Okay, welcome to the parenting class, and we're going to be continuing on the notes that we were using last week. If anyone doesn't have the notes and would want a copy of the notes, there's notes here. Okay. We're discussing sibling rivalry and... Which page was that? Really, I think we're only up to the second page of the notes. We really just started it. We're discussing sibling rivalry, and we really want to know... We have to understand that it’s normal, universal, and part of life. We can’t eliminate it; we can only try to minimize and manage it. It has a function: our children have to learn to resolve conflicts with their peers, and right now those peers are their siblings. That’s how they’re going to deal with their emotions and their questions in life. They’re going to use the safe haven called home to try things out and see where they get. We have to try to give them a safe arena to teach them the proper way to deal with conflict resolution. We’re going to teach them problem-solving and try to teach them how to speak respectfully, even when they’re upset. But we have to do it in a teaching way, not a confrontational way.
We have to be above our own emotions and in control of them. It’s very hard, and we think we can’t do it, but we really can. We must be in control of our emotions in order to be good parents. That’s a lifelong struggle for us: to become in control of our emotions.
The way to become in control of our emotions, I believe, is cognitive psychology: understanding your own thoughts. What we tell ourselves in our heads is what makes us react in a certain way. If I tell myself, “This is terrible. How could she speak to me like that? She can’t do this. It’s chutzpah (insolence),” then we’re going to become very emotionally upset and angry, and we’re going to react to the child that way. But if, as I hear her words, I tell myself, “I know she doesn’t really mean that. I know she’s going through a hard time. This is difficult for her, and she’s using me to let out all of her frustrations. I will teach her to be respectful, but I won’t take it personally.” All of that has to be going through your mind as she’s throwing things at you that you don’t like.
If you just react by reflex—she says something, and you’re ready to respond automatically—no. There’s a process in between. If she speaks disrespectfully and you think, “What right does she have? Who does she think she is? I’m her mother. Look what I do for her,” then your reaction becomes, “Don’t talk to me like that. Go to your room. I’m not doing this for you; I’m not doing that for you,” and whatever else comes out. But if you hear the insult and say to yourself, “She’s so upset, so frustrated. I know she’s just saying it. I know she doesn’t mean it. Let me help her through this,” then you can say, “Honey, I know this is a hard time for you. I know you’re going through a lot, and you’re still not allowed to talk to me like that. But I want you to know that I love you, I’m here for you, and when you’re calm, we can talk about things that might help.” Your thinking has to be in place in order for your reaction to be what you want it to be. We’re trying to be good parents. Good parents react with thought, not just emotion. That’s very important.
In our discussion of sibling rivalry, we’re up to comparisons. As parents of many children, please Hashem, may they come and be healthy and well, and may everyone have as many children as they want, in good health. Please Hashem.
We have to deal with sibling rivalry, and comparisons encourage it. Sometimes comparisons happen because we promote them. We actually instigate them: “Why can’t you be like your brother? How come you can’t get up and get dressed like she does in the morning? Why do you talk to me like that? Nobody else talks to me like that.” Whatever comparisons we make as parents contribute to sibling rivalry. Sometimes children make their own internal comparisons. They notice that another child is so well-behaved and think, “Why can’t I be like that?” They notice that another child gets straight A’s on the report card and think, “I can’t measure up. I’ll never be as good.”
We’re going to try to deal with what we say to our children, so that it’s constructive and not destructive. Comparisons are destructive. Each person is an individual. We have to learn not only to say that properly, but to believe it, feel it, and think it. It has to become ingrained in us that we truly believe there are no two people in the whole world who were meant to be alike. Hashem doesn’t need doubles, even when He creates, God bless them, twins. Even when we call them identical twins, they aren’t doubles. In their hearts and souls, and in their personalities, they aren’t identical. They’re individuals. Hashem doesn’t create or want any two people to be the same. Each person has their own mission in life, their own qualities, personality, traits, weaknesses, and deficiencies, in order to fulfill their purpose in life.
If we believe this a hundred percent—which, Baruch Hashem (thank you Hashem), I really feel has changed my feelings toward people very, very much in my life—we love and respect everyone, no matter what. But how do you get your children—I believe it a hundred percent, but my children are constantly comparing against each other. “Today I beat her in the video game.” “Is my hair longer than hers?” “Today I got a higher mark than her on the test.” “I only got a sticker and she didn’t get a sticker.” All I tell them is, “We don’t compare. You can try to beat your high score, your list, like I try to tell and try to beat yourself.” But they don’t get it. They’re constantly comparing against you.
Besides telling our children not to compare, we have to explain why they shouldn’t compare. If I just say, “Don’t compare,” I haven’t convinced them. Why not? It’s a rule in the house, but at school they’re comparing all the time. That’s ingrained in them, so we have a lot to fight against. What I want to tell them is something like this: “He’s saying, you know, Yaakov is better than me. Hashem doesn’t need two Yaakov. Hashem didn’t want two Yaakov. You’re you, and he’s him. What does Hashem want from you? That has to be different than everybody else in the world. Nobody can be you, and nobody has your purpose in life. Everything about you is meant to help you reach that purpose. Your weaknesses and your strengths are both part of who you are. We are who we are as much because of our weaknesses as much because of our strengths. It's not only strengths. Our weaknesses were meant to lead us in the right direction, too.”
When we were little, my father used to tell us this because we were always comparing and fighting: a family is like a hand. Each finger is different, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. As a unit, everyone compensates for someone else’s weaknesses, and everyone’s strengths compensate for someone else’s weaknesses, and vice versa. I used to think, “This is crazy,” because he said it over and over again. But now, as a parent, you see it more, and you’re able to…
What was important in what you said, besides the central point that we’re all different but work together, is that in a family that’s an extremely important message. What I picked up on was that as a child, you think the repetition is so unnecessary, until you grow up and feel that it has become part of you.
As parents, we have to know not to be nags. I don’t mean that we should be annoying. But we can’t think that because we told them something once, they know it. It has to be said enough times, in a way that isn’t annoying to them, until it becomes an integral part of their being. We need spontaneous responses in our minds that have been implanted. The problem is that the way we’re made psychologically, we do have spontaneous responses that come out automatically, but they’re usually negative: “I’m not as good. I’ll never measure up. I’m never going to be as good as them.” These thoughts come into our heads.
Could someone bring the man by his head? I think that’s what he’s asking for. Okay, thank you. If not, just leave it in the hallway anyway.
There are false beliefs in our heads from very early stages in life, and those false beliefs really create who we are. The false belief might be, “Nobody really likes me.” If we could figure out our children’s false beliefs—“I have to be perfect or I’m no good,” or “Mommy will only love me if I’m always good”—and work on correcting them, we could tell them, “I love you just the way you are. You’re important to me, and you’re special to me. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t get a perfect score. That’s not what I’m looking at. I’m looking at the person. Only Hashem is perfect.”
We can do whatever we can to give them enough real, positive feelings about themselves and who they are, so they don’t have those false beliefs and expectations they can’t live up to: always being perfect, or measuring up to siblings who might have been born, God bless them, brighter, prettier, or more athletic, whatever it was, and they can’t match up to that. We have to tune in to their individuality and to how much Hashem loves them. Everything about them was created in them because Hashem put it there, and it’s there for a purpose, a reason, and a strength. Anything can be used for good. Even what they call their deficiencies and weaknesses is part of who Hashem wants them to be.
We’ve discussed this concept before. The child who is too wild is going to have energy to do mitzvot (commandments). And the child who will never go to sleep—Baruch Hashem—we say, “I hope that when he’s older, he doesn’t need sleep.” Don’t we pray that we shouldn’t need sleep, so we could stay up and keep working and accomplishing? Tell them that right now, sleep is important because you grow when you sleep. I find that when they’re little, they like that: “You only grow when you sleep. If you don’t sleep, you’re not going to grow.” They want to get bigger. “You want to get bigger? You grow when you sleep.” But when you get older, I hope you still have that energy. I hope you still have that… Show them a good side to everything we call a negative. Make them feel that there’s a positive in everything they are.
A parent should not compare one child to another. Whatever we need to tell them to do, say it without a comparison. Not, “Why can’t you get up and get dressed like your sister does in the morning?” Instead, “Please, honey, I need you to get up and get dressed. It’s very hard in the morning; it’s busy in the morning.” Leave out the comparison. Don’t say it. I would worry about the competition there.
My grandsons, God bless them, are nine and eight and a half, and they’re in the same class learning Mishnayot by heart. I hear them saying their Mishnayot all the time. One of the things they learn is that the Korbanot (offerings)—and I’m going to say it wrong, and I have to ask my grandsons how to say it—the Kohanim (priests) used to have a practice where whoever got there first would get to do a certain Korban, until they were hurting each other trying to get there first. Then they stopped that whole practice and used a goral (lottery system). I could be a little wrong about it, but it was something like that. The Kohanim were eager to be first to do the mitzvah, but they were hurting themselves and getting broken bones in the process, so they had to stop the practice and use a goral, with a lottery system instead.
When we encourage children to see who will be there first, I don’t know that that’s so great, although we do it and say it. It’s better to clock them against themselves: “Look how much time it took. Can you do it in this amount of time? Can you do it in less time?” Each one on their own. It’s hard to do, but I feel that competition between them is also something we shouldn’t encourage. It might promote sibling rivalry.
Someone asked, “What about asking the older child to help the younger?” Asking and demanding are two different things. Ask the older one to help the younger if they will, and the younger one to help the older one. Also, tell the older one… if they didn’t say, “I don’t want your sister, I love you.” Was that a sarcastic comment? Whatever. I thought you meant it for real. But sarcasm is not a good way to deal with our children. It’s insulting, and then they resent it. It’s not a good way. We should be straight with them. “I need you to finish. It’s important to me that you do.” If he needs incentives or reminders to help him, try to be straight. Try not to be sarcastic. They’re not going to like sarcasm, and they’re going to learn to do it, too. Then they’re going to do it to their wife, and their wife isn’t going to like it. We have to be careful that we’re not giving them the wrong learning experiences, so that they do that to other people. It’s insulting.
We might tell a child who is more compliant that the child did something wonderfully, “not like so-and-so,” with quotation marks around the word “good,” who drives me crazy. Or we might tell one child in front of the other, “Your sister sets the table so nicely. She always has everything the way I want it.” Is it okay to compliment one child without talking about the other? Just say, “I love the way you got dressed so quickly.” And the other one, just, you know.
I’m going to answer this question, but you have to understand what I’m saying. It depends on the thought in your mind when you say it. If you say, “I love the way you got dressed,” without comparing, are you saying it as a compliment to the child who got dressed nicely, and the other child happens to be there and hear it? Or are you saying it because you want to give the other child credit? It’s not an easy answer, because there’s a lot going on. Sometimes we say, “Oh, honey, you got dressed so nicely,” on purpose, so the other child will hear it. They hear that manipulation, and they hear the put-down. That’s not a good comparison. Even if I say it matter-of-factly, “Oh, you did that so nicely,” and I didn’t mean it that way, they hear my meaning and my intention. I can’t be as subtle as I think I am. We say, “What? I didn’t say anything.” Baloney. They heard it. They were in your brain; they heard it. They know. If you’re sincere, and it just happens that you said it while she was there, and you didn’t mean for her to hear it, that’s okay. But when we say it on purpose so she’ll hear it and learn from it, that’s a put-down. It’s the same comment, but they hear the difference.
Someone said, “Every kid has different needs. You might have a child who has a very hard time getting dressed, and the other one doesn’t. So when she gets dressed, I’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh, you got dressed all by yourself.’”
Right. But sometimes the other one will be like, “But it’s not funny.” You’re acknowledging that each child has different needs, and when they do something that’s harder for them, you acknowledge it, but then the other one wants to be acknowledged, too. So we have to make sure we praise each child enough. There’s almost not enough.
Someone asked, “Is it okay to include my older daughter, Leah, and say, ‘Aren’t we proud of you, proud of Rochelle? She took a shower all by herself. Isn’t that great?’ Does that make it worse?”
Let me give you an example of how we can put ourselves in that situation. If your mother tells you, “Wasn’t it great how so-and-so helped me get ready for the party? She came early and helped me. She was so nice.” Your sister. How do you feel? Not good, right? Not at all. You’d rather she just slap you in the face and get it over with. “Next time I’ll come early, Ma. I’m sorry, I was busy with the kids. I tried.” Your mother said nice things about your sister.
Someone said, “Sometimes that hurts more. I feel like if you include them, they might say, ‘Yeah, we’re so proud of you,’ and then she’ll say, ‘I’m so proud of you. You did it all by yourself.’”
But the reality is, when we turn it around, we understand the meaning: “It would be nice if you did that, too.” If I tell Melanie, “It was so nice that Rachel called me when she was in the store and asked if I needed anything,” Melanie feels bad: “I was in the store and I didn’t call Mommy.” If I want that to be my message, I can say directly, “You know something, honey? I’m very busy. Whenever you’re in the store, give me a call. You have your cell phone; give me a call. Find out if I need anything.” If I want to ask her to do me a favor when she’s in the store, I should say it, if she remembers. Why do I have to say, “Rachel called me from the store”?
Someone said, “I don’t really apply that to close-age kids. I’m sorry, because I have a big daughter and a little one. I don’t think she would be jealous of three.”
“Oh, she’s 17, right? Then we do do that, right? I got some other… Did you see what he did today?” Or, “His mom said he was so good. I don’t think she would be jealous of that.”
That’s okay, as long as you also compliment your older daughter. Even though she isn’t jealous and thinking, “I want Mommy to say, ‘Look how good I got dressed,’” because she’s 21 years old, at that point Mommy comes to her and says, “Honey, did I dress okay? Can I go out?” But she might still feel, “It’s so nice to be complimented. I wish I were complimented.” Not on that level, but she still wants it, too. Even with that big age difference, she may still want those compliments.
Someone said, “But she reacts so nicely when I tell her that. She goes over and gives him a hug. She’s like the second mother.”
Don’t be so sure that she still doesn’t feel a little bit of jealousy for the warmth and attention that she could use on her own age level. So give it to her, too. You can do it as long as you balance it. Children who are closer in age—we should try not to do it at all. That’s how I feel. I ask myself, “How do I feel when somebody tells me that?” We get that little twist inside: it feels like a put-down. It’s a put-down.
Another time, my daughter was picked, and there was a convention in Cleveland. She was one of the girls in it. “Since it goes over there,” I went on telling the family. She asked, “Why are you telling them that? Are you embarrassing me?” I told her, “Aren’t you proud? I’m so proud of you.” She said, “Stop embarrassing me.” I don’t know; maybe I shouldn’t tell them. Everything a mother does embarrasses a teenage girl. Everything. So respect her feelings and tone it down a little. I’m not saying never say anything at all. The first couple of times, she was impressed by your encouragement; by the 14th time, she was saying, “Enough already.” I would ask, “Do you mind if I tell people?” If she says no, just keep it quiet.
One of my daughters used to sew, Baruch Hashem. Thank you Hashem, she doesn’t have time to sew anymore. When she was single, she made beautiful clothes. She’d kill me for even saying it. I’m not saying which one, but everybody’s going to know, so she’s going to kill me anyway. She’d make herself a suit that was stunning, perfect, and gorgeous. She’d say, “Mommy, if you tell anybody that I made this, I’m never wearing it. I’ll never wear it.” I had to respect that. I was so proud, because I don’t even sew on a button. If a button falls off, I say, “Min haShamayim (from Heaven), Hashem doesn’t want me to wear the shirt anymore. That’s it. It’s over.” And she’d say, “But Mommy, I will not wear it if you tell anyone that I made it.” That’s it. That’s her, and I have to respect that. We love them and we’re present, so tell her, “I’m very proud of you, and I won’t tell anybody because I respect that this is how you want me to handle it. But I want you to know that if you let me, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops.”
Someone said, “How come you didn’t tell me?”
That’s my grandma. Right. How come you didn’t tell me? So you tell them, “You know something? Don’t bring it up to her. She’s shy about it.” Those are the people you have to tell.
Someone said, “Sometimes they just say it and don’t mean it. They really expect you to tell everybody, and they feel good about it, but they just tell you, ‘Don’t tell anybody.’ She gets embarrassed.”
My daughter meant it. I knew. I knew she meant it, and I have to respect that. I’ll tell her how proud I am of her, and that if she let me, I would tell people, but I won’t because she doesn’t want me to. I respect her feelings.
Comparisons are something we have to be careful with. They can be hurtful. What do we do when the children are comparing themselves with each other, and we’re not involved? They say, “She’s better than me. He’s better at it than me. He was picked, and I wasn’t,” or whatever it is in the family. Try to tell them, “What does that have to do with who you are? What does that have to do with who Hashem wants you to be? What does one person have to do with the other?” You might say, “I don’t even understand the connection. What are you bringing these two things together for? It doesn’t make any sense.” Bring them back to themselves: “Honey, that has nothing to do with you. Hashem doesn’t want you to be him. Hashem wants you to be you. You can’t worry about what other people are doing. If you want to do better, do better. If you want to achieve more, achieve more. But it has nothing to do with anybody else. You can’t be that other person, and you’ll never be anybody else but you, because that’s who Hashem wants you to be.” Try to focus them back on themselves.
Will comparisons happen? Yes. Will we mess up and say them sometimes anyway? Yes. But we have to try very hard to minimize them and help our children focus on being the best they can be. For each person, being the best they can be is their perfection. I’ve told this story many times, and I don’t even know if I told it in this class, in this session. I know I didn’t tell it today, but it has such an impact on me that I don’t mind saying it again.
There was a disabled student learning in a yeshiva who wasn’t getting anywhere. Every time he learned a page of Gemara, he had to learn it over and over again. He was an orphan; everything was against him. He was very, very, very depressed, and he tried to commit suicide in the dorm. The rabbi found him. They saved him and revived him. He was so distraught, and he said, “I’m nothing, I’ll never be anything, and I don’t want to live.” That’s how he felt.
The rabbi of the yeshiva took him to a Gadol HaDor (greatest of the generation), though I don’t remember which one. He said, “Let’s get a Beracha (blessing), or let’s let the rabbi help you. Let’s get advice from the rabbi.” The rabbi of the yeshiva and the young boy went to this Gadol HaDor. They walked into the room, where the rabbi was in the corner at his table and the whole room was filled with people waiting their turn to speak to him. When the rabbi saw the young student come in, he stopped what he was doing and told everybody in the room, “Leave, except for that young man. I want to talk to him.” Everybody walked out. The young boy came up, and neither the rabbi nor the young boy said a word to the rabbi. They hadn’t told him what the problem was.
The rabbi said, “I have to know who you are.” He told the young boy, “Do you know what happens in Shamayim (Heaven) when you learn your Gemara? The angels are told to stop singing so that Hashem could concentrate on your words of Gemara. Who are you?” The Gadol HaDor said, “Who are you? I have to know who you are.” The rabbi told him, “We’re here because he wanted to give up his life. He felt he was no good, that he was nobody. He tries to learn, but he gets nowhere. He learns the same page over and over again.” The Gadol HaDor said to him, “I wish I had your portion in olam haba (the World to Come).”
It’s the truth. It’s not a story or a parable; it’s a true story. The rabbi I heard speaking about it—I think it was Rabbi Tauber—said, “I know this young man. He’s still learning in yeshiva. I know him.” It’s a real-life story, and this is the truth. We can’t judge by somebody else. We don’t know. Hashem wants him to work as best he can, according to his abilities and weaknesses, and according to who Hashem made him to be. He is the greatest thing in Shamayim. We don’t know that. We have to tell stories to our children so they can understand that being the best they can be is the highest level. They’ll never be able to compare it to anybody else, because that’s not the system. The system is that each person is an individual, and when they strive to be their best, they are the best. They are the best, each one individually, not compared with anybody else.
Now, acknowledging negative feelings about a sibling. That’s on page three. What does that mean? When one sibling says something negative, like, “I don’t like him. I hate him.” It really bothers us. I’m going to use the word “hate.” The child says, “I hate him.” Right away, you want to say, “You’re not allowed to talk like that,” or, “You don’t hate him; you love him.” But that wouldn’t be the right response. We should acknowledge the feeling but change it into something acceptable. What did we say before? Does he really hate his brother? No. Is he angry at his brother? Yes. Is he frustrated by what’s going on? Yes. The mother has to interpret. It’s two different languages. You’re the interpreter. The child speaks in their language, and you interpret it and feed it back. He says, “I hate him.” You say, “Wow, he really gets you angry. What happened?” Don’t tell him, “Don’t feel that way.” He feels that way. Does he hate him? No. He says, “I hate him,” but he doesn’t hate him. He loves him. In a minute, they’ll be hugging; in a minute, they’ll be together again. We hope so. Or in a year.
Someone asked, “After you say, ‘I know you’re really angry at him,’ could you say, ‘But we don’t use those words’?”
I think that if you redirect his statement in your own words and say, “Wow, he really makes you angry,” that would be better at the heat of the moment. At other times, when you’re not in the moment, you can discuss better ways to say something. People are very defensive when they’re in the moment. When the child is upset and you tell him, “It’s not nice to say the word ‘hate,’” he gets defensive: “Don’t tell me what to do. I do hate him.” He’s going to dig his heels in even more because he’s angry. Don’t talk to him or reason with him when he’s angry. At that point, just redirect his statement. Don’t say, “Don’t say you hate him.” Say, “I’m angry at him.” You tell him, “Wow, he really gets you angry. What happened?” Then he hears “angry” and thinks, “Yeah, I am angry.” He hears it. You don’t have to tell him.
You can teach him as general knowledge at another time. Sometimes I might say something by accident. Maybe I’ll say, “I hate when that happens,” and then I’ll say, “You know something? I shouldn’t say, ‘I hate when that happens.’ I really should have said, ‘It’s so frustrating when someone takes my parking spot.’” We make mistakes all the time. We tell them, “Don’t say the word ‘stupid,’” and then we say, “Oh, you’re so stupid.” I mean, right? So when you make a mistake, use it as a lesson. They love to correct Mommy. That’s okay. If I hear myself say, “I hate when that happens,” I can correct myself: “No, it’s really frustrating. I should have said it was really frustrating when that happens. I really shouldn’t say, ‘I hate when that happens.’”
My grandchildren are three years old, and they come and say that the Morah (teacher) told them they’re not allowed to say they hate broccoli. They have to say, “It’s not to my taste.” They’re teeny little things. You ask, “Oh, honey, would you like some broccoli?” and they say, “No, Grandma, it’s not to my taste.” They learn it in school. When they learn it in school, they aren’t defensive about it. It’s something they learned, and it isn’t in the heat of the moment. In the heat of the moment, we’re just going to redirect their statement into what we think they’re talking about.
“You’re always with the baby. You never spend time with me. You’re always with the baby.” How do you redirect that into a reality statement? Are you always with the baby? No. Do you never spend time with the older one? No. What is the child saying? “You really would like Mommy to spend more time with you.” “I wish the baby—I wish you’d give her away.” I remember people who had a nurse saying, when the nurse was leaving, “You forgot your baby. Take the baby with you. That’s your baby.” “You forgot the baby. Where are you going?” The child says, “Get rid of her.” It doesn’t mean “Get rid of her.” It means, “Take care of me. I need more attention. I need more time.” You’re giving them plenty of attention—I know you are, you all are—but they feel it’s not enough.
Acknowledge their feelings. I’m not saying you have to do more, because you’re probably doing as much as you possibly can. If you can do more, you’ll do more. But just acknowledge their feelings. Don’t say, “Don’t say you hate the baby. You love her.” If she says, “I hate the baby,” say, “It would be nice to be just you and me, right? Maybe someday we’ll get Daddy to babysit and we’ll go…” if you trust Daddy to babysit. I don’t know; everybody’s husband is different. But acknowledge their feelings. Don’t be afraid of negative feelings. Interpret them in a more acceptable way, but allow the children to have them. When we try to stifle or deny negative feelings, we intensify them because the children have to prove to you that they’re right and that they own those feelings. If we accept their negative feelings, they dissipate. It gets a little lighter when we accept them. Then the feelings will come down.
I remember fighting like cats and dogs in my house with my sisters and brother. We can’t love each other more now than we do. It was part of growing up, and the basis of our relationship was love. At that moment, when my sister was chasing me around the dining room table to hit me, you couldn’t tell me that I loved her. But anybody who knows my sisters and me knows that we’re constantly together and love each other very, very much, and my brother as well. Don’t be afraid of the negative comments. Work on the atmosphere in the home. It has to be loving, and your role is not to get into it. If you get involved and start yelling at them about what they can and can’t say, and your tone becomes angry, then you’re at each other’s throats and it becomes a battle of wills. That’s tension in the house, and we have to get rid of that tension.
They’re going to have negative feelings. You have to tone down your own feelings and calm yourself. I understand that it’s hard. It’s frustrating when he breaks your things every time you’re trying to do something—when you’re building and he’s breaking it. We have to decide where to put you and where to put him, and work out together what to do. Don’t be afraid of the negative feelings. Understand how they’re feeling. Empathize. Redirect their comments in a way that interprets what you think they really mean.
Giving them in fantasy what they don’t have in reality: sometimes a child says, “You never give me attention. You’re never with me. You never do anything with me. It’s always the baby. It’s never me.” You’re thinking, “He wants more attention. Is it possible for me to give him more? Maybe it isn’t possible. Maybe I’m already giving him so much attention, but no matter how much I give him, he always says it’s not enough.” If it’s a young child, you can be creative. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you and I went on a trip together, just you and me, to Disney World? Could you imagine you and me on an island somewhere, and nobody else could bother us?” Play with it a little: “Wow, could you imagine if we ate candy all day?” I’d get sick, but okay. Empathize with it. If you can’t give it to them in reality, say, “Yeah, wouldn’t it be nice? Could you imagine what it would be like if we had a whole day to spend together with nothing else to do? It’d be nice. Maybe we could do it one day, or maybe we can do part of it, or find something about it that we could do.” At least you’re acknowledging their feelings and taking it further. You’re saying, “You know something? We wish we could. It would be nice, but we don’t know if it could happen.” We’re going to try that.
Sometimes we’re able to channel hostile feelings. When a child is not just hostile but in a very fierce mood, you want to calm them down. It isn’t always right to try to calm a child by making them sit and be controlled. You might say, “Read a book,” but the child is bouncing off the walls. Instead, channel that energy in a way that’s allowed.
One of my girls was very, very upset at one point. I used to tell her to rip up a magazine. You get plenty of them in the mail—the catalogs and everything that come through the mail slot. She was frustrated and wanted to be destructive. I told her, “Rip it up into a million pieces. A million pieces.” She said, “Really?” I said, “A million pieces. Rip it up.” She really enjoyed it. She got her frustrations out on that magazine. There were times when I did jumping jacks or exercise-type things to let out my frustration.
When children need to get it out, telling them to be calm doesn’t always help. Sometimes you have to let them get that energy out by running around the block. If you can put sneakers on your child, dress them properly, and take them for a jog around the block, they’ll come back a different person.
Someone said, “Rebbi (teacher) does that for my son every day. He’s very antsy. He takes him up to the roof. He tells me he doesn’t know where my son gets his energy. For four minutes, he runs, runs, runs, and he comes back, and that’s it.”
That’s a great Rebbi. And almost every day! My son tells me, “He went upstairs twice.” That’s a great Rebbi. That’s not ordinary. I hope he’s running with him; he’ll get his exercise. But that’s the way to go. Let them get it out. I told you my daughter was getting a trampoline. They have to get it out. You can’t stifle it or trap it. You have to release it in an acceptable way. “You have to calm down, and then we can start again. Once you’re calm, I can talk to you. Once you’re calm, we can start homework again,” or whatever it was. You can go out of the room. You have to calm yourself down, and then I say, “Okay, you’re calm,” and it starts all over again, perfectly, like nothing happened before. You can tell her, “When you’re calm, we’ll start again,” as long as you’re not demanding that she be calm right now. You’re letting her work it out until she’s calm. You might not have had a better option than to let her, so it might have been the right choice. We have to know where we’re going to win and where we’re going to lose. But if we can channel it into something, that would be better.
Even if you say, “Go down to the basement and throw anything you want there,” that’s not a problem—but not my new dining room chair. Not a problem, depending on the age of the child. When you’re talking about holding them down, holding their hands, or stopping them from kicking and screaming, it depends on their age. You could do that only with a very young child. Even then, I would use loving words at the same time, quietly saying: “I love you, honey. You will be calm. It’s okay. Things are going to be okay,” while I’m holding them. You’d have to be careful with that.
Once they’re old enough—which happens pretty quickly—I’m trying to think, because there isn’t a perfect answer. I’m imagining my grandchildren and who would tolerate it and who wouldn’t. I think it might have been four or five already that it's, you know, I have, God bless, a five-year-old granddaughter that don't even try it. Don't even try it. But you have to know your customer. Some of them want to be restrained; some will appreciate that you’re holding them. If you can make it more like a hug, even though it’s a pretty confining hug, it might be peaceful.
Someone said, “Right, right. It is hard.”
What makes it doable is training your mind to think, “The child is really hurting. He’s really upset. He doesn’t know how to deal with this. I have to help him deal with it. I love him. I want to take care of him. I want to nurture him. He’s feeling emotional pain at that moment.” If it were physical pain, you would hug him. This is emotional pain, and they’re kicking and lashing out. It’s something we have to feel for them. Feel their pain.
Someone asked, “Do they have to clean up whatever they destroyed after they’ve calmed down?”
Good question. Do they have to clean up whatever they destroyed? A magazine is in a million pieces, or the pillows and toys are thrown everywhere. Now what? I’m not going to answer quickly, because life isn’t simple and I don’t claim to have the answers. I don’t remember how we handled the magazine. I’m sure that once this child calmed down, she wouldn’t have been so worried about picking it up. I would be careful that I only allow what I myself can tolerate. If it’s going to destroy me afterward and create a new problem of cleaning up, then I may not be able to tolerate it, and I may have to do it a different way.
Someone said, “But if you have them clean up afterward, when they’re calm—say, 20 minutes or half an hour later—isn’t it better? You’re teaching them, ‘Listen, I’m frustrated and angry, but I also have to be responsible for my feelings. However I take it out, that’s fine, but I have to be responsible for the way I let it out.’”
Right. You’re right, and in an ideal situation that’s the best thing: they clean up afterward to show that they’re responsible. It also makes them feel vindicated, because they did something good to compensate for the bad, and that’s a good feeling. I just don’t want to start another conflict. I don’t want to say, “Now you have to go downstairs and clean the basement,” and have the child refuse, so we get into that cycle all over again. I agree with you, but I’m reserved and wondering at what point they can do it. Maybe I have to try it and then say, “Let’s clean it up together,” to show that I’m in it with them and want to help. I just want to be careful. I agree that it’s good for them to be responsible for what they did and to clean it up, but I don’t want to make it into a new conflict.
Someone asked, “Eventually, when they get old enough, you can’t always do these destructive things to get your frustration out. Even now, sometimes in the dark you can go into another room and scream, but you can’t always do that. At what point do you say, ‘Okay, listen, there has to be a different way to get the frustration out’?”
It’s called maturing and getting older. I very often point out to my little grandchildren, when they’re behaving a certain way, “Do you ever see grown-ups do that?” They say no. “So don’t worry, honey, you’re not going to do it either when you get older.” It’s part of growing up. You’re going to grow out of it. Don’t make them afraid that they’ll be like this all their lives. He took something that didn’t belong to him, and he shouldn’t think that I’m going to end up in jail one day because I’m going to steal things from the store. “You’re not going to steal anything. You’re going to grow up like everybody else.” “Do you know anybody in jail?” We don’t do that. It’s part of growing up, so don’t be so concerned.
It’s normal. When a child is kicking on the floor, you can say, “Do you ever see any grown-ups kicking on the floor like that? You’re going to get older, and you’re not going to do that anymore.” Do we do that? We get frustrated, but I don’t slam things or throw down chairs. That’s just not behavior that… It’s much better, yes, and she’ll get better and better. But to a certain degree, it’s part of maturing. We shouldn’t be so worried that they’re always going to do that. I don’t have the desire to rip up a magazine. I don’t need to do that.
Someone said, “When they calm down, you want to ask them why they’re so upset. She doesn’t answer. She just cries and looks at me like, ‘Leave me alone.’ It’s very hard. You feel bad.”
With teenagers, all you can say is, “I’m here for you. I care about you. I love you. If you want to talk, come to me.” If they don’t want to talk, they’re not going to talk, and you’re just going to annoy them. But you want them to know, “I’m here for you. I’ll listen. I love you.” If they come and talk to you, don’t be judgmental. Don’t tell them what they did wrong. Just hear them out with sympathy and love, or they’ll never come back again. You want them to talk to you.
Someone asked, “What about my nine-year-old son? Everything frustrates him. It’s been the last few months. I sat with him once, very calmly, and said, ‘Nothing is your fault. You’re not upset. If one of us bothers you, please let us know.’ He doesn’t say anything, but it’s not bothering him. He’s so frustrated about everything, between his schoolwork and anything I ask him to do. Everything frustrates him, and I don’t know. Something must be bothering him.”
With the philosophical mind I have right now, with my psychology classes, I would think that he has messages. This is a construction. The messages he’s telling himself are what I mentioned in the beginning: the false messages, the false feelings in his mind that he isn’t good enough, that he doesn’t measure up to what he should be, that he isn’t as good as the people around him, or that if he isn’t perfect, he’s never good enough. Whatever those messages are, he doesn’t want to tell you. But you can say, from your own point of view, “You know, sometimes I hear myself thinking…” Let him think you’re crazy; it’s okay. They always think we’re crazy anyway. You might say, “Sometimes I think that if I don’t get everything done exactly on time, when everybody comes home from school, then I’m the worst mother there is. And you know something, so if you have to wait 10 minutes for dinner, I'm so good mother.” Tell the child about it from your point of view, not theirs, so they can learn there’s a different way to think about things.
I used to feel that if somebody walked into my house and everything wasn’t perfect, perfect, perfect, I was a failure. I’d think, “Oh my gosh, they’re going to see the magazine on the table.” But you know something? There’s something on the table. If I express this about myself, I’m teaching them something. They’ll catch on by themselves that I don’t have to be perfect either. Life still goes on when we make mistakes. Instead of preaching to them, live it yourself, but express it to them so they can learn from you.
At first I thought it was the worst thing in the world when our vacation got cancelled, because I’d been looking forward to it. But you know something? I’m a big girl. I can handle it. Maybe it’ll happen another time. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for us. Express things about yourself. Teach through your own example, but don’t make it sound like you’re telling them what to do. They learn from you and from the things you say. Unfortunately, we’re usually telling them things that reinforce their false beliefs. We say, “Why can’t you do better?” and “How come you didn’t do more?” Sometimes we encourage them to think, “I’d better be good. I’d better be perfect,” or we say those things about ourselves. Help them calm those inner feelings so they feel more relaxed and better about themselves.
Someone asked, “After two months of study, I can’t do it. My own daughter was like this, so I can’t do it again. As long as you try to study, it’s fine. Would that be okay to tell a child like that?”
Yes, but make sure you get him a tutor.
“We’ll work on that.”
Make sure you get him a tutor, and make sure you give him the right study conditions, the ones that will be conducive to him, and all the help he needs. Being behind in school is a terrible blow to self-esteem. It hurts very much. You have to encourage him and give him a lot of love, warmth, caring, empathy, and help. A lot of help. It’s hard, takes a lot of time and energy, and takes patience—a lot of patience. But it’s very important that we help them, because it’s a hard blow to self-esteem.
Someone said, “Right, yeah. With regard to that, I also have a son like that. Therapy and tutors and everything—guess who comes where they don’t want to do it anymore? They don’t want to…”
The younger, the better. The younger you start, the better.
“Yeah, since he was two, and now he’s six, and they’ll tell me…”
And then they— “They’ll tell me, ‘I don’t need the therapist, you need the therapist.’ Yeah. And I’m not joking.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re going through it again with the O.T. and all this stuff. ‘I don’t need it, I don’t need it.’ But you do as much as you can, too. It’s also enough to know…”
Absolutely, it has to be.
“She complains every time. She’s about five years old, and she says to the provider, ‘Oh, she really cried. I’m not going, I’m not going.’ I didn’t know. He doesn’t have that; he’ll get it, but she went through it, and she’s fine. He’s very nice, but she was young when she started. It was the first year of breathing learning. It’s hard. She gave it very hard to them.”
Try to give them options. Ask, “Who would you like to work with? Is there somebody else you like being with?” If the provider isn’t someone he likes working with, but there’s somebody else who could help him with homework, someone he’s happy with, try to get some of his input. “Would it make it easier for you to work with the therapist if we went for ice cream afterward?” Try to… It’s hard. It is hard for the child, and it’s very hard for him. He feels very, very, very bad, so try to do whatever you can to help him through it and help him feel better about himself.
Does not touch only good things. The book is there to sign in. Thank you.