Avivah Werner

Category: Parenting

  • Handling conflict between older siblings

    >>that’s lots of good advice, but it seems to work best when started at birth. any suggestions for starting it “later in life” or would you just do the same? also, how do you deal with conflicts so that they build relationships between siblings instead of breaking them down? i know people say they make the kids ’sort it out’ or ‘fix it’- but i am wondering what those terms actually mean in a real context. i have tried putting certain children in a room together, but the fix they come up with is a temporary band-aid and it doesn’t seem to have any real consequences… thanks to you and possibly other readers for advice on this!!<<

    Yes, everything works better started at birth but most of us don’t have that advantage!  I think you’ll begin to see improvements in sibling closeness as you homeschool for longer periods of time, but at the same time, the increased time together also gives siblings more opportunities to annoy one another and have conflicts. 

    I actively facilitate interactions between the kids a good part of the time because I don’t believe kids can sort things out between one another appropriately if they don’t have the skills.  I absolutely don’t believe in letting kids sort it out on their own, unless they’ve demonstrated the necessary interpersonal skills to handle the situation.  For a young child, this obviously means being involved in their interactions with one another much more than the older kids!

    When the kids are young, I literally give them the script to use when a challenging situation comes up.  When they’re older, I explain the concept and then give suggestions for how to improve the communication. “You just spoke in a disrespectful voice to your sister.  If you feel your point is worth saying, then repeat it in a way that it doesn’t sound like you’re making fun of her.”  I don’t disappear after my  little speech – I stand right there and listen to the response.  My kids know that I’ll have them repeat it again and again until they get the tone right (doesn’t have to be perfect, but has to be decent).  So it’s not worth messing around because they’re only going to waste their own time. 🙂

    One time a couple of years ago both of my older girls were both extremely upset with one another and were emotionally escalating.  I finally told them I was going to be the moderator of their conversation since I saw they had very strong feelings about the situation, and they both deserved to be heard and understood by the other but their emotions were getting in the way.  Each would be given a chance to speak and say her point, but one person had to feel understood before the other person would get to have her say.  They hated this.  They tried to do a quick, “Okay, I’m sorry, can we eat now?”  They didn’t want to communicate, they just wanted to tell me and each other why she was right and the other was wrong.  But I insisted – and the entire family waited 45 minutes (this was on a Friday night right after kiddush and before washing – fortunately dh was there to occupy the other kids while they waited!) for them to calm down and appropriately speak with one another.  I jumped in every single time either of them used a manner of speaking that was accusatory or negative and helped them rephrase it.  Don’t think this was fun for them (or me).  It wasn’t, and they really didn’t enjoy it.  But so what?  Parenting can’t always be about doing what’s fun, but what’s necessary.  If I’m not going to teach them these skills, when and where are they going to learn them? 

    I felt this was crucial to do even though it was very inconvenient.  It seems that the worst situations occur when you don’t have the time or energy to deal effectively with them, doesn’t it? And precisely for that reason I felt it was important that they see that inconvenience wasn’t going to change our expectations of appropriate communication in our home, that respect was a higher value than anything else at that minute.   When you make your stand at times like these, I think it gives a very strong message, much stronger than anything you can say.  They see that you mean what you say.  And it stands out in the mind of all the older kids because this has never been necessary to do to this degree since then.

    But just doing something like this without putting it in a larger picture makes it into a technique, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m very anti parenting with ‘techniques’.  So the bigger picture is, what kind of home environment does everyone want to have?  Why?  When the kids are small, you can tell them what your vision is and get them to go along with you (if for no reason other than being bigger and stronger than them), but as they get older, they’ll need to have an active part in creating that vision or there’s no buy-in.  Like if you tell them you want a home of respect, and one child says, ‘I don’t care if people speak to me respectfully or not, and I think everyone is too oversensitive about their feelings.”  What are you going to do then?  I can tell you lots of ways to get your kids to do what you want, but if the desire isn’t there, then how much is their compliance really worth?  So the vision has to be a family creation, and the desire comes because they aren’t doing it because you tell them – you’re just reminding them of the kind of home/family/life they want t have.

    Now this is something that can be formalized with a family mission statement, but I’ve never done that.  I regularly articulate the kind of home we want to have and my kids know what our expectations are, we talk alot together about how things are going and where they can improve, and they generally feel good about the standards we have (though dd13 and 14 were complaining to me that I dropped my standards in the last year for the littles and want me to up them again; they also complained that no matter how often the house is cleaned, the littles mess it up within five minutes – but that’s another topic!).  dh and I discussed this in the past couple of months, and decided that having an official mission statement that we all create together will be valuable.  We’ve told the kids we’re going to actively work on a family mission statement together (we haven’t yet had the official conversation since for the last two months up until tomorrow, everyone hasn’t been home at the same time).  That means we’re going to sit down as a family and agree upon what the rules, expectations, and values of our family will be.  It’s not a one time conversation, but a topic that regularly is revisited.  We’ve already explained the concept to the kids and told them to start thinking about what they want so they can participate in the conversation intelligently.

    Once your kids are older, I think this is the only truly effective approach. You can mold behavior but I don’t want to have to work to control their behavior long term – I want them to want to do the right thing.  Otherwise at best they’d do what I said when I was there and do what they wanted when I wasn’t. 

    I’d love to tell you techniques, because it’s easier to tell someone the ‘recipe’ than teach them to cook independently.  I know people are usually looking for specific rules to follow – as if, “Follow these instructions and your family will be perfect.”  That makes this approach a more challenging one to understand and implement, and I also know that a lot of people will blow off what I’m saying because I’m not giving you the 1-2-3 steps.  But the only way you can change your family culture, is to change your family culture!  And that’s going to require the active participation of all the family members.

    Avivah

    PS- a book you may find helpful is The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Families, by Stephen Covey – it has a solid, principles based approach to building a family.

  • Family trip to amusement park

    On Tuesday, I took the kids to a private person’s home to go fig picking, only to discover the figs weren’t yet ripe.  When we got home, I took them as a replacement activity to a friend’s pool.  While the kids spent a few hours there, I went to Home Depot to buy more pavers and sand to finish off the patio, then spent a VERY long time toiveling about 22 dozen canning jars.  I’m almost up to date now – I only have about five dozen left to kasher and toivel, and then all my jars will be ready for use.  Now I just have to refrain from buying any more, which I think I can do, though if I have the chance to get some for free I don’t think I’ll be able to withstand the test! 

    I was so grateful as I was toiveling that a) almost no one else came during the entire time I was there – I would have hated to have had a line of people waiting; and b) the sky was overcast, and even though it was a hot and muggy day, it was comfortable.  I found it almost relaxing, and I was very glad to get it all done.  Then after coming home with everyone later in the day, I worked with the kids to finish laying the patio.  It’s not perfect, but I decided it was better to basically lay everything and level it more at a different time so we have a sense of closure for now.  We still have to cut bricks to fit into the edges, but I haven’t been successful yet in accurately cutting bricks with a chisel.  It’s on my list of things to work on. 🙂  But even though not totally finished and perfectly leveled, it still looks nice and it’s gratifying to be able to enjoy a lovely patio!

    After all of that work, I was ready for a break!  Fortunately, we had a full day family trip planned for the next day (yesterday) to an amusement park several hours away called Knoebels.  In general, I’m not a fan of amusement parks – they’re expensive, loud, and overstimulating. But this park is different than most.  1) There’s no entrance fee – you pay only for the rides.  That means that adults who aren’t planning to ride can enjoy being with the family without being forced to buy an expensive ticket just to get in.  I appreciated this when we went two years ago and I was seven months pregnant with a child too young for rides in a stroller.  Also, there are various discount packages – the best of these is the one we took advantage of – unlimited rides (doesn’t include 5 or 6 of the most expensive rides, though) for four hours on Wed or Friday evenings, for 8.50 for adults and 6.50 for kids.  This is a super price and means our entire family can enjoy an amusement park for what we’d have to pay for three tickets at a typical park. 

    It’s also not as commercial as most parks. It’s lower key and more homey, which I like, since I don’t like hyper energy or settings that are frenetic.  It’s still an amusement park – lots of flashing lights and noise, especially noticeable when watching the reactions of ds23 months and ds3- but it’s not overwhelming.  There aren’t long lines (at least not when we’ve been there), and it’s a family centered kind of park.  I think going at night also makes it feel more relaxed, not to mention cooler! 

    They have this interesting sign that dh and I were remarking on, the rules of their modesty dress code.  The sign shows a picture of: sleeveless tank top – with an ok sign; sleeveless tank top that goes half way down – ok; bikini top – not okay.  Dh was kind of rolling his eyes at this, and while it may not be near our personal ideas of what modesty entail, having rules like that means that people are walking around with some kind of clothing, however skimpy.  They have other rules, too, like men must wear shirts, and shoes must be worn.   That may not sound like a big deal, but it makes a big difference in the kind of things you see – I remember often seeing people walking around shirtless or with different minimal combinations of bathing suits and clothes at amusement parks in the summers. 

    However, we scheduled our trip at this time to coincide with two things: dd13’s birthday the day before, and ds16 being at camp.  As much as I think he’d enjoy it, and even though the lack of immodesty isn’t nearly as drastic as most parks, it’s not a place for a teen boy who tries to avoid these things.  When we were planning the trip he told us he wouldn’t come because of the immodesty factor, which we very much respected.  While there, I was also struck by the young teen couples walking with their arms around each other – all of a sudden I’m seeing these things through the eyes of a mother with a child that age, and it’s even more disturbing to me.  When I was a younger mother, teenagers seemed old enough to be distant to me.  But now I have children in those age ranges and it strikes me even more strongly how sad it is for kids to be so prematurely involved in boy/girl relationships.

    We were comfortable letting the oldest five kids go around on their own, and they decided to break up into two groups: dd14 with ds10, and dd13 with dd8 and ds7.   Being able to go around on their own added the extra dimension of fun and independence for them. We spent the first two hours taking the littles on the kiddie rides – there were plenty of them.   We made arrangements with the kids in advance so that dh and I would also have a chance to enjoy some rides together, and arranged to meet dd14 and ds10 at 8 pm, so they could take the littles on rides for an hour.  When they met us we all went on the ferris wheel together, and by the time we got off, it was already 8:30. 

    After making sure the baby was fed and diapered, dh and I dashed off to have a little fun alone.  I haven’t been on rides in an amusement park for 18 years!!  Before our trip I mentioned that I used to love amusement parks, particularly the very thrilling and scary roller coasters, and dh and the kids were all surprised – they had no idea!  As I mentioned, last time by default I ended up being the one to stay with the baby in the stroller and watched everyone else go on the rides, and this time dh insisted that I get to enjoy myself also.  We were supposed to meet the kids at 9 pm but were delayed by a roller coaster that didn’t look exciting but was remarkably unassuming (especially exciting for the first person in the train, who happened to be me – I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face)!  

    We met the kids again at 9:15, the same time as dd13 arrived with dd8 and ds7.  They were meeting us there to take their shift with the littles and it worked out perfectly that they got there late, since it meant that both groups of older kids only had 45 minutes shifts.  Dd14 and ds10 ran off for more fun together, and we left the littles at the kiddie bumper cars with the other dd13 and her entourage, which ds3 loved and ds23 months didn’t (they stopped the ride to let him off because he started screaming – the man who ran the ride was very nice and saw he didn’t know how to push on the pedal and go, so he sat on the end of his kiddie car to help him, which scared ds because he’s a stranger too close with all of us too far and that’s why he cried – he wouldn’t have minded sitting there and getting bumped by everyone else). 

    Then dh and I went on a couple more rides together – the Flume was our favorite.  That’s a water ride when you sit in a ‘log’ and go up and around and down with a huge splash soaking you at the end.  It was so relaxing (except for the final big splash, but that was refreshing!).  We love spending time with our children but there’s something so nice about being able to be alone and do something light purely for the sake of fun without them.  Every time dh and I get out of the house together, it recharges us in a way that spending time alone at home together doesn’t.

    We ate a picnic dinner before we went into the park, and then took some treats in with us – a bag of chips and a bar of chocolate for each child.  Because this isn’t something they have all the time, it added to their feeling of having a special trip.  I was concerned about how the littles would handle the very long day with no nap (aside from falling asleep for an hour on the way there) and being up late, but they did great. 

    We all had a really nice time.  We finished up by watching teens at the water park diving off the high board while dh davened mincha.  It was a good way to key down before getting into the van and starting the long drive home.  Last time we went we made it a two day trip and stayed in the campgrounds right there, but this time didn’t want to do that.  It was a very long day, since we had a three hour drive in each direction, and we got home at 2:15 am. 

    Now you know why I didn’t post yesterday! 

    Avivah

  • Fostering family connectedness

    >>i am curious how you foster such a feeling of family connectedness. how do you get your kids to feel like they are all on a team and they need to help each other? perhaps it is a corralary of them growing up all together instead of being farmed out to schools, but your family really seems to band together and i would love to have more of that here. any suggestions??<<

     I addressed this somewhat a year ago – http://vibrantmoms.com/parenting/kids-helping-each-other-and-being-responsive-to-moms-requests/.  But I was thinking more about this.  Sometimes we do things and we’re consciously trying to get certain results, and sometimes we do things and we don’t realize that we’re doing something that’s creating the results.  Was that sentence way too confusing?  🙂 

    Anyway, this question falls into the second category for me, so I needed to think about this.  We do have a strong sense of family connectedness, but I didn’t specifically try to create that.  I would tell you that we spend a lot of time together and that we have expectations of how family members treat one another, and my expectation rubs off on everyone.  But that’s not so helpful as a practical suggestion, and since there are families that spend a lot of time together but they don’t feel like a team, it’s not by itself enough.  I do think having a lot of time together is a key component, though – it establishes a framework for everything else to happen in. 

    I’ve been thinking about this since I got this question last week.  I asked my husband and he said he thinks we expect everyone to be a team and they are.  But I started listening to myself talk to the kids and realized that the way I talk builds this up.  For example, instead of putting the baby down in his bassinet, I put him on the couch and told my ds3, “Can you take care of your little brother and make sure he doesn’t fall off the couch while I get a drink of water?”  (Baby doesn’t roll and was tucked into the side of the couch away from the floor.)   Did I need him to watch the baby for thirty seconds?  No.  But I try to give them opportunities from the time they’re young to take care of each other. 

    When I have something to give to a child, I very often ask one of the kids to give it to the other.  This can be something as simple as giving a sibling a fork or a piece of fruit.  Sometimes this is a help for me and sometimes it would be easier for me to give it to them myself.  But I want them to have the feeling of giving and getting something nice from one another.  If someone gets himself a drink, I’ll suggest they give a sibling a drink, too.  Just now, my ds7 asked if he could peel a carrot for himself.  I told him if he peels one for ds3 also, then it’s fine with me.  I wouldn’t have been likely to have said yes close to dinner to his request for just himself.  So he gets the message that helping his brother helps him, too.  Even with my baby, who’s just 2 months old, when I pass him to his siblings to be held, I tell him how lucky he is to have big brothers and sisters who love him so much.  Little things like this, all day long, day after day really build up the message that we love each other and take care of one another. 

    Rav Dessler wrote that giving brings to love.  Culturally, we think of love in terms of what we get from someone, but it’s not true. Why do we love the tiny infant so much, so soon?  Because we’re immersed in giving to him all day long.  The more we give, the more we love, and when we encourage our kids to do things for one another, then that builds the love and connection they feel. 

    My part in building this dynamic is to support it from a very young age. I encourage my kids to play mostly with each other and to view friends as supplemental. In fact, if someone isn’t behaving kindly to his sibling, there is no way I will allow him to play with a friend until he has remedied that (and I don’t mean a quick ‘sorry’, either).  They all have friends outside of the home, but the quality of the relationships the kids build while living at home together is the foundation of their adult relationships that they’ll further develop when they get older.  I want my kids to have strong relationships with one another that will be a source of strength and support as they get older.  If it doesn’t begin now, when will it happen? 

    Avivah

  • Sending kids to camp

    Dd14 is home from four weeks at camp, ds16 is now at camp, and it’s finally time for me to post about camp.  I’ve been pushing this off since last summer because there’s so much to say and I don’t really feel like saying it all! 

    >>Can I ask one more thing? I have read in your previous posts that you do not care for some of the Jewish extra-curriculars (Pirchei, plays), but you send your children to sleep away camps. <<

    I’ve sometimes been asked about why I send my kids to camp – I’ve gotten the impression from a number of people who asked me this that it’s inconsistent of me to send them to camp if I’m not sending them to school.  Just because something is part of the mainstream doesn’t mean that I’ll have an automatic knee jerk reaction to opt out without considering if there’s any value in it for our family. Being a person of integrity means that we should think about things honestly, not just react.  Conforming to the expectations of the non-conformists is just as senseless as following whatever the majority is doing. 

    Now, it’s true that camp does have many of the negatives of school.  However, there are enough differences that are positive that we’ve felt it beneficial for our kids to go. While there may be a lot of similarities between camp and school, there are also a lot of differences. The biggest differences in favor of camp are: children are there by choice, the focus is on having a good time, and there are a number of ways to be successful in camp (vs. only the academic model).   There at means there are more opportunities for children to have a success experience. 

    Socially it can be positive, if you’re children are ready for it.  We don’t send our kids to sleep away camp until they are at least 12 – we sent our oldest when he was 11 for three weeks and that was a mistake; it took more time for him to readjust to being with our family and unlearn the attitudes he picked up than the actual time he spent in camp!  Last year I sent my dd who was a month away from her 12th birthday, knowing how mature she was, and feel that while she had a mostly positive experience, I should have waited until this year.  Tonight at dinner my dd12 commented that she can see that every year older my dd14 is, the better her camp experience becomes. 

    The reason I wait for kids to be 12 is that I want to know that I can trust my kids to act according to our standards even when we’re not there.  That’s a pretty big thing to expect, but I’ve seen that at 12 all of our older kids have been able to do that.  Four weeks away from the family is a long time, and there’s a lot of social pressure that kids face during that time. 

    I want them to have a well developed sense of self and identity that can withstand the peer pressure they encounter.  Especially as homeschoolers, they’re doing something very different from the crowd and the crowd doesn’t tend to look favorably on people they classify as ‘different’.  You might wonder how my kids deal with all the questions or reactions about homeschooling.  It’s really not a big deal to them.  They’re very comfortable with homeschooling and don’t have any sense of discomfort just because it’s a different educational choice than most people. Maybe because of their comfort with homeschooling, they rarely encounter negativity or anyone looking down on them or speaking badly of them.  Their peers end up finding it very fascinating.  My dd14 told me she got asked the same questions so many times that everyone in her bunk knew the answers, so it got to the point that when someone would ask, she would smilingly motion to her bunkmates and they’d answer for her.  She said that the only negative comment she got this summer was from one girl who blurted out, upon hearing dd is homeschooled, “But you look so smart!  Aren’t you supposed to be dumb if you homeschool?”    Dd straightened her out pretty fast.  🙂  You could say she’s doing her part to educate the next generation about alternative education!

    I have to be very clear, however, that I feel camp is a luxury.  It’s nice to be able to send kids to camp when the conditions are right, and I’m grateful we’ve been able to do it and that our kids have gained from it.  But it’s by no means necessary and it’s often not even beneficial.  I’m referring to both sleep away and day camps (I’m referring to the child’s developmental needs, not the parental babysitting needs).  I find it troubling that so many people regard this as an absolute necessity, to the point of endangering their financial well being by taking on long term debt to pay for one summer. 

    Part of why I think that many parents feel it’s necessary because they’re uncomfortable with a child having an unstructured summer and feel that it’s beyond their abilities to create the structure with their children. I’ve repeatedly heard the concern about kids lazing around and doing nothing, as if this was a crime.  When we do it, we call it down time or unwinding, but when our kids do it, it’s being lazy and unproductive?!   I really don’t agree with that, especially when they really need time to decompress and unwind from the intensity of the school year.  And ironically, the age group I most hear this concern expressed about is teen boys, who more than anyone need a chance to unwind due to the stifling school schedules they have. 

    I’ve sent some of my kids for part of the summers to day camps, though I haven’t sent anyone for the last couple of years.  I’m at the point that I just don’t feel that there’s much of a gain.  Sure, they do nice activities.  But for the money I would spend on day camp fees, I can buy a lot of craft materials for projects, take the kids on plenty of trips, and do lots of fun stuff.  (I don’t actually do it to that degree, but I’m making the point that your money would go a lot further at home.)   They can get together with friends any time of the day they want, and they can enjoy the relaxing tempo of the summer schedule. 

    Another concern is how the social dynamics play out.  There’s often pettiness, nastiness, competing and comparing, inappropriate language, and general disrespect of others.  Kids pick up behaviors and attitudes very quickly from their peers.  If the adults in charge are on top of the social dynamics of the kids and cut off bad attitudes and behaviors from the start, then day camps can be a very fun experience, and if a person can afford it, then I think it’s a nice opportunity.  But again, nice and necessary aren’t the same thing!

    Avivah

  • The importance of parents

    >>I am tired of hearing from every person that I meet that I am doing my children harm by keeping them home with me. I am tired of hearing that it is good for two and three year-olds to separate from their mommies, as if the crying will make them stronger and help them grow up. I find myself constantly telling people, often extended family, that a three year-old is not suppossed to be growing up, they should be a child and that childhood is the only time in their life in which it is ok to be a child, that for the majority of their life they will have to be an adult. i also remind people that my children will always be my children, but they will not always be actual children and I am already seeing just how fast the time is flying.<<

    I’m tired of hearing/seeing parents who stay home with their kids, homeschool their kids, or practice other kinds of attachment parenting (hate that phrase but can’t think of another right now) being on the defense, while parents who pay others to take care of their kids for most of the day every day get a free pass.

    The day after I posted about the necessity of kids having negative experiences to grow, someone called me to get information about homeschooling.  After talking for a while, she mentioned she had been working in a day care for the last two years and quit because she couldn’t take it anymore.  She is a very gentle and mild mannered person, and when I asked her why, she said almost apologetically that ‘I don’t want to judge’ but that she found it ‘almost abusive’.  Now, I deplore when people are close minded and judgemental of others, but also think that we’re all so afraid to hurt someone that we often don’t say things that need to be said.  I said to her, ‘maybe we have to stop worrying less about if we seem like we’re judging and be more concerned about advocating for the children and their needs.  Who’s looking out for them?’  In our desire to be kind and understanding to the parents, we’re harming the youngest, most vulnerable, helpless members of our society.

    I say this as a mother who was working until my third child was born – I understand the realities of being a working mother.  But let’s not make our non-ideal reality a reason to advocate and idealize practices that are harmful to kids.  We have to be honest and say it’s not the best thing for kids to be raised by babysitters/daycare/etc, but for whatever reason we need to do it.  I didn’t grow up with a value for staying home with my kids, and no one spoke to me about the importance of a child needing a mother in the early years.  I learned this on my own, but I so much wish someone had shared this perspective with me early on, instead of keeping quiet because maybe I would be hurt.  Not saying something to me didn’t change the reality that what I was or wasn’t able to do for my kids was affecting them.

    Back to my phone call- I asked the mother I was talking to what behaviors she was referring to as ‘almost abusive’.  She described examples of 2 year olds being left to cry for hours, children routinely being brought in sick instead of being taken care of at home, parents insisting that children not rest when they are tired so that they’ll nap later on at a convenient time for the parent – basically her point was that children have needs that are being ignored or denied by the staff as well as the parents for the sake of the adult wants.

    >>I have always had to work because we needed the extra money to put food on the table. At one point when some of my kids were small I worked in a daycare center because I was able to bring my kids with me. My kids were the only ones who didn’t need a security blanket why because I was there and I was their security blanket. Over the years I have really treasured the unbeleivable gift and privelage of raising Jewish Neshamas. Yes it is exhausting and trying at times but it is so unbeleivably worth it. The kids that I had to leave at a babysitter all day because my dh was learning in Kollel have issues that my other kids don’t have. When you give a child what they need when they are little the cost will be so much less later on.<<

    Just a couple of days ago I noticed a young child we know well clutching his security blanket after reading your comment – I didn’t pay attention to what it was until now.  Do you know that baby blankets are being sold now together with ‘lovies’ – little stuffed things to be purposefully given to the child to hold onto for security (we got a couple of these as baby gifts for the last two babies)?  That means that parents now think that a child needing a security blanket is normal and are being marketed to as such.  As in so many areas, we’re defining normal down to a new low.  None of my kids had a security blanket, and only my oldest child sucked his thumb at an older age (until he was 4 or 5), also a common security seeking behavior.  Do you think it’s a coincidence that he’s the one I left with a babysitter when 7 weeks old when I went back to work?  And sent to a school based playgroup of 30 children at the age of 2 (but at least he got lots of socialization Rolling Eyes)?  And in the three years before I quit my job to stay home with him, had a number of different caretakers?  Maybe his thumb was the one constant in his life, just like the security blanket for so many kids.

    Parenting is doing about what’s best for our kids, not ourselves.  In our rush to say that our kids don’t need us – because if loving parents objectively provide much more than a paid substitute can, then maybe we need to reassess how we make our choices – we’re devaluing ourselves as parents.  Don’t we want to matter to our children? Parents do matter.  Why wouldn’t any parent want to know that there’s no one who can replace them, that they can give their child more than the most educated and trained professional, just by being there? Sure it’s a responsibility.  Sure it’s hard work. Sure we get tired and want a break sometimes.  But as Debbie said above, it’s worth it.  You see the payoff in the short term and the long term – the time invested in your children is never wasted.

    Avivah

  • How do my kids stay busy?

    >>What do your kids do when school isn’t in session, in the afternoon? And what do your youngest ones do? Especially curious, since I have a 3 year old and an 8 month old.<<

    I’m assuming you’re asking what the kids do when not busy with academic work, right?  The truth is that this is the case most of the day, all year round, since academic work doesn’t take an especially long time!  (Except for the kids ages 10 and up – but they still all have the afternoon free.)  Because the kids have learned to entertain themselves, I don’t have to entertain them.  The two women at the camp where my dd12 was working last week told her her that Saturdays and Sundays were their worst days, because their kids were home and drove her crazy because they were so bored.  My dd told them, “It’s because they go to school that they’re bored – they’re used to being entertained all day.”  The mothers were both taken aback by her answer – “Really???” – they clearly had never thought about it.

    It’s true, though – my kids aren’t unusually self sufficient.  Kids learn to entertain themselves by being given the free time to structure on their own.  When kids are in school all day, they learn to wait for the cues of the adult in charge to tell them what to do.  This is something that can take a while for kids to learn, but they can learn it from a very young age. 

    Practically speaking, here’s what I notice them doing.  Those who are old enough read, play board games, play outside together (biking, playing ball, rollerblading), work on projects, and listen to audio books (this tends to be a winter activity), and go to the gym (swimming, game room, ball playing).  When dd14 goes to the pool, she often takes dd8 and ds3 – now that she’s at camp, they’re missing that!  They have independent projects that they take on – like ds10 with his cookie selling business, dd12 and dd14 are now planning a production as a community fundraiser, and ds16 (his birthday was yesterday :)) just got a job for Thursdays and Fridays.

    The little ones hang around their older siblings and watch them and interact with them.  They have books read to them and games played with them.  The two littles (ds3 and ds22 months) play with each other a lot – they seem to make anything they do a game!  When the baby is old enough, he’ll join them and then they will be a threesome.  Though we have a huge amount of books and games, we don’t have a very large collection of toys – I haven’t found most of them worth the space they take up and have given a lot away.  Or if they get left out long enough or often enough, my decluttering gene goes into overdrive and they’re swept into the garbage.

    When school friends or neighborhood kids are home, they play with them, but I limit that a lot since I don’t find so much peer to peer socialization positive in the younger years.  (I’m right now having an issue with my ds3 who wants to play with a 4 year old neighbor all the time – they would happily play together all day long, but I feel that peer play should be a side dish, not the main course.)

    With the summer here I’m planning to do more outings and trips with the kids, but this past ‘school’ year I haven’t done that much.  Some years I do a lot more than others – it depends on the ages of the kids and where I’m at.  This year because I was pregnant and tired, I didn’t feel it was the best use of my limited energy to orchestrate family trips on a regular basis, and during the winter everyone seems to enjoy cozying up at home, anyway.  Then it was Purim, Pesach, the baby was born – and now it’s already the summer and time for outings!

    Every day looks different, but here’s some of what they did today.  My ds7 discovered Monopoly a couple of weeks ago, and every day it seems like he’s getting someone to play with him.  After the morning with the dining room table covered with board games, they went out to play in the front yard.  Then the two littles took a nap while everyone else had a snack/lunch, and went back outside.  Dd8 and ds10 went bike riding together and picked wineberries growing wild (they learned last summer in their Junior Rangers program to identify them) and brought back a bunch.  Meanwhile ds16 played baseball with all the youngers – it’s so sweet to see him play with all of his siblings.  He’s teaching ds7 and ds3 to hit the ball.  After that ds16 played Monopoly in the back yard with ds7, while in the front yard ds10 played Candyland with ds3 and his four year old friend.  Dd8 was deeply engrossed with a book, while dd12 has been making plans on the phone all day, trying to figure out a way to get to upstate NY for camp visiting day to see dd14 this coming Sunday.  Then I took ds16, ds10, ds7, ds3, and dd12 with me to get some free gravel from someone who’s redoing their landscaping.  (I want to build a patio in the backyard with the kids to replace the platform deck we built when ds22 months was born, and am looking to do it on the cheap, like everything else! :))  They spent quite a while shovelling and hauling gravel to our van, and then they did the same thing in reverse when they unloaded it in our yard.  After that they had a late dinner in the back yard, and watched part of The Ten Commandments with dh. 

    None of this is going to be of much help to you right now, though, since you’re at the stage of life where you do need to actively keep your kids occupied and supervised most of the day.  When your baby is a little older and the two of them can play with each other more, you’ll start to find things get easier.  When I was at the stage you were at, I read to them a lot, baked with them, had them help me with my chores like laundry, and daily walks to the playground or to a friend helped keep us all busy. 

    Avivah

  • Do kids need to be in bad situations to be prepared for life?

    My dd12 is working this week as an assistant in a two year old camp run by an adult.  Her friend has the job for the summer but asked her if she could stand in for her when she’s away, so she agreed.  She likes working with kids – is great with her siblings and kids that she babysits for, and had a great time as an assistant at a camp for 6 year old girls a couple of years ago.  Dd told me yesterday she hopes the woman doesn’t want her to continue, because she’s not enjoying the job at all, but knowing my dd (who is not only really good with kids but conscientious and a hard worker), I told her that was unlikely to happen.  And anyways, I told her, it would be a terrible feeling to do a job so badly that someone felt the need to tell you that.  I was right, since today she came home and told me the woman offered her a regular job for every day next year, in addition to wanting her to continue for the rest of the summer.  Smart woman.  But dd has adamantly told me she’s not continuing.  And she already has another job offer (being a mother’s helper, basically) with someone else who will also teach her in shaitel construction/repair. 

    So what is it she doesn’t like about it, if she enjoys working with kids?  She finds it boring and feels unproductive.  She told me she thinks it’s very sad, to see two year olds crying for their parents and the parents pushing them to go in, instead of responding to them.  Every day this week she has spent hours holding a child (different each day) who doesn’t want to be there and is crying for their parent.  I don’t know what it is about her, but kids get attached to her very quickly and then refuse to go to anyone else.  The first day, she spent all of her time holding a crying toddler, and when the older sister came to pick her up, the little girl didn’t want to leave my dd!

    Some parents work and have no choice but to put their child in a camp or playgroup (this one is well run by a very responsible and caring woman).  But many mothers are at home and really believe that their child  needs to be in a group setting so that they can get that elusive ‘socialization’.  I don’t know why people believe that children magically learn good social skills from being around other same age children who have never learned the prerequisite skills, either.  We live in an age when children are seriously unparented and we keep justifying how wonderful that is by saying they’ll do better being around their peers all day.  Why don’t we just look at the evidence in front of us, and see what has happened to a generation with parents who have very much faded into the background of their lives, from the time they are infants and through adulthood?  Is our society a more loving and kind place?  Are people happier?  More emotionally stable? 

    I met someone in the store a couple of days ago who told me that an educator she very much respects told her that young children need to be in school to have negative experiences, since that is part of life.  According to this argument, if they spend more time with loving and caring adults who actually guide them in learning new skills, they’ll be unprepared to effectively live in the adult world.  I always find it ironic when people can’t defend sending children to school for positive reasons, all of a sudden the negative aspects turn into virtues.  Saying something like this is a defense for school more than an intelligently determined position, which becomes quickly evident in even a short conversation. 

    I have to seriously challenge the presumption that kids best learn how to deal with unpleasant situations by being left on their own to figure it out.  It’s like saying the best way to swim is by throwing a person into the deep end of the pool.  Most parents wouldn’t teach their child to swim like that but I find to be very common for parents to support their choice to send to school by making the above argument. 

    My first question to a person saying this would be to ask, how does being in a bad situation benefit a child?  To which they say that kids have to learn to deal with unpleasant situations to be prepared for life.  My next question is, what does a child learn from being in that situation?  (They unquestionably are learning something, but is that the positive lesson you want them to learn?)  And how is the child going to learn when they don’t have any experience to deal with what they’re encountering?  Yes, they can figure something out, but the likelihood that their response will consistenly be the healthy one is unlikely. 

    Wouldn’t children benefit from having a caring adult to help them navigate these challenging social situations?  Adults who have had life experience in dealing with lots of things, who can actively guide them and help them develop healthy responses to the challenges?  Remember, this argument about preparing kids for the harsh realities of life is made about very young kids through teenagers. 

    How much social maturity can you expect of a two year old, or five year old?  Or even a fifteen year old (assuming he’s been in a peer dominated environment all his life)?  In my experience, not much.  And I think it’s cruel to purposely put children in a situation that they don’t have the skills to cope with and expect them to figure it out on their own.

    Avivah

  • Is it easier to just do it yourself?

    Yesterday I took my dd14 shopping for last minute camp supplies.  Nothing too major since we got whatever clothes she needed before I gave birth- she needed toiletries mostly (and if I ever get around to writing about coupons and health and beauty aid alternatives, I’ll share with you the kind of things she took).  I really love spending time one on one with each of the kids; it makes doing any errand enjoyable.  This is something I’ve only been able to do for the last three years.  One really nice thing about having older kids is that your efforts in raising kids with good middos, thinking skills, and strong values are already paying off in a big way and spending time with them is like spending time with a good friend – they’re so enjoyable to talk and be with. 

    I was up late last night helping her with last minute camp preparations – even though we were both tired, it was so fun and at one point we both started laughing so much that we had to stop looking at each other – every time one of us glanced at the other, we started cracking up again!  But we finally got her packed up and ready, and were at the camp bus at 6:30 this morning.  

    Today’s home atmosphere was already really different – dd14 was gone, ds15 spends a few hours out in the morning at shul learning, dd12 is working at a camp for 2 year olds this week, and ds10 slept over at my in-laws.  That meant that there were only five kids at home and the oldest was 8.  Usually I do a lot of delegating and directing, which I don’t especially love but I think it’s important for children to learn how to run a house. And it’s also really important that kids learn that their homes aren’t hotels and their mothers aren’t slaves put on this earth to fulfill their every whim, so they need to participate and help out for no other reason except that they live here.

    Anyway, with all the older kids out, it means fewer hands to help out and more work for me to do in their absence. That might sound like a negative, but I actually enjoy it.  I like doing what needs to be done more than telling someone else to do it.  I do it, I know it’s done, and it’s easy to stay on top of things.  In many ways it’s more work to delegate everything – I have to remember who I told to do what (and some people require several requests/reminders), when, check that it was done, and in the end it still might not be done the way I’d ideally like it done.  The payoff is in the long term and I very much feel the time and energy invested in teaching them to help out is worth the effort, but sometimes I enjoy not having to put forth so much effort in that area. 

    Last year the oldest three all went away to camp for the same 4 weeks, and it was so nice.  They couldn’t believe I told them I enjoyed doing all the work all of them usually do and that I found it more relaxing than having them do it – it seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?  People think I’m so lucky to have kids who help out, and that having helpful older kids is a natural outcome with a large family, but it didn’t happen by itself and plenty of mothers of large families can tell you that they made the mistake of not getting their kids involved in helping out because it was too much work.  I’ve put a lot of time into teaching my kids how to be helpful, and even now, a lot of effort goes into staying on top of so many children and all the details of running a house. 

    It’s not that the kids don’t help at all during this time – they still help alot.  But I adapt my expectations of myself and of them.  For now, I’ll enjoy the satisfaction of accomplishing something, and when it’s time to kick back into gear, I’ll be ready to actively get them involved!

    Avivah

  • Are kids embarrassed by frugality?

    >>Also, something else I was wondering… My son right now is only 2 years old, but I know I grew up with a frugal family and I was embarassed of it.  Do your kids have a similar mindset to you in terms of natural stuff and frugality, or do they get embarrassed about it? How do you keep your kids proud of what you’re doing and not embarrassed that their mom is one of ‘those moms’ :roll:; like I felt when I was a kid?  Is living your kind of lifestyle a little more accepted (where you live) than it was (where I grew up), apparently?<<

    I grew up without much money and I always felt less than, so I know what you mean.  When I was younger I planned to make sure my kids had everything that everyone else (plus!) so that they wouldn’t feel bad to be different or have less.  I attributed my negative feelings as a kid to being poor.  But that’s not actually the root of the feeling – it’s an insecurity about who you are and what you do that you convey to your child that they pick up on, not if you are just like everyone else.  If you are confident about what you do and present your choices to your family (or anyone else) matter of factly, it makes a huge difference in how you and what you do are perceived.

    I’m sure you’ve noticed that even those who do things just like everyone else also have kids who are embarrassed by them.  So being ultra conservative and conformist isn’t the answer to having kids who are embarrassed by you.  Actually, I think it’s when parents put a high value on being like everyone else that it becomes a lot more important to the kids, and those kids are much more likely to be embarrassed by any perceived differences than kids raised with the idea that it’s a value to live with integrity.

    I don’t label myself as a ‘natural’ or ‘attachment parenting’ person.  The things I do are part of who I am, but they aren’t my identity.  I’m a middle of the road person, and if you were to look at me you wouldn’t see visible differences between me and anyone else.  (Anyone who knows me in person is welcome to disagree in the comments section :)).   Why would anyone look at me and know I spent 1/4 – 1/2 of what the same size family spends on food?  People don’t know by looking where you buy your clothes, if it’s at the super duper sales, at a thrift store, or at the beginning of the season in overpriced stores.  And if they learn that you have a great quality life for a lot less than what they think it’s necessary to spend, most people would be interested and positive about that, not hostile.

    I’ve said before that frugality isn’t about doing without, but about living within your means while making choices about how you spend your money that are valuable to you.  We make choices and that’s how I explain things to my kids.  I don’t feel apologetic that there are many people in the world that have a lot more money than we do.  We have a great quality life and I constantly communicate my feeling to my kids that we’re so blessed to have all that we have (not just material things, but quality of life things).

    Kids tend to have a lot of social insecurity since they are in the process of figuring out who they are and where they fit in. I think it helps a lot that I homeschool, so my kids aren’t constantly exposed to the judgments and assessments of immature peers – it’s that ongoing exposure that creates a lot of insecurity.  My kids haven’t internalized the belief that if you do anything different from everyone else, that something is wrong or shameful about you.

    My kids aren’t embarrassed by me, but not because I made it my goal to keep them from feeling that way.  We spend a lot of time together and they respect who I am and what I do; I think the feeling of respect is the core of why I don’t have this issue.  They like me (well, most of the time – less when I’m reminding them to wash the dishes!), and I like them.

    As far as if my lifestyle is perceived more positively here than somewhere else – I can’t say.  Maybe.  In my opinion, it’s not so much about how people view your lifestyle as how they view you.  As I said, I don’t wear the different choices I make on my sleeve, and I generally find people to be quite positive when I do discuss choices that I’ve made that are outside of the norm (eg homeschooling).   While I think it’s less about the choice and more about the individual, if I were in a community that was rigid and judgmental, I’d undoubtedly have a different experience.  So I’m grateful to live in the community I do, which is wonderful!

    Avivah

  • A successful end to baseball season

    Though both my ds15 and ds10 have been playing league baseball this season, I’ve hardly been to any games.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, but the season this year coincided with me having a baby and they play on days that I haven’t had a car; on the days I’ve been able to go, the games have been rained out!  Fortunately, my inlaws have been taking ds15 to his games, and my mother has been taking ds10 to his games, and usually different siblings go along with each of them so they still have their own cheering sections. 🙂

    On Friday I finally got my first opportunity.  Ds15 was voted one of the top 4 players of his team by his teammates, and as such, participated in the league All Star game (the best 4 players from each of the six teams played in the same game together).  It was scheduled for 5 pm which on a Friday isn’t ideal timing, to say the least, but I was so glad to finally be able to see him play!  I took along most of the other kids, too (dh took ds10 and 7 swimming).  As I watched him play, I thought about how important it is to actively support your child’s interests.  Sure, I asked him about his games when he got home and tried to listen to the details attentively, but there’s nothing like being there in person. 

    And it meant so much to him that I was there.  He knew why I hadn’t been able to be at the previous games and knows that taking all of the kids out late on a busy erev Shabbos isn’t what I would generally choose to do for fun, but he really, really appreciated me coming to his All Star game – he thanked me so sincerely afterwards for being there.  Kids don’t generally feel unusually loved and nurtured when you give them what they take as a matter of course, but when you do something that they feel is extra, it’s like a deposit in the relationship.  This was a big deposit for ds and I didn’t have to say a word – just being there spoke volumes. 

    It was a wonderful game to watch, and of course it was nice to see that even of all the top players in the league, he was one of the very best.  More than that, though, I was able to appreciate how well he handled himself under pressure, how he interacted with his teammates, and see how he genuinely enjoyed the game.  I had a lump in my throat watching him at certain points, a lump that comes from feeling grateful to H-shem, not from being sad. 

    Tonight was the last game in the season, the World Series, a game between the top two teams in the league.  The last two years he played, ds was put on weak teams because he was a strong player, presumably an effort by the administration to keep the teams balanced. But it was a lot of pressure for him to feel like he was carrying the team in every game, and frustrating for him because one person can’t win by himself.  And those two years his team rarely won a game, which was discouraging, too.  Then last year he didn’t play at all.  So he especially appreciated being on a good team this year, and his past experiences simultaneously helped him be sensitive to the losing team and not be arrogant about winning. 

    After a great season, tonight his team won their final game, and all came home with trophies (he also got a trophy for being in the All Star game – now we have to find a place where he can put them so they won’t be demolished by his younger brothers!).  I’m glad that he had the chance to play this year, and since this is the last year he can play in this league (due to age), I’m glad he had the experience of playing on a winning team. 

    I have a little maternal guilt niggling at me that I wasn’t willing to consider this league in the past.  The reason is that I wanted him to be in the league that was made up of all religious kids, even though he repeatedly asked to go to this league.  This league is more organized, the coaches actively teach strategy and sportsmanship, and the game is played on a higher level.  And all the parents of the players were so nice that I felt ashamed of myself for assuming the crowd would be less refined without checking it out for myself.  In fact, because of the guidance of the coaches, the behavior and attitude of the players in this league were better than in his old league – one more example of how kids don’t learn good social skills from their peers, but from caring and involved adults.  The reason I feel bad is that this is his final year, and he missed being able to play at all last year because he was too old for the other league.  He doesn’t ask for much and I’m sorry I wasn’t more open the last couple of years to sending him to the league he really wanted to be in. 

    Ds10 is now requesting to switch to this league for the coming year, and we’ve agreed that he can (at least for ds10 I won’t make the same mistake).  He started playing in his current league when he was 5, two years before the official starting age, since he was an athletic kid.  But by the time he was 7, the age most boys were just starting out and learning the rules of the game, he was already one of the best in his league.  Then last year as a third grader, some parents on opposite teams thought (and said something) he was unfairly playing in a league too young for him – but he really was with his same age peers.   Switching will mean he’ll get the advantage of active coaching and learn new skills, as well as being with other players who will challenge him more. 

    It’s been a busy baseball season, and as much as the kids have enjoyed it, I always breathe a sigh of relief when it’s over.  Just one more game to go for ds10!  And then we can begin the busyness of the summer activities!

    Avivah