Avivah Werner

Category: Parenting

  • The disappointments in raising animals

    When you raise animals, you learn a lot about disappointment.

    There’s so much time, money and energy that go into raising animals, but the end result isn’t completely in your hands.

    My fifteen year old son learned a lot from his experiencing raising chicks last year, and applied all those lessons to this season’s hatching. He renovated the incubator he built, set up good systems to protect the newborn chicks from injury, worked out the heating lamp system to keep the baby chicks warm as they grew, and the first two batches of chicks did really well.

    Until he switched their food for Pesach. Six of his bigger chicks died in two days. We don’t know how many more would have died on Pesach, because…

    Right after the first day of Pesach was over, all of his chicks were stolen from our gated backyard in the middle of the night. Every single one, from the new batch and the older batch. The afternoon before forty chicks were running all over the backyard, and the next morning none were left. When my son told me, I couldn’t believe it. I kept trying to think of a different reason to account for their disappearance.

    It’s quite disconcerting to experience a theft like this.

    I have a very, very good guess about who stole them. It’s very likely it was the same lovely children who stole his male goose on Shabbos morning last year. The children who two years ago stole all the tools a professional worksman left next to my gate, then claimed they didn’t have anything when I went to their home to reclaim them – and continued to claim they didn’t have anything as one by one, the tools were revealed in their yard. (Their mother standing right there said nothing but a very weak, “We don’t take other peoples’ things,” clearly not caring at all and not making any apology for the blatant theft of expensive professional tools.)

    When something like this happens, you see how much we rely on parents to keep our world safe – when parents turn a blind eye or tacitly encourage these activities, it’s very hard to find recourse.

    My boys are pretty certain about who it was, too, but won’t say a word about the evidence they have to support that conviction – they’ve accepted on themselves not to talk about those people. Interestingly, the morning after the chicks were stolen, the boy I suspect came to ask if we had spare pieces for a bike. He’s not a friend, and has never come to our home before. There’s no reason for him to ask us for this – and it made me very much wonder if he had entered our backyard (that can’t be seen into by passerby) and seen the bikes waiting to be repaired there. Who knows? I’m impressed with my son’s equanimity and his choice not to dwell on it, despite the significant financial loss and energy investment.

    My son began incubating another very large batch of eggs. Two weeks into the three week incubation period, the power went out for fifteen hours. He was concerned the chicks were going to die, and most did – but thirty out of two hundred hatched. Not a great success rate but better than nothing.

    In the meantime, one of his hens began sitting on her own eggs. When the first chick hatched, she took a walk with him. While she was off her nest, another hen sat down and co-opted the nest, then hatched the second chick, then walked around proudly with him.

    My son wasn’t happy with that – he felt it was unfair for the first mother chick who did all the work for three weeks to have someone steal her nest. Somehow they worked it out between the hens, because a day or two later, the first mother had reclaimed her nest and the second chick. Barnyard drama. 🙂

    As soon as the latest chicks were hatched, my son put them underneath the mother sitting on her nest. Chicks do best when raised by mothers and it’s much less intensive than using a heat lamp. By the time he had given her twenty chicks, she was very busy gathering them all under her to keep them warm.

    So my son put another hen in with her to help her out, then put the rest of the newly hatched chicks in. So far they’ve lost three who weren’t kept warm enough, but all the rest are doing great.

    It’s not just our experience, having especially bad luck raising chicks or animals that things like this happen. It’s the nature of it. There’s often something unexpected that goes wrong. Neighboring children bought ten chicks from my son’s first hatching, and did a fantastic job keeping them alive. Then a couple of days ago they woke up to three dead chicks in their coop, and the other seven were missing. (Their rooster they got from us was stolen the same night that my son’s chicks were stolen.)

    They didn’t know what could have happened until they watched the replay on their security cameras. A fox repeatedly throughout the night came in and out of their yard, each time taking a chick with him. I know they planned a trap for the fox the next night, anticipating he would return for the three chicks he killed, but I didn’t yet hear an update.

    I felt so badly for the children; I know what’s involved in raising week old chicks. It’s very disheartening to spend so much effort for months, and then have nothing to show for it.

    Thinking about foxes and chickens, my son reflected to me a couple of days ago, “You know, Roald Dahl books make the good guys look bad, and make the bad guys looks good. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, the farmer trying to protect his chickens is the bad guy, and the fox is the good one. And in Danny, Champion of the World, the poacher and his son were stealing but they looked like the heroes.” He’s completely right.

    I now have a padlock on the goat pen. And my son is sleeping outside to guard his chickens from the fox, in case he decides to make a visit. He likes sleeping outside once the weather gets warm, so he’s just moving out a bit sooner than he otherwise would. 🙂

    Avivah

  • How to teach children to take responsibility

    I recently went to someone’s home for a quick errand, and the mother invited me in. As I came in and removed my coat, the bead on the end of the drawstring of my top came loose and fell to the floor

    The four year old girl grabbed it and refused to give it back. Her mother said nothing. I bent down and showed her how it matched the one on the other side and how it could slide right back on. She refused to give it back. Her mother said nothing.

    I said to her, “You can hold it for a few minutes and then give it to me before I leave.” As her mother and I spoke, she began stomping on it. I waited to see what the mother would do. Still no response.

    The little girl went over to whisper to her older sibling, and they began laughing. Her brother told us they were laughing because she broke it in half by stepping on it. The mother said nothing.

    I really don’t like disciplining other people’s children and generally stand to the side and stay quiet. But clearly this mother wasn’t going to say or do anything.

    So I told the little girl with a sad face, “You know, this top I’m wearing is new and I’m sad that now I don’t have the bead for it because it’s broken.” Her laughing face turned a little uncertain. She looked at her mother, and her mother said to her soberly, “She’s right.”

    The end. No apology from the mother, obviously no apology from the girl.

    This is a kind, caring mother. However, her lack of response demonstrated that she’s a parent who doesn’t know when and how to set a boundary for her child.

    Parents who don’t respond to their child’s provocation, don’t show them a way to make restitution, and at the very most will tell the child they shouldn’t have done that (usually when the incident is past and the person is gone) aren’t going to raise children who take responsibility for their mistakes.

    I’m going to give examples of different points in this interaction that a parent could have and should have intervened.

    The child grabs the bead and doesn’t want to give it back. I don’t want to force her to give it back because that’s not teaching her anything. But I’m also not going to let her keep something that isn’t hers, which would teach her a lesson I don’t want her to learn.

    I say, “Isn’t that a pretty bead? It looks so nice, doesn’t it? I’m sure Mrs. Ploni likes it. It will look so nice back on her top!” Child smiles and gives it back. Mrs. Ploni thanks her.

    What if the child still doesn’t want to give it back? Some children have a hard time with transitions and need more time and guidance. I say, “You know it’s Mrs. Ploni’s bead and want to give it back, but you really want to hold it a little bit longer. Hmm. Let’s ask Mrs. Ploni if you can hold it carefully for one minute. (Ask and get approval.) Okay, let’s look at my watch – in one minute you’re going to give it back.” (Don’t get involved in an adult conversation and lose track of this. Stay focused on your teaching moment.)

    Depending on the child, I will remind them halfway through and maybe ten seconds before the time is up that “In ten seconds, you’re going to give it back.”

    “Time’s up! That was so nice of Mrs. Ploni to let you hold her bead. Let’s give it back to her now.” Child gives it back.

    What if the child still balks? “Child, I know you really like this bead. When we go home, we can look and see if we have beads you can play with. But this is Mrs. Ploni’s bead and now you need to give it back. Would you like to give it to her yourself, or do you want me to help you give it to her?”

    If by this point the child isn’t giving the bead back, I would gently take it from them and say, “I see it’s hard for you to give it back. I’m going to give the bead to Mrs. Ploni because this is hers, and we don’t keep things that aren’t ours.” Child screams and cries. “I know it’s hard for you.”

    You may be thinking this is way too much work over a bead. “What’s the big deal? Just let her keep it.” That’s obviously what the mother in the original situation did. The big deal is she is learning to disrespect things that belong to other people. The bigger deal is that small scenarios like this will be repeated with bigger and bigger issues, and a child who isn’t taught to respect parental guidance is going to become more difficult to parent, and unpleasant to be around.

    Back to our scenario. I’ve ignored my child keeping the bead, and now she’s stomping on it. I stop my conversation with the other adult immediately and all my focus is on teaching my child in this moment. I’m not smiling now: I’m not angry or hostile but I’m firm and clear in my voice and body language that I mean what I say. “Child, stop right now. That’s Mrs. Ploni’s bead. That’s not how we treat things. Give it back to her right now.” If the child doesn’t give it back, I take it and give it to Mrs. Ploni.

    I’m in the middle of an adult conversation and haven’t been fully aware of what she was doing. I’ve ignored my child keeping the bead, stepping on it, breaking it, and now she’s laughing with her brother. Now my son told me that it’s broken and they’re both laughing at how funny that is. I’m finally aware of the situation, but there’s nothing to do about the bead anymore.

    The bead may be a lost cause, but my child’s educational process isn’t. I don’t want to raise children who think it’s funny to harm other people and their things. I want to help the child learn to empathize with others and recognize their actions have consequences. “Children! Mrs. Ploni’s bead is broken?! Oh, no…now Mrs. Ploni’s top doesn’t have a bead. If you had a special toy and someone broke a piece off, how would you feel? What if they did that and were laughing about it? That would feel very bad, wouldn’t it?

    Would you be sad? Would you be angry? How do you think Mrs. Ploni feels right now? (Wait for response.) What can we do now to show Mrs. Ploni that you’re sorry? (If the child doesn’t have a suggestion, make a suggestion of your own.) You want to tell Mrs. Ploni you’re sorry you broke her bead?”

    The situation must end with a sincere apology from me and/or my child. It’s not fair for someone to be left to bear the consequences of your actions with no recognition that they have been negatively impacted.

    There is an additional step I favor taking when appropriate. I tell Mrs. Ploni I’m sorry this happened and want to make restitution for my child’s actions. I ask her to give me the other bead so that I can buy a matching set of two similar beads. I then take my child with me to the store to buy the replacements, talking about what we were doing and why. (If the child were older, they would use their own money to pay for this.)

    “Oh, come on, Avivah, I don’t believe you would do this!” Yes, I would, and yes, I have. I feel very strongly about teaching children to take responsibility for their actions. If they aren’t taught, how will they learn?

    This scenario may seem time consuming, but it actually takes just a few minutes. As your child learns that you mean what you say, and is clear about what expectations are, it gets easier and less time consuming.

    Avivah

  • More about fostering and being generous

    In my last post, I shared an update about the foster care placement we were approached about. I mentioned it here when I did because after a month of being involved in this situation, the placement seemed highly likely and I wanted to share about the process we were going through. It was a question of ‘when’ more than ‘if’.

    Today the social worker called to update me that they’re in a situation they’ve never been in before: they’re unable so late in the school year to find any school within an hour’s travel time from our home able to accept him, even with legal pressure brought to bear on the schools. (After telling me he can’t travel, they went back to looking at schools further away.) While it seems obvious that the easiest and best thing would be to leave him in school where he is, which is less than an hour away, there’s a funding issue that precludes that possibility.

    Since they can’t find a school until the coming school year, they’ve cancelled the home visit that was supposed to take place a couple of days from now. Instead, they are going back to court to overturn the injunction that the child needed to be removed from this foster home, and request he be allowed to stay there. If that fails, they are talking about beginning a country-wide search to find a different foster home (close enough to a suitable school, presumably), since their search in the northern part of the country only found us.

    To my mind, this is all upside down and doesn’t put the child and what is good for him at the center at all. It doesn’t seem efficient, logical, economical or prudent. But my opinions have no bearing on anything.

    What this means is that now, the placement with our family is being placed very far on the back burner and as far as I’m concerned, it’s off the table. While I continue to be in touch with our social worker discussing potential solutions, there’s too much that can change between now and September for me to assume it will happen.

    My take on this is, if something is supposed to happen, Hashem will make it happen. And if it’s not meant to happen, it doesn’t matter how much it looks like it should happen – it’s not going to happen.

    I learned this lesson very clearly when we were involved with Baby M, when it seemed obvious to everyone involved we were the perfect family for her. Then that didn’t happen. When we got the call about ds6, it seemed highly unlikely it could work out; time and time again, rules were bent and changes to official procedure that had never been made were made to faciliate his joining our family.

    —————————–

    There were some very nice comments to my last post about me being a very generous person, and I want to respond with a bit of perspective.

    A few months ago, I commented to my kids that I’m not a generous person. My children didn’t agree with me, and thought I was being overly critical of myself. What I meant, and explained to them, is that there are areas that I’m more easily able to give, and there are ways that are difficult for me. I’m very generous in some ways. And in others I’m not.

    Some people can have people in and out of their houses all the time. I can’t. Some people have no expectations of guests, and willingly host regardless of if they like the person. I won’t. Some people don’t care if people show appreciation for what they do. I do. Some people generously share all of their possessions and time with others. I don’t. I could go on an on with examples.

    I have a soft spot for children whose homes aren’t nurturing places. Part of the motivation for my work as a parenting educator comes from that. It hasn’t found expression in mentoring troubled teens or starting a halfway house, but mostly by trying to make my home a positive place where I hope our children feel loved, and helping others to do the same.

    When I was asked about this foster placement, I was quick to say no.
    My two youngest sons are moving out of the very intensive stage of supervision that I’ve been at for a very long time. After almost thirty years of being there for my children around the clock, I’m now able to enjoy some quiet, kid-free time in the mornings, time I can use as I want. That’s very precious to me.

    The idea of adding another child who needs constant supervision really didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t have readiness to give up that long awaited quiet and space in my life. I certainly had no interest in becoming more involved with social services.

    Having made it clear I wasn’t interested, I began to think about it without any outside expectation or pressure. I thought very much about what would be necessary to parent this child, what it would require of me physically and emotionally.

    Here’s a very important detail that I haven’t shared. I mentioned he has a sibling for whom a possible placement was found in Yavneel and that’s how we were originally contacted, as a potential home in the same area. The sibling is actually a twin. It deeply, deeply pained me to think of two siblings who had so much taken away from them, now being separated from one another.

    Though the social worker didn’t ask us to consider taking them both – they don’t expect to find any family willing to do that – the question I asked myself was if we could bring them both into our home. Though you might think that would have been so overwhelming that it would make it even less likely a possibility, somehow the sense of mission it created in me was significant enough for me to be willing to give up my long awaited quiet.

    When I looked at what would be involved, I could see that our lives had prepared my husband and I for this. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be very challenging. We were both very realistic about this. But we felt it was something that we were being called to do. So the placement that we have actually been discussing has been for both of the children, though I’ve referred in my writing here to only the child we were initially asked about.

    There are lots of other things we could have been asked to do that wouldn’t have felt like a fit for our strengths, and we wouldn’t have been willing to extend ourselves to do it. As I said, there are ways I’m able to give and ways I’m not.

    That’s the back story about what motivates me and activated my generosity in this situation.

    Avivah

  • Foster care update

    A few weeks ago I mentioned that we were approached regarding a foster care placement for a four year old boy with special needs.

    After expressing our interest in learning more, we had a two hour meeting with our social worker, the child’s social worker, and the supervisory social worker.

    We got a detailed description of the challenges this child is facing, which are significant. (And he’s actually five and a half.) We also learned about the legal process involved.

    Since this isn’t an emergency placement but transferring from a temporary foster home to a long term home, there is a getting-to-know-you process. This entails four visits by us to the temporary foster home an hour away, initially with me and my husband, later to be joined by our children. There would then be one visit to our home. All of this ideally takes place within ten days. Then the placement would take place.

    We followed this meeting with much discussion between my husband and me, and then included our teen boys in the conversation. We all agreed this is something we can do and would be willing to do. I told her we’d be willing to have him come the first week of March, but that it couldn’t be right before Pesach.

    Several weeks have gone by since then, and because there’s a bureaucratic process involved, slow is the name of the game.

    I’ve been in touch with our social worker for updates and after hearing one particularly exasperating update, I told her I don’t know how she can stand working in a system that doesn’t put the best interest of the child ahead of everything. She admitted that sometimes she wants to pull her hair out but it is what it is.

    Where I live, there are very few educational options for children of all ages; not regular ed and certainly not special ed. (His special needs result from growing up in an emotionally impoverished home, not a genetic birth diagnosis.) That’s why ds10 and ds6 travel an hour by school van to the school they attend, as do all the other children living in this area. It’s just a reality of living here.

    Someone in some position of authority decided that it won’t be good for this child to travel for school. While I agree that it’s not ideal to travel (and I wish my boys didn’t have to do it, either), there’s no school locally that meets his needs.

    I asked our social worker, did they take into account that he’s in an foster home that needed him to be out weeks ago, that there’s no one else willing to take him, and that setting this parameter means he will be forced to stay where he is because there’s no school for him? Talk about losing sight of the forest for the trees.

    I was taken aback to learn they’re putting all efforts to find him a school on hold until we have a home inspection done. This surprised me since we’re already licensed foster parents and did an initial home inspection; we have a social worker visit monthly so it’s not like we’re new to the system. (I had understood that the issue that was taking time was finding a school, and it was a couple weeks after we agreed to take him that they told me this.)

    Don’t think that scheduling this home visit that everything supposedly hinges on has been a top priority. They’ve finally scheduled the visit for next week with three social workers in attendance – ours, the child’s, and one from social services in the area where the parents live.

    I’ve learned that due to unfortunate negative stereotypes about charedim, there is resistance to placing this child with us since he is coming from a non-religious home. My social worker (who isn’t religious) told me as soon as they meet me they’ll realize whatever they’re worried about isn’t an issue but for right now they don’t know me, and the lack of speed in moving forward seems to be partially a reflection of social services being hesitant about us.

    My family members have been asking me, will this child be coming to us? I really don’t know. When it comes to foster care, you don’t make any assumptions until that child is pretty close to being in your home. At this point it seems to me that we won’t be able to begin the visitation process until after Pesach, so if it does happen, it will probably not be for another five or six weeks.

    Avivah

  • You can’t make everyone happy, but you can create boundaries for yourself

    The hosting of the Shabbos sheva brachos has ended and it went so beautifully. There was a lot of uncertainty for an extended period about where we would have the meals. I made a point to trust it would all work out rather than get anxious, and thankfully it did – it wasn’t until Tuesday evening that we found the venue that we would be using for Friday/Saturday. It was exactly what I wanted. Since it was recently renovated and wasn’t suitable for our needs prior to the renovation, no one had thought of it as an option when I was asking around.

    We hosted our mothers, all of our married children and our newest son-in-law’s parents, siblings and their families. Being two large families with a lot of young families, it was a lot of people to host for sleeping and meals, but we were so happy to have everyone. It was a beautiful Shabbos with two families who were able to genuinely enjoy getting to know one another.

    I self-catered three meals for approximately 45 people at each meal (my oldest daughter prepared all the desserts). As much as I very much wanted to, I wasn’t able to find people to hire to do the setting up and serving, so our children stepped in for that. They were great. But it was a lot of work that I would have preferred we didn’t have to do.

    I felt good about having all the sleeping arrangements taken care of, having plenty of food well organized, and being calm and present for all the different relationships in the midst of such a busy time of doing. There were changes and disappointments and things that didn’t go as planned, and I stayed relaxed and rolled with the punches. I was extending myself for a lot of people and glad to be able to do it, and didn’t feel pressured or stressed.

    It was on Saturday night that I got some feedback that was unfair and judgmental. It was certainly unwelcome and inappropriate at that moment in time, after an extended period of so much giving.

    When I finally was able to get to bed, I was deeply exhausted. After a few hours of sleep, I woke up to do some journaling, which I haven’t done for some time. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Pages. About all the things I did, and how well I did them and how good I felt about it.

    I wrote about the critical comments and how unkind and unjustified it felt. Usually I try to think about things from the other person’s perspective and understand them, but in my journal I allowed myself to have my own feelings of hurt and anger about it.

    What came out for me of all this writing, was the very clear realization that it’s just not possible to make everyone happy all the time, no matter how hard I try and no matter how well everything goes. Everyone isn’t going to appreciate my efforts, appreciate me, and think I’m a good enough person. Everyone isn’t going to feel that I give them what they need.

    The larger our family grows, the more the expectations of me grow. There are more and more people who come into the family, through marriage or birth, with their own ideas of who and how I should be. I’m no longer ‘just’ a wife, mother and daughter, but a mother-in-law and grandmother. Those who married in to our family grew up in a different family environment with different ideas of what my role in their lives should look like. Even with our biological children, there are different levels of satisfaction with how I parent. Everyone has expectations of how I should be, what I should do, what I should give (in terms of energy, time and physical resources). And I can’t adequately meet some of those expectations.

    Obviously, making everyone happy or wanting to be appreciated by everyone for your efforts can’t be the goal, because it’s unobtainable.

    I mentioned to a mother with several adult married children a few weeks ago that a married child/spouse was disgruntled with something I hadn’t done in the way they wanted, and she looked at me without saying anything for a long moment. I told her, “Don’t tell me you’ve never experienced this!” She responded, “That’s how it always is; I take it as the norm.”

    There’s so much written about the challenges of growing children and busy households, but much less shared about the challenges and realities of this stage of life. After decades of parenting and homemaking, rather than slowing down and taking it easy, a mother is expected to up the bar and do more and more and more, for more and more people. She is expected to be calm, organized, giving, nurturing and patient, and magically know how to meet each person’s needs in the way they prefer.

    I went directly from this demanding wedding period into Purim and organizing all of the necessary activities, and will soon begin Pesach preparations. We’ll be having my mom and three married children staying with us; my daughter will host another of our married children for sleeping. All five families will be with us for the seder and four families for the ensuing meals for as long as each chooses to stay.

    I love having everyone together, seeing the grandchildren playing together and all the adults spending time together gives me much nachas. I have non-ending gratitude for all of the wonderful people who have joined our family and each adds so much.

    Does that sound warm and fuzzy and oh, so beautiful? All the amazing family togetherness, with everyone getting along?

    It’s very special and I never take it for granted.

    And it’s a huge amount of work.

    I’m now taking some quiet time for myself to regroup. I’m assessing how much I can give and how much I want to give, regardless of what others want of me. There are things I’ve willingly stretched myself to do, and after the minimal or nonexistent recognition of those efforts, am choosing to stop stretching rather than become resentful. These adjustments aren’t likely to be welcomed by those who are used to being on the receiving end but they need to be made.

    It’s a good thing to be concerned about the comfort and happiness of others. But it’s not a good thing to do so much that you compromise yourself and your own happiness. There’s no one at fault if you’re overextended and unappreciated. You’re the one who needs to create boundaries that protect yourself, you’re the one who has to take care of yourself, and by doing that, you teach others how to treat you.

    Avivah

  • Changing plans and making adjustments

    I find it helpful to do things as soon as I can, rather than push them off. My thinking is that more things are always coming up, and it’s unlikely there will be a better time than right now to do what needs to be done. I very consciously planned to leave this week’s schedule as empty as possible, since it’s the week prior to the wedding and as I just said, things always come up.

    On Sunday, I drove my daughter to Jerusalem with all of her stuff to move into her new home. We picked up an additional load of her things from the place she lives in Jerusalem. Her host mother came out to talk to me and asked me how wedding plans were going. ‘Fine, good,’ I told her.

    ‘What about Shabbos?’ This is a question that comes from a mother who has married off all her children and understands the work involved for the mother of the bride regarding hosting Shabbos sheva brachos for a large group. People who haven’t been in that situation wouldn’t know how intense it can be!

    Personally I feel making sheva brachos is just as much work as the wedding, but in a different way. Some people go away to a hotel-like setting where the sleeping and meal arrangements are taken care of, which is expensive but obviously eliminates a lot of the work. In our case I’m self-catering, so that doesn’t eliminate a lot of the work. 🙂

    I told the host mother that it had been a huge issue and I spent hours working it all out, but thankfully we knew where the meals would be held and where all the guests would stay, and since that was the hardest part, it was going well.

    Well, sometimes you just have to laugh because two minutes after I finished that conversation, I got a call from a person who had offered to let us use their home for that Shabbos. Since they have a very large dining room, this is where we were going to have all the meals in addition to using three bedrooms to host guests. She asked us, if it wouldn’t be too much pressure, to please find somewhere else since their plans had changed.

    In the end this will be better for everyone and it’s good that we’re making the changes. However, it meant a week before the wedding completely redoing every single aspect of my plans for sheva brachos, including the timing and structure of the meals. So much for trying to think ahead and plan ahead so I’m not dealing with things at the last minute! I still don’t have the location for meals set up – there are aspects that make the arrangements complicated – but I trust everything will work out.

    My mother-in-law arrived from the US today, and went straight to Jerusalem to stay with my married daughter. This will be my daughter’s last Shabbos before the wedding. She’ll join them for Shabbos lunch (and have one meal with friends, and a third meal will be her Shabbos kallah). All of our single sons over the age of 13 (ie 20, 16, 15, 13) will be spending Shabbos together with them. The boys will pack up everything they need for the wedding, and go from there to the wedding on Sunday.

    *************

    I’ve been having increasing pain when standing and walking, and had gotten to the point that I had to sit or lay down after fifteen or thirty minutes of standing. It was making it very challenging to get things done efficiently. (And it didn’t help that our youngest two boys were home sick this week.) I was feeling concerned about how I would manage to stand for wedding pictures, let alone dance at the wedding.

    My husband made an appointment for me yesterday with the osteopath that he and our sons have gone to, and he was excellent. It was a very important wedding prep! I was really impressed. He explained that my pelvis had slipped out of alignment, which caused my leg joints to be affected (hence the pain standing), and also caused the lower back and neck pain that I was having. It’s the domino effect – one very small shift happens and it keeps triggering more and more symptoms until you address the core issue.

    Though it takes up to a week for the body to release the tension it had been holding, I felt immediate improvement as he was working on me. As soon as I got home, I was able to work in the kitchen for several hours straight, standing the entire time. My lower back was very painful for the first afternoon and all through the last two nights, but that has started releasing as well. It still hurts a lot and it’s hard to sleep with so much back pain, but I’m definitely doing better and I’m super grateful.

    It’s hard to believe that there’s hardly any time left until the wedding….our children grow up so fast.

    Avivah

  • Looking beyond the behavior at the person

    One day after dropping off my sixteen year old son at the bus stop, I decided to stop in at a supermarket on the way home.

    I quickly gathered my items and went to check out, but when I saw the sour face of the cashier, I looked to see what other cashiers were available and considered moving to a different line. She grumbled aloud when I and another woman came to her lane, ‘Why does everyone have to come to my lane?’ (There was only one other lane open, other than the express lane, so it’s not like there were a lot of options!)

    She looked in my cart while checking out someone ahead of me, and irritatedly told me to move to the lane for people with up to ten items (I had more than double that).

    She huffed and sighed and complained, and I thought to myself, ‘There’s no one who needs a smile as much as someone who has none left to give’, and decided to stay in her lane.

    While I was waiting my turn, someone with just a few items asked to go ahead of me and I told her it was fine. The cashier told her – grumpily, of course – to go to another lane that would be shorter (it wouldn’t have been). The woman said to me in an undertone, “Why is she upset what lane I go to, what difference does it make to her?” I told her not to take it personally.

    The cashier roughly scanned her few items, and the woman got upset and exclaimed, “Why are you throwing my items around? Please don’t do that!” She was already insulted at how she had been spoken to, and now this was too much for her. I thought to myself how once someone is in a certain mood, they keep acting in a way to attract negative experiences to themselves.

    My turn was next, and the cashier didn’t even glance my way. As she began scanning my items, I said with a smile, “Good morning, how are you?”, and she startled. “Are you talking to me?” “Yes, I am! How are you doing today?”

    “Not good, everyone is coming to my lane. Why do they have to do that?” (This was obviously a question that she wasn’t expecting an answer to.)

    I told her, “Maybe it’s because you look like a nice person so they want to be in your lane.”

    “Yes, that’s my problem, I’m too nice. You see how that woman just spoke to me and accused me of throwing her things around?”

    It was so interesting to me to hear how differently she perceived herself and her actions, from how others were perceiving her.

    Another coworker came over and she grumbled something to the new arrival. Inserting myself into their conversation, I understood that her shoulder had been bothering her for a while. I asked about it, and she said it’s been hurting for months, she’s in pain all day at work scanning items, and that she can’t get an appointment for three months at the health clinic for an orthopedist.

    She continued venting how none of the other workers at the store will do anything, they’re all sitting around doing nothing while she’s working away all by herself.

    Her coworker told her to take a pain pill or shot, and she said she didn’t want to, that it didn’t help. I agreed that it’s good to take care of the root of the problem rather than cover it up, and suggested an osteopath that I have used for a few of my family members who is reasonably priced and not far from there.

    She told me she doesn’t believe in all this stuff, and asked me what he does. We spoke a few minutes more as I shared my experiences, and encouraged her to call to explain her situation and see if he could help her. Making a call doesn’t cost anything.

    We ended our conversation with me giving her the number and warmly wishing her a complete recovery. I had so much compassion as I walked away with my groceries, and was glad that I was able to ignore my first thought to stay away from her lane and stuck around long enough to see the person underneath.

    Avivah

  • Mazel tov! And mazel tov again!

    Almost five years ago, our family was blessed with the engagements and the weddings of our two oldest daughters one after another. They were engaged within two weeks of each other, and married within twelve days.

    Once again, we’ve been blessed with a double heaping of joy (though in a different form this time)!

    I’m delighted to share with you that our youngest daughter Tzipora is engaged to Menachem Miller of Har Nof!

    The l’chaim took place in Jerusalem last night; the engagement party will be in Jerusalem next week.

    It’s not often when our family gets together that it feels like a small group, but that’s how it felt last night. Part of that is that our daughter is marrying into a similarly sized family to ours, but they are about ten years ahead of us so all of their children are adult size and have a strong physical presence.

    The other aspect is that several of our family members were missing. Our oldest daughter and her family weren’t there, because they were in the US for a wedding. One son-in-law can only come to one of the events, and will come next week.

    And lastly, our second son (who got married in August 2021) and his wife couldn’t come because….. his wife was in labor!

    Less than twelve hours after our daughter became engaged, our newest granddaughter entered the world!

    Knowing that a birth was imminent, we chose to stay overnight in Jerusalem rather than travel back to Yavneel as originally intended. This allowed me and four of the sons with me to see our new little beauty when she was just three hours old.

    When my son called me to let me know his wife was in labor, I was so deeply grateful and thankful to be showered with so much abundance all at once. I was feeling very full of emotion and commenced driving when we finished talking. As I sat at the traffic circle immediately after finishing our call I waited for drivers to let me merge into the circle, and idly wondered if they thought my intense expression was because they weren’t letting me in!

    ————————–

    There’s always a sudden shift as soon as an engagement is announced, into a lot of action very quickly. Generally, the bulk of the preparations fall on the bride’s side, and I have an enormous amount of work ahead of me.

    Usually I enjoy planning and preparing for events, but this time thinking about all that needs to be done feels more daunting than usual. That’s primarily due to the logistics of making arrangements for events in Jerusalem, when I live so far away and getting there is difficult for me, particularly since I have young children for whom I don’t have back-up child care options other than their siblings (who have very limited availability). It’s been almost year since our regular babysitter got married, and I haven’t had any luck finding anyone else to help out.

    As a result, I’m considering outsourcing things that I usually enjoy doing myself. Of course that comes with a cost and I tend to balk at paying others to do things I can do just as well if not better, but it’s clear to me that I’m going to need help from somewhere.

    Here’s what I do at times like this when feeling tension about all that needs to be done. First, I take time to sit quietly alone, and think through all the things running through my mind without the input from anyone else. It’s always before I have the time to sit with myself that I feel the stress of expectations and action items. I clarify what is most important to do right away, what can be done second, and then consciously put the other things to the side and focus on items one and two, in that order.

    Sometimes, my first action is to sleep, since when you’re tired, everything feels much harder. This can feel counterintuitive, since when there’s so much to do, taking a nap or going to bed early feel wrong. But I very much believe in the principle of ‘sharpening the saw’ – you shouldn’t continue to cut down a tree with a dull saw because you are too busy to take the time to sharpen it. By seemingly taking time away from what you need to do to align your energies with the task at hand, you’ll find that everything that needs to be done flows more quickly and more easily.

    This has been very helpful many times to me in moving from stressed and pressured, to focused and calm, and that’s exactly what I’m taking time for now.

    Avivah

  • A homeschooling day with six kids, ages 2 – 11

    Continuing from my last post, circa November 2004, responding to a question as to what a typical homeschooling day looks like for us… it seems particularly timely to have found this when I was writing about how our family life has changed over time. It’s poignant for me to reread the details of those days, to look back on a snapshot of our lives.

    ———————————–

    Well, I gave my philosophical perspective, but here is a sample of what our days are like. After breakfast, we have our academic time.  (Davening may be before or after breakfast, my kids now daven on their own so it depends on how early they wake up.) 

    I learn chumash with each of the older kids separately, and listen to my 5 year old do kriah (Hebrew reading).  While I am busy with one, the others will be busy with math.  We all are in the living room during that time, but if someone has a question, they have to wait until I am finished with the person I am with. 

    After everyone finishes, we may sit around and do a read aloud – this week, I started a book about kids who go back in time to the Mayflower.  This part of the day takes about two hours.  Then we have lunch (usually sandwiches), and the rest of the afternoon is spent on other activities.

    This describes our most ‘school-like’ days.  It is pretty dry and doesn’t even begin to capture the richness of our days.  It doesn’t run like this on the days that we are out with various activities in the morning (eg September was busy with sailing classes, Oct. had gym classes), and never typical for Fridays or Sundays. 

    Twice a week, a couple of my kids help out at a sheep farm for the morning.  We attend a book discussion for kids once a month, the girls have Girl Scout meetings twice a month, they all have 4H at least once a month.  A couple of my kids participate in specific 4H projects, sheep and beekeeping, which have them out of the house more often. 

    My girls have sewing lessons every week, knitting club every other week.  We go to the libraries regularly, nature centers, friends, and then there are the one time trips. Last week a couple of kids were busy digging a fire pit in the backyard of someone’s home for the colonial feast that is being planned this Sunday, they all attended a program on Woodland Indians (in which they not only listened to a presentation, but ground corn with a mortar and pestle, dressed in authentic Indian clothing, went in a wichot (wigwam), shot arrows, and much more), and my son read a biography of Daniel Boone (history/social studies). 

    Yesterday one daughter was out with a couple of friends painting a backdrop for the puppet show they are planning for Chanukah, and have been working on weekly (writing/halacha/holidays/arts and crafts).  Two other kids were out at a different friend’s home (socialization – just joking, everybody!!).  My oldest son has been very busy for the last couple of weeks building a tree house (math/measurements), sewing cushions for the bench inside (real life skills), planning a treehouse club for his siblings, which includes various prizes and incentives.

    They have all been busy getting ready for Chanukah by making presents for family members and friends and listening to Chanukah songs on cassette (Jewish holidays).  We have a trip to North Carolina in a few days, where we will attend the local science museum (science), and on the way home will probably stop by the Science Museum of Virginia.  (Last year when we went to Colonial Williamsburg, I stopped on the way in Richmond at the SMV to break up the trip. It was a good plan so we will try it again.) 

    We attended a concert at the Meyerhoff Symphony hall a few nights ago (music), have a play scheduled for the beginning of Dec (literature and the arts), and a ballet for the middle of Dec (music, the arts and social studies). 

    I read regularly out loud in the evenings to everyone (though my selection doesn’t always manage to hold everyone’s attention equally :)), and usually choose Newberry honor or medal books, classic type material (literature, grammar).  My kids read a lot independently (spelling, reading comprehension), and also enjoy listening to audio books (auditory processing skills).  The younger ones listen to their own selections of books with cassettes – my 4 yo recognizes her favorites at the library and ‘follows’ along with her finger in the text as she listens.  Even my 2 yo sits and listens with them. 

    They enjoy board games and card games (my 4yo is fantastic at Uno – I don’t know how she got so good at strategy, but I have to work to beat her – the last game I put down my last card right before she put down her last card, and I only was able to win that time because I happened to see her cards since she isn’t careful about how she holds them!). 

    We have brain teaser kind of stuff around, which they pick up and play with as they like.  They listen to the radio when I have it on and have picked up a lot of information, as well as critical thinking skills.  We have great conversations on many different topics.

    Now the question is, what was the schooling part of the day?  There is lots of learning going on all the time, but it doesn’t resemble many classrooms because we don’t do much worksheet kind of stuff.  Being relaxed doesn’t mean doing nothing – for us, it means being busy with things we enjoy and learning lots along the way.

    This probably didn’t help you much, though, right?  Because you may be thinking you don’t enjoy this kind of activity or your kids are too young or you are too tired or there isn’t enough scheduled…….. That’s why it all comes down to developing your own philosophy and finding what works for your family. 🙂

    Avivah

  • Parenting – get clear on your goals, know who you are and where you want to go

    In the middle of writing my last post, I did a search in my inbox using a keyword that didn’t pull up what I was looking for, but did result in me finding some things I had written about homeschooling in the past that I had long forgotten having written. The following was shared on a Orthodox Jewish homeschooling email list at the end of November 2004. I was active on this listserve for years and loved the far ranging and fascinating conversations we had (no comparison to the brief answers given on a FB group), but it’s been closed for many years now.

    However, the questions and responses are just as relevant today as they were then and though specifically addressing homeschooling, are just as applicable to any parent thinking about his approach to parenting.

    >>Hi, I just joined the list. I have a 21-month-old boy, who is nowhere near ready for school yet, but I’m thinking about home schooling, yet need to learn more about it. One thing that I want to be able to visualize is the structure (or non-structure) of home schooling–i.e., how is the learning set up. Please enlighten.<<

    I think you are incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about homeschooling before your children are school age.  Homeschooling is a remarkable opportunity, precisely because it is so individual.  One person’s schedule may look totally different from someone else’s, but what counts is how it works for that family.  

    I prefer a relaxed approach, and find it very effective for my family and my goals.  What I find stimulating and productive might seem too undefined to some, too busy to others.  A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a homeschooling mom who was proudly telling me her schedule, and I had the strongest feeling of sympathy for her kids, but it seemed to work for their family.  (This might also have been related to her answer to my question about her homeschooling style – “We push through until we get it right.”  My question followed her description of how she forced her kids to play sports even though they came home crying after every session. But I digress.) 

    She has four kids, ages 4 – 10, and starts at 9 am every day, and goes until 3:30 or 4 pm every day, with an hour for lunch.  She isn’t Jewish, so she isn’t doing a dual curriculum, so in my opinion, this was overkill.  Gosh, I felt like I had hives listening to her.  But then again, she might have had the same feeling listening to me.

    As someone else suggested, read up on homeschooling. Don’t limit yourself to any one approach – read about them all, and you will find yourself developing your own ideas and opinions as to how you want to do things for your family.  Think about what education means to you – is it the same as schooling?  Why or why not?  What do you think is positive about the school experience?  What is negative?  Why?  How do your children learn best?  How do you perform best?  What are your goals – not just regarding academics, which may be one of the less important things in raising children, but in terms of character development, etc.?

    Homeschooling and parenting styles overlap so much that it becomes hard to distinguish where one ends and the other begins.  Talk to people, get ideas, but most importantly, give yourself lots of time to think through the issues yourself.  And for now, just continue enjoying your child – it will be years before you will need to do anything in a more structured way than what you are already doing.  

    Avivah – mom to (then) six great kids in Baltimore