes the insulin response of the body), both directly related to  sleeping too little.  And I haven’t wanted to look at this because it means making changes in my schedule that are hard for me to make (like going to sleep really early) and doing less than I want to do.  But you know that little voice of intuition inside?  That’s what it’s telling me.

    I have plenty of things I need to do every day, but I’m going to be cutting down or cutting out some things entirely.  And because I know I can psych myself out by feeling like all my little improvements aren’t going to make enough of a difference to be worthwhile, I’m consciously crediting myself for small changes – like going to sleep earlier and taking a walk around the block once a day to get some fresh air.  I’m also being careful to be aware of and limit my time online.   So though I don’t plan to significantly cut down on blogging, if you see I’m not posting my usual 5 – 6 posts a week, you’ll know why!

    Avivah

  • Purim preps and the drinking issue

    Purim is around the corner and we’re in the full swing of preparations here!  A couple of days ago the kids baked 150 hamantaschen (with homemade chocolate filling), and cut out thirty sets of sugar cookies that spell out Purim in Hebrew (five letters in each word, so 150 letter cookies); each of the thirty sets will be part of mishloach manos that the family sends out.

    We have several container options for mishloach manos that they’ve made.  One is something that looks kind of like a small basket, made from card stock we were given over a year ago.  They taped them into box-like shapes and attached a handle; that was dd13’s idea.  Dd15 helped ds3 and ds7 make containers by stapling two paper plates together, folding down the tops of each, and attaching a pipe cleaner for a handle.  A number of them are wrapping theirs in cellophane, and it looks like I won’t be using any of the (heavily discounted sale priced :)) containers that I bought.  Dd15 printed out a bunch of colorful personalized labels, and everything is looking really nice.  Everything was packaged and finished last night, so no rush for Sunday.

    They also have been preparing their costumes.  This year I really wasn’t involved much at all.  They have the many costumes I’ve made to use if they want, and the older kids are all able to figure out something on their own.  When we placed our order for grass fed beef a few weeks ago, it came in a large box with thick layers of styrofoam on all sides.  We saved this and it’s become the basis for a costume for dd9, a traffic light.  That was finished yesterday.

    Now on to another kind of preparation.  I have a strong distaste for this topic but I feel it’s important not to stay silent on something I find of such great concern.    Purim is a beautiful holiday with so many special mitzvos.   However, one of those mitzvos is so easily abused that I think we have to be very, very careful about how it’s performed and what messages we give the impressionable children around us.  My concern is that too many people are using Purim as an excuse to drink and kids are picking up on this not so subtly expressed behavior.

    I watched this presentation with my four older kids (ages 11, 13, 15, 16) two or three weeks ago, and I think it’s worth watching with your kids who are preteens or teens, too.  It’s done by a frum organization who is trying to get the message out to Orthodox families that this is something our communities need to address.  My kids already know my very strong feelings on this topic, since I’ve discussed the concerns brought up in this presentation with my kids on several occasions, but alcohol abuse is an important topic and isn’t the kind of thing that one speaks about just once.  I also watched with them a couple of the videos on this site (for some reason only two of the four were loading for us or I would have watched them all).

    It’s good that all of our Purim specific preparations are done (except for cooking for the seuda) since I now have to get back to my kitchen to deal with 2 cases of napa that were on sale.  When I opened them up this morning and realized how many heads of napa were in each box (11 huge heads, at least five pounds each), I wasn’t congratulating myself on my bargain (7.99 case).  Rather I was mentally wondering why I did this to myself!   🙄   The only thing on my side is the cold weather, which will hopefully help keep them fresh for a while longer.

    Avivah

  • Getting toddler to try new foods

    >> My toddler is adamant about not eating certain things. We’ve dealt with a lot of food sensitivity issues with all 4 children, so it has been commonplace for different people to be eating different things at the same meal over the last few years. Gluten free foods were very expensive so we couldn’t all eat the same things. Different children have avoided different foods along the way. Now the new baby is super corn sensitive (as in I can’t even use sodium ascorbate that is guaranteed corn residue free because, even after I metabolize it and turn it into milk, he reacts to it). Again, I am trying new recipes, introducing new foods, etc. The two older girls are doing fairly well, but do complain a bit. My husband is finally on board with eating everything. The 2 (nearly 3) year old is the biggest holdout. She often refuses to eat anything when there is one thing on her plate she doesn’t like. She has figured out that she can avoid a fight if she is pleasant about refusing to eat at one meal and then eats more than usual at the next meal. I can force her to sit at the table, but I can’t force her to eat, and I’m not sure I should be anyhow. Any ideas? Thanks!<<

    There are plenty of parenting issues that require taking a strong stance, but hunger forces kids to eat so I never saw the point in insisting my kids eat anything.  When I put out food at dinner, I put it our family style and everyone helps themselves to as much as they want.  (The littles are very generous with their helpings,  lol!)  I wrote about dealing with picky eaters here.  As I said there, I figure that if a child is hungry, then he’ll eat.  I’d say that if your daughter is sitting at the table for the meal and is meeting her nutritional needs appropriately, don’t worry about it.

    However, I’m going to suggest that you make one meal that everyone can eat.  I know that can be hard when dealing with multiple allergies/sensitivities since it probably feels like it leaves you with about three foods to choose from! 😆  But you’re only one person with four little kids, and it seems like making multiple foods for each meal is going to become draining pretty quickly.

    And it’s not only a question of your time and energy.  It’s normal and reasonable for kids to pick up an idea that they can have custom made food and turn down what’s served if they don’t like it when there are so many options available to them.  Also, as they see everyone eating the same foods, there’s a kind of nonverbal encouragement at work that helps give over a message that everyone else likes this, so it must be okay!

    We don’t have serious allergies to deal with here, but for health reasons I tend to naturally avoid foods that are the most common allergens (very little gluten, corn, no soy), and I’m pretty comfortable cooking for just about any kind of dietary restrictions.   There are recipe alternatives for just about everything!  For example, coconut milk is a good replacement for dairy, nut flours are good for baking (if you can have nuts – otherwise there are gluten free grains and coconut flour), arrowroot powder or potato starch are good substitutes for corn starch, et.

    Also, the more simply you cook, using just basic ingredients and not fancying them up too much, the easier it is.  For example, some quinoa cooked in a bone broth with some protein on the side along with roasted or sauteed vegetables is a nice dinner that would work for most allergy considerations. Trying to make quinoa flour muffins that appeal to everyone would be more challenging.  I’m not saying not to experiment – I enjoy trying new things myself!  Just don’t tie yourself into knots trying to make happy.

    I’ve just started reading Gut and Psychology Syndrome, by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.  In it, she gives suggestions for encouraging young children to eat new foods.  She basically suggests starting with just one bite of the new food at a meal, and reinforcing that bite with something very positive (stickers, praise, excitement, a treat).  Though this isn’t the approach I would take, I can see how this could work, so I’m sharing it here in case it will be of help.

    Good luck!

    Avivah

  • More sleep for your baby (and you!)

    When I wrote about sleep issues for young children several months, a number of you requested that I write more specifics about the topic of sleep and infants.  It’s taken me a while to get around to this; as I mentioned then, this is a topic that I tend to avoid because I don’t like to be taken out of context.  In this post I’ll try to give a basic explanation of how I approach this with my young infants, and then respond to several specific questions that were asked.

    Firstly I have to explain that I never set out to develop an approach to get my babies to sleep through the night.   There are things that I’m structured about but this wasn’t one of them!  I don’t mind if babies wake up once or even twice a night; my concern was more about helping my infants get the amount of sleep they needed. And it works out quite nicely that in doing the best thing for them, it makes for better rested parents, too!

    The easiest thing to do is to establish healthy sleep habits from the beginning.  In order to do this, you need to learn to read your baby’s cues and respond to them in a timely manner.  The problem is that most of us recognize only the most obvious signs of exhaustion, way after the signs of being tired first appear!  Learn to recognize the signs that your baby is winding down; they start to look droopy and less alert.  If you’re holding him, he’ll often put his head on your shoulder and rest it there.  This is the time to put them to sleep – not when they are rubbing their eyes and starting to cry from tiredness.  There’s a window of opportunity when putting your child to sleep is very easy – he is generally relaxed and mellow, ready to sleep and not yet at the point of being overwrought from crying.  Whatever stage you’re at with your baby, start paying attention to these cues and responding – don’t think it’s too late if you haven’t done this since birth!

    How does a baby learn to fall asleep?  I like to put a baby down when he is in the tired and in the ready state that I described above, very relaxed but still awake.  (Remember that you’re putting him to sleep when he needs it, not when it’s convenient for you!)  I think a big part of the problem most parents have is that they get their baby to sleep (nursing, rocking, holding) and then he pops right up when he gets put down.  It’s like those few minutes of sleep refreshed him enough to keep him awake for a while longer!  And he suddenly finds himself in bed, very alert and totally not ready for sleep.  It’s much easier on him if he has the chance to gently drift to sleep on his own.

    There seems to be the view that either you let your baby ‘cry it out’ and neglect him emotionally, leaving him with psychic scars that will last forever, or you’re a nurturing parent and you hold twenty five hours a day so that he never whimpers.  :) Just exaggerating a little to make a point.  :lol: There’s actually a possibility between those two extremes that is nurturing and loving towards both the baby and parent that many mothers are unaware of.

    By putting my babies down when they’re ready to sleep, I’ve found that they don’t cry a lot. They’re not being left in a crib to scream for long periods of time until they fall asleep exhausted.  Occasionally my baby will cry for a few minutes after he’s put in (about 2- 4 minutes), but usually he snuggles right down and falls asleep within a few minutes with no crying at all.  If he cries more than a few minutes, I know that I misread his sleep cues and he’s not really ready to go to sleep and I take him out.

    Not only does he not cry a lot when he’s put down for a nap or for the night, but he doesn’t cry a lot when he’s awake.  Part of that is certainly temperament, but a very, very large part of it is that a well rested infant is a happy infant!

    What about nursing a baby to sleep?  Remember, every time a baby cries, he isn’t asking to be nursed!  Sometimes he’s crying from exhaustion, and learning to read his cues will help you to respond appropriately to what he’s telling you.  That being said, I think nursing babies to sleep is fine.  My only caution is that when a mother does this all the time, the baby becomes dependent on her to fall asleep instead of developing his ability to fall asleep. I usually nurse my baby until he was almost asleep, and put him in his crib when he was still awake but on the verge of sleep.  At this point I can nurse him to sleep fully and put him to bed afterwards and he hardly stirs.

    If you’re past the stage of being able to do this from the beginning, don’t worry, you can fairly quickly get your child used to a new routine.  A friend told me several months ago about this book and was happy to find it was something I’d recommend.  It’s similar in many ways to what we do.  He has a moderate approach and is able to give more specific and structured suggestions than I am, since I’m just not structured in that way regarding bedtimes.  For me, our babies sleeping schedules have naturally evolved from being in tune to them and respecting their needs.

    Something I found interesting was the author’s explanation that infants reach the ability to sleep through the night at about age six weeks from the original due date.  This was especially interesting to me since my current baby slept through the night way earlier than any of his siblings.  Many of you may remember way back eight months ago to when he was born, that he was three weeks overdue; all the rest of my kids were born on the earlier side of the due date.  He slept for seven hours at night at the age of three weeks, something the others didn’t do until 7 or 8 weeks. All of them lined up with the six weeks from the due date guideline, though I didn’t learn of it until he was two or three months old.  Interesting, isn’t it?

    In case you’re wondering more about my baby’s current sleep schedule, at about age 5 – 6 months he began waking up once or twice a night.  That was when he was teething, and then he went back to sleeping through the night.  He generally goes to sleep around 9 – 10pm and sleeps until about 7 am.  He takes a long nap in the mid morning, and another long nap in the afternoon.  This is his general routine, but it’s not something I schedule and I can’t give you a specific time this happens every day because it goes according to him, not the clock.

    As far as bedtimes for both my other littles, ds2 (29 months) and ds3.5 (46 months) go to sleep around 8 pm and wake up around 7 – 7:30am.  They both take a nap mid day, around 1 pm.  Ds2 goes in a little earlier and sleeps longer than ds3.5.   Ds2 sleeps around 2 – 3 hours, and ds3 sleeps around 1 – 1.5 hours.

    Now for a few questions:

    >> How do you put them down into a pack and play without them waking? I can barely reach down into one, let alone gently deposit a sleeping baby (I’m very short).<<

    Since they’re usually not sleeping when I put them down, this isn’t generally a problem!  Sometimes my baby does fall asleep when nursing, and I don’t worry about if he wakes up when I put him in bed since he’s learned how to fall back asleep on his own.  I actually assume they will often wake up somewhat.  But if they are basically ready for sleep, they will settle back down to sleep within a couple of minutes.  If you make it a point to handle your babies very gingerly when you put them down, they become overly sensitized to movement and it gets to be almost impossible not to do something to disturb them.  I don’t take any special pains to keep from making noise or moving and very often transfer my almost asleep baby from me to an older child to take upstairs to bed.

    As far as height, I’m guessing my dd9 is probably shorter than anyone reading here!  She routinely puts the baby down (and was eight when she started doing it several months ago), and now ds7 is also starting to put the baby in for the night.  They’re tall for their ages but not that tall!

    >>Oh, and I’m curious how you arrange naps around your other kids outings? You have older kids, so maybe they stay home and babysit, or take the younger kids to their activities… <<

    When my babies are little up through the age of about 2 or 2.5, I don’t mess around with their napping schedule.  I think it’s very important that they get to sleep when they are tired, just like I think they need to be fed when they’re hungry.  That means that activities are scheduled around their nap times.  Everyone is much happier when the baby and young children in the home are well rested so this isn’t much of a sacrifice!

    >>With nightmares, teething, taking to bathroom in the middle of the night, illnesses, etc., with so many kids,  Avivah, I cannot imagine how you get any sleep, since with two I barely seem to.<<

    I should get to sleep earlier than I do, but my sleep limitations are because I choose to spend too long online (like writing posts for my blog ;) ) than because of my kids.  As you see from above, the baby/young child part of the equation is fine!  My husband and I unofficially split the nighttime responsibilities years ago; I take care of the nursing baby, he takes care of anyone else that needs it.  He doesn’t have to get up very often, though!  They don’t usually need much once they’re in bed for the night – sometimes someone isn’t feeling well or wakes up suddenly crying, but that’s not common.  And now that they have older siblings they share rooms with, usually a sibling will hear them and help them before we get to them.  He also helps out with the baby in the night if there’s a need, like changing the baby if it’s necessary.

    I hope this was helpful!  If I didn’t address a concern that you have or something was unclear, please feel free to share questions in the comments sections below.

    (This post is part of Works for Me Wednesdays.)

    Avivah

  • Couldn’t breakfast be cheaper?

    >>Maybe it’s because by 7 -7:30 every one but me has to be out of the house, but our breakfast is always fresh bread and spreads, and you have what I’d call “fancy” and varied breakfast every day. Why? Wouldn’t you save time (and maybe expenses) by having only bread and bits for this meal?<<

    I responded to this question in brief in the comments section, but wanted to bring it back up here since there are a couple of other issues that I didn’t respond to there.

    It’s true that if saving time and money was my highest priority for breakfast, I could  cook differently.  For example, I can buy 50 lb of oats for under $25, and at that price I could easily serve oatmeal every day and spend less than $1 total for the entire family for breakfast!   It doesn’t get much cheaper than that!  And as I’ve written in the past, oatmeal can be a fast meal to prepare.

    However, I see mealtimes in a slightly different way than just a time to fuel everyone as fast and cheaply as I can.  Food has emotional power in addition to providing physical nourishment.  When you eat foods that taste good, you tend to have positive associations surrounding the food.  Making different foods that our children enjoy is an easy way to use the emotions associated with food to connect our children with us and one another when we sit down to eat.

    Also, I’m sure everyone has noticed that there’s a widespread belief that healthy food isn’t appealing and the ‘good stuff’ is the typical fare that most Americans are eating.  Along with that belief is the idea that having less to spend on food means being deprived.  My kids don’t see other people eating or shopping like us.  We rarely buy processed foods, and when we do, it’s the kind of processed food that most people consider wildly healthy, we integrate traditional principles of food preparation into all of our meals as a matter of course, and our food budget of $600 monthly (family of 11) is less than anyone I know.

    Every time I serve a meal I have the opportunity to show my kids that healthy foods are delicious and not a reason to feel deprived; that’s daily mental programming towards their attitudes and outlook on food!   And it’s working!  Despite the fact that when kids feel different there’s a tendency to feel like the mainstream view is better and resent being put in the position of not being like everyone else, my kids feel happy to eat the way we do.  They’ve told me (kids ages 10 and up) that when they were younger they thought their friends who could have frozen pizza three times a day were lucky, but now they see it differently.

    Lastly, though I’ve often thought how much simpler my weekly menu planning would be if I just made the same things week in and week out, I enjoy the variety!

    Avivah

  • Responding to questions about family size

    Many people are bothered when others comment on their family size, but it really doesn’t bother me. I often get comments, probably more than most people, since we homeschool and often kids are out with me when I go out.  But I can’t remember any negative comments.  I think most people are just genuinely curious since large families in the secular world are uncommon.   Just questions like, are they all yours?  Usually everyone isn’t with me and I honestly say, “no, there are one/two/three more at home”.  Some more of the questions I often get, and my responses, all said with a smile:

    “How do you manage?”  With a lot of help from G-d!

    “Your hands must be full! Better full than empty.

    “You sure are busy!” Isn’t everyone?

    “Are you planning to have more?”  I’m not making any plans but it would be wonderful!

    I really think a big part of the reason that the feedback that I get is almost uniformly positive (or at the very least neutral) is that I’m not apologetic or embarrassed at all – I love having a big family and people are very influenced by your attitude.  Also, my kids are well behaved and we get a lot of compliments about them and their behavior; I think this also influences the response people have.  I’ve had people tell us we should keep having more (“people like you should be having more kids”), that raising good children is the most valuable contribution that a person can make, etc.

    I almost always hear: “You don’t look like you have nine kids!”  That used to always leave me wondering what they would expect a mother of a big family to look like, so often I now ask them to explain themselves. The answer always is: “You look so young/happy/calm!”

    Avivah

  • When to push child

    >>And another big topic that comes to mind is — when do we push children to take on something that is hard for them, and when do we let them make their own decision on whether or not they want to pursue a certain area? Examples in my family: one daughter decided to drop out of a class she was taking. Another daughter would rather not study a certain subject that I feel is important. Etc.<<

    I’ve had this dilemma a number of times over the years in our homeschooling.  The choice I’ve come to is that I’ll insist on something if a) I know it’s something they need and they’ll later be disadvantaged; b) it’s something that they won’t need but will regret not having the skills for later on.

    The first tends to affect academic type issues – I want my kids to have the skills to navigate life successfully.  There are things that I think are important to that goal – for example, because I feel that strong reading, writing, and math skills are an asset and a person is disadvantaged without it, I’ll insist on this regardless of whether a child wants to do it or not.  However, I’m very flexible about at what age I expect a child to do certain level work.  I also try to help the kids find ways to impart the information in as enjoyable way as possible.  So insisting doesn’t mean making a child miserable and being rigid.  There’s a lot of flexibility and personalizing that goes along with this.

    So let’s say a young child hates writing.  I’ll back off this and let it be for a while – this means knowing your child and paying attention to their cues.  I did this with ds7 and he’s just now finishing the lettering for the ABC.    I know the readiness wasn’t there before this and pushing wasn’t going to help and probably would be damaging.  But with some time, the resistance generally fades and the readiness builds.  At that point I’ll start them off slow and pay attention to how it’s going for the child in question.

    To do this, you have to be confident that 1) your child wants to learn and 2) will learn when given the chance, or you’ll get hung up on what kids in school are up to and put yourself and your child under lots of unnecessary pressure.  This gets easier to do with time, but is sometimes agonizing the in the beginning, as you’re going out on faith that the principles of true education and relationship building will work before the results are there.  At this point it’s much easier for me since I’ve gone through this so many times, and seen that in the end they get where you want them to be- happily.

    The second area to think about pushing is regarding things that they don’t need to do, like lessons you sign them up for in the spirit of fun.  Years ago my ds16 had an unpleasant experience at swim lessons (at age eight) and refused to go back.  I didn’t see the point of pushing it, and since he continued to be resistant to the idea over the years, he didn’t go back for lessons.  It would have been a mistake to make him go back right away, because it really was a frightening and unnerving situation he was put in.  But looking back I think there was a point where I could have encouraged – pushed – him to try lessons again, maybe two years after the initial trauma.  I didn’t, though, because I was unsure about how much to push, and now despite the fact that he’s an extremely athletic young man, his swimming skills remain weak.

    Several months ago ds10 told me he wanted to quit piano lessons.  I grappled with this, since this isn’t something he needs to be able to do long term.  After asking him why he wanted to stop (answer: he wasn’t progressing at the rate he wanted because he wasn’t putting in enough practice time), I told him that he needed to continue and to find time to practice more frequently so he’d see progress.  How did I decide on this?

    Aquiring competence is a discipline – it’s wonderful to play music well, but it doesn’t happen by itself.  I know that, but he doesn’t.  I didn’t want him to give up and years later, instead of a skill he would have taken pleasure from would be the memory of giving up.  I told him that he didn’t have to stay with it if he didn’t like it, but that I didn’t want him to quit without really making a fair effort.   He’s now really enjoying piano and is very glad he didn’t quit.  He had a recital last week and is at the beginning intermediate level, now able to play simple classical compositions and performed duets with each of his sisters in addition to his own two pieces, and gets so much satisfaction from it.

    Again, it’s critical to know your child.  A general tip I would say is, if you’re feeling the desire to push because you feel fearful, then wait.

    Avivah

  • Messages we tell ourselves

    >>Can you share what you tell yourself that differentiates between you being tense or calm?<<

    This is a great question! What I’ve learned is that the situation that you’re faced with really isn’t what makes the difference.  It’s the messages we tell ourselves that make the difference.

    Here are things that will make me tense:

    • “I can’t take it.”
    • “It’s too much for me.”
    • “No one is listening to me.”
    • “No one appreciates me/no one cares.”
    • “It’s not fair.”
    • I do all this work and no one says ‘thank you’.

    You get the idea, right?  Lots of negativity and globalizing.  Thinking how awful and unbearable something is, is a guarantee to get upset, resentful, and hostile. Poor, poor me.  There are ways to see the negative and to either reframe it entirely or to put into a more helpful perspective.   I like reframing but when there’s a big change from one thought to another, often there’s resistance to accepting the new positive thought, and it evokes another more hostile thought.

    I find it helpful to mentally work things down.  It’s very hard to go from feeling very reactive and angry/hurt to feeling filled with love and joy – there are steps you need to take in the middle to get from the first floor to the ninetieth – you can’t just make a huge leap! That means reaching from a negative thought for one that feels a little less negative, and then another that is less negative, and so on – this takes just a minute or two, once you’re used to it.

    Here’s a theoretical example of what I mean:

    1. ‘My husband sees all the work I’m doing and never helps; he’s selfish and doesn’t care about me.’  (very reactive and hostile, judgmental)
    2. He does occasionally take out the garbage if I ask him. (begrudging but recognizing that global statement that he ‘never’ helps is inaccurate)
    3. Actually, he does other things, too. (feeling a little more positive)
    4. He works hard all day to provide for our family, so I can be home with our kids/so we have what we need.  (see how husband is helping with his efforts out of the house)
    5. He loves me but doesn’t offer to help since isn’t sure what will be most helpful. (feeling understanding)
    6. He’s helped out plenty of times without me asking. (feeling more loved)
    7. He does that because he loves me.
    8. He’s a great guy and I’m lucky to have such a terrific husband.

    And then it’s not hard to say to yourself, ‘ I can show my appreciation and ask for what I need directly without making him feel attacked and unappreciated. ‘

    So when faced with things I don’t like, I try to get perspective and that always means looking for the positive and the good, and making the effort to feel more joyful even when it’s not my initial response.

    Avivah