Welcome to the parenting class. B'ezrat Hashem, we're going to continue. Please Hashem, this should be an ongoing, lifelong learning process of becoming a better parent as you grow older, your children grow older, you marry them off, and you have grandchildren. Being a parent is something you always want to do as well as you can, and you want to raise your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
My mother, when she lived to be 120, was the greatest with the kids. She comes and sings to them, reads to them, talks to them, and makes time for them—and those are her great-grandchildren. So please Hashem, B'ezrat Hashem, many more and good things. Don't think that parenting is something you do while the kids are young, and then you're off and done. It's really a forever thing. So Hashem, please grant us the ability and the love to do what we have to do in the best way possible.
We're going over these points, and really, they're just headings for so much to say and so much to learn. I think we would be up to about .6. What do you say? Somewhere? .6 says, “Give their thoughts, needs, and feelings consideration.” What's the balance of being a good parent? Am I the leader, or is it a democracy? Is it a dictatorship or a democracy? A dictatorship is, “I make the rules; you listen.” A democracy is, “Let's discuss it together and come up with a plan.” What's the balance? What's the right way to be?
It's really something in between. I am the parent, and ultimately I make the rules. But I consider my children's opinions. I take their feelings into consideration, and when I can incorporate their ideas, I will. But I am the parent. I do know better, whether they'll try to tell me I don't or not. At whatever age, they'll think they know better. I think that from the age of four, they think they know better. But when they're teenagers and really growing up, they really think they know better. We are the parents, and we do know better. We have more experience, and we have the final say.
We have to be confident in our ability to be a parent. We have to be confident in our own judgment, but we also have to be able to hear them out. I think sometimes when a parent is too strict, they don't have confidence. I think it takes confidence to be more open-minded. I think it takes confidence and knowing who I am to be able to hear their point of view, too.
We're looking for something in between. If I don't know who I am, I'm going to go either way. I'm either going to be so strict that I don't want to hear anything from anybody, because I don't trust myself if they start questioning me, or I'm going to be so loose that I let them do what they want because I'm afraid I'm not strong enough as a parent.
Having the confidence and self-esteem we need is important in building our children and being a good parent. Trust yourself. Know that you are the parent. You are the one who has the experience. You are the one who has the knowledge. Feel comfortable in that role—comfortable enough to make decisions when necessary, and to leave it open for them to talk to you and explain their point of view when they want to.
Does anyone have a question? Is this clear? Yes?
“When do you say—or do you have to consider every single minute? I thought to myself, we were rushing out to school in the morning, and then my son decided he wanted hot chocolate. It's like, we have four minutes to get out the door. I said no, and then the whole day I felt guilty. I had to go to school. I need to find chocolate.”
Okay, confidence in being the parent. If there's four minutes to get out of the house and he decides he wants hot chocolate, it's not the proper time. I could have it for him when he comes home from school. I could show him that I cared about his feelings, but it still didn't make sense to do it with four minutes to get out the door.
Feeling guilty about it is misplaced guilt. Okay? But your guilt might be coming from someplace else. Maybe you felt—and I don't know you, and I'm not talking about you; I'm just saying, think in these terms—“My guilt at that point might be that I didn't wake up early enough, and therefore it's only four minutes to get out, and he wanted hot chocolate, and I wasn't prepared.” Not that I should give him hot chocolate with four minutes to get out the door, but maybe I'm also feeling that I didn't schedule my morning in a way that he could have asked me for hot chocolate when there were 20 minutes left. Because really feeling guilty about it at that point doesn't make any sense.
“Okay, so let's use the hot chocolate. If you give it to him, then you have to give it to a two-year-old and a baby, and they spill it all over the table, and there's a big mess of milk and chocolate all over the kitchen. You really want to walk out the door in 15 minutes, and you don't want chocolate everywhere.”
Yeah, good. Can you say, “No, I don't want to go out that door”? That's the balance. You took his feelings into consideration. Right. You assess the situation and decide as an adult that this is not the proper time for it. That's fine and good. You're going to say to the child, “I hear that you want hot chocolate, and I really want to give you what you want. Right now, it's not going to work for me, but it will work for us later. I'm going to do it when you come home. Remind me if I forget, or I'll put a note.”
I would even say, “You know, I'll put a Post-it note where I keep my Post-it notes: ‘Don't forget the hot chocolate.’” So the child sees that you're taking his thoughts and feelings into consideration seriously. Not just, “Okay, okay, okay,” but, “I took the time to write, ‘Don't forget hot chocolate.’” Boom, put it in the spot where I keep my notes, and he goes to school saying, “Mommy cares.”
Okay, so you are the adult. You have the right to make the decisions. My point is not that taking their thoughts and feelings into consideration means that we do what they want. We can't do what they want. We always have to do what we think is best. Sometimes it will be what they want, but sometimes it won't. We always take their thoughts and feelings into consideration. We should make them see that writing it down made him really know that you were taking his thoughts and feelings into consideration. Not that you gave it to him, but that you wrote it down. Okay? You made a note. You posted a note. That will also give him the feeling that Mommy cares, is watching, and is thinking about his needs.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking, “I have to do what he says because I want to take his feelings and thoughts into consideration.” You are the parent. You make the decision. That's the balance. Yes, you make the decision, but you show them that you care and are listening.
“I go off and spend time with each one of them, but they all want me to lie down in their bed until they all fall asleep. So my son—I give them each their time. My son even has a little extra time downstairs because of his homework. Then I go to each one, they say Shema, I stay with them for literally two minutes, and then that's it. I close the gate, whatever. Lately, he's been literally making himself cry because he thinks I don't care enough to stay with him the entire time. So now I feel guilty because I hear him crying downstairs. Like yesterday, he's roaming around until 9:30, quarter to 10. I explain to them, ‘You need to sleep behind me. In the morning, when there's a rush and you wake up, I know it's hard for you to fall asleep.’”
One of my daughters did something during—just during—these stages that they go through. It's not something you'll be doing for the rest of your life. There are stages that your children go through when they need a little bit of help. I remember once my daughter was going through sleeping issues and trying to get the children to stay in bed. What she did was plant herself in the hallway—not in any one particular room, but upstairs in the hallway—with a book or something she really wanted to work on or do. Look, she might have needed to be in the kitchen doing things, but at least she was doing something she wanted to do. She was in the hallway, close enough that they felt her presence, but she wasn't in any particular room. In her mind, this was her private time, too. So it was sort of a compromise between the two. For myself, I would probably be doing homework, but it would be in that spot.
I find that when the kids are by me, when the grandchildren are by me and I'm babysitting overnight, I can keep them in their beds even by being there in the hallway. Or I can say my Tehillim, like on a Friday night when they're sleeping over and I'm having trouble putting them to sleep. I could be saying Tehillim while doing something I need to do. If I'm not doing something I either need to do or want to do, it's going to frustrate me to no end. It's going to make me more and more nervous because I can't sit and waste time.
“But that's the time when my husband's home for that one hour before he goes to learn, so I can't physically be up there. So that's not the right time. And my baby sees me through the cracks of the crib, and he's going to cry. If I'm not there, he doesn't cry. I just feel like I tried to accommodate him, listened to what he had to say, and sympathized with him.”
Then make your decision. He's making himself cry. It's okay, but then make your decision. You also have to figure out—And then you don't walk anymore?
“I can't say that.”
I'm not going to tell you. I hope he's sleeping, but—No, I'm not going to tell you that, because it's something you're going to have to try to figure out: other options that might soothe him. He needs soothing. He needs comfort. He ruminates a lot. He thinks back over the whole day, what was going on. I would say a story tape. I would have something going on in his room to take his own thoughts away, to take his mind off what he's thinking about. Try to think of other options.
The idea of sitting out in the hallway works if it's not the only time your husband's home and he's not going to go for that. It works sometimes. It doesn't work all the time. But then think of other options. Think of some kind of compromise. If all else fails and he's pushing you to that and you can't do it then, tell him, “Daddy's home for an hour. I did. After an hour, I'll come up.”
“He was home yesterday. He tells me, ‘Daddy didn't go to work yesterday. You had the whole day for him, so you don't need private time.’”
Okay, but you do. You are the parent. You're allowed to say that this is the time. I remember when my children were little and they used to—not all of them, because some of them didn't want to come into my room in the middle of the night—but a couple of them wanted to come into my room in the middle of the night. I used to tell them there was a certain hour when they could come. After a certain time they were allowed to come, and before that they'd have to wait. They'd have to look at the clock; there was a clock in their room. You make some kind of compromise. I did let them into my room, but I wasn't going to have them in bed during the early hours of the night, when we were first going to bed. That's not when I want my children in the bed. After a while, after a certain amount of time, then maybe I'm okay with it.
It might work for you; it may not. I'm not saying to do what I do, but to find compromises that work for you. Try to think of his feelings and consider them, whether it's the tape, the music, him lying by his bed, or saying, “At 10 o'clock I'll come up. If you still haven't fallen asleep, I'll be with you. Just stay quietly in your bed.”
You might even want to give him an incentive to work toward that. You might say, “For every, let's say, 20 minutes that you're quiet in your bed and you don't cry and you don't come down”—and I don't know if 20 minutes is right for your son—“I'll give you 20 minutes afterward when Daddy goes back to learn,” or whatever. Make it an incentive for him to be quiet. Or else, for every certain amount of time that you're crying, I'm going to wait even longer. If you want me to come in earlier, then you have to be quiet.
“Can I also ask you, sometimes I feel like, you know, when you give the finger, they want the hand; when you give the hand, they want the arm?”
Right.
“Especially with him, I feel like I'm always listening to him and talking to him, and he's working hard to earn things. Fine, now his new thing for his store: he wanted what I thought was a calculator that had the tape.”
Right.
“So he worked very, very hard, and he waited very patiently. Then one day my husband took him to get it. Little did we know, he was talking about a credit card machine. So my husband brought an old one home, and of course he figured out that it's not working. And I feel like every time, like...”
You have to take control. You do have to take control. You have to know your children. You have to take control. Set down—“I worked really hard for it. This is what I really wanted.”
Okay, so you can't have everything that you really want. There are compromises. Give him choices. Give him a list: “These are the things we will accept. Pick one of these. If it's not good enough, then you'll have to wait until you're old enough to buy it on your own.” Be strong, but be giving. You have the balance. That's what I'm telling you. There's a balance. There's a balance. I'm telling you, there's a balance. We listen, we hear, we care, and then we make a sound decision based on being a parent. It's a balance. It's not one or the other. You can't let him control your life. You have to listen to him, care about him, try to help him, but still have the strength to be a parent. A parent makes decisions. A parent takes things into consideration and then decides: Is this right or wrong? Where should I draw the line?
You have to find that line.
Yes, he's going overboard. A young child shouldn't have a credit card machine. Yes, he's going overboard. Yes, you should feel, “I am the parent, and this is too much.” Yes, absolutely. But you can give him a choice of appropriate things he can have. Find the balance. I hear it, but that's what it is. You have to find the balance. You let him take control. You let him manipulate you. You have to get back to the balance of being the parent.
“Yes. My kids won't go to sleep unless I'm in bed with them, both of them. They are ages—”
“And I used to be in the bed with my son for half an hour. Now it's an hour, an hour and a half, sometimes longer, and he will not sleep. He'll get up. He'll cry. We tried the Ferber method when he was in his crib, at the age of 12 months, 14 months—crying, vomiting, standing up, sleeping. He just would never sleep alone, ever. So I guess my point is, at what age can I start to implement these tools and techniques? Right now, he won't stay in bed alone, and my daughter won't either, and she's only a year. We've taught them this because we never wanted them to cry. But now they're older, stronger, they cry louder, they just won't listen, and they can get out of bed or whatever. I just want suggestions. It basically takes up our night. My husband takes one child, I take the other, and sometimes you sleep with the babies or with one of the babies.”
Right, right, right, right. So it's definitely a problem. It's definitely very difficult. It's causing a lot of stress in the family, and they're babies. They're two babies, so points and charts aren't going to help a two-year-old.
“Right, and God willing, we're going to have more kids than, you know—”
“You ran out of adults.”
“No, so something has to change. Something has to change.”
What can you try? You can try music, tapes, and things like that. You could try leaving the light on, or try giving them—I don't know if it's bedtime toys or something they're allowed to use in bed or in the crib. I don't know. Just brainstorm different techniques and try different things. And yes, there will be a certain amount of crying time in order to break them of the habit. How much time? It's a hard thing. And you may not want my opinion because I'm a softy. You may need somebody who's a little bit stronger. I have a hard time with it. But yes, you do have to do that, and it's going to be hard. I know it's hard for me, and if you're in that position, it's going to be hard for you, too.
You're going to have to do that by making certain time slots, intervals when you will go back in and tell them, “It's okay, Mommy's here, but it's time to go to sleep,” and then walk out again and give them time again. Whether it's five-minute intervals or ten-minute intervals, try to build up the intervals until they can get to a better amount of time. It's hard, and they will grow out of it. B'ezrat Hashem, before you have more children, they'll grow out of it. But you'll also have to find that balance. We care about them. I worry about their fears. Sometimes they're manipulating us, and sometimes they just have tremendous fears. I worry about that because I don't want to ignore it. I want to be there for them. So there's a balance again: letting them cry, reassuring them, walking out again, and letting them cry ten minutes at a time, or whatever it is.
Okay, all right. So, giving their feelings consideration—that's where we were. Giving their thoughts, needs, and feelings consideration. Older children as well. We're going to listen to what they have to say. Ask their opinion. Find out what they're feeling. The baby's too young to say, “What's in your mind? What do you think about when you're in bed? What are the thoughts in your mind when you're in bed?” But with our older children, we have to try to talk to them and find out what's going on, what's happening, what they're thinking. Give it consideration. But what I'm saying is, you don't have to give in. It just means you have to take it into consideration and let them know you're doing that. Give them that understanding. Coming in during each interval is really showing them that you care, and then going back out again. Okay, so whatever stages our children are at, show them that we care, and then make the decision.
Preserve their dignity. That's something we have to remember and remind ourselves. Respect our children. I know they're supposed to respect us, but I find it's very, very important to respect our children and not embarrass them. Very often, I find that a parent will embarrass their children in ways they would never embarrass anybody else. We'll say things in front of other people with our children right there. We'll say something about them while they're sitting there. That's even a two-year-old or a three-year-old. If they're old enough to hear, “He was driving me crazy all day. He joked. He did this. He did that. He went whatever.” Whatever it is, put yourself in that place and ask, “If somebody were saying that about me in front of me, how would I feel?”
All right, let's say you're at a checkout counter in the supermarket, putting your things on the counter, and the cashier turns to the woman behind you in line and says, “Do you ever see someone so rude, how she puts her things on the counter, and she doesn't even say good morning, or she doesn't...” while you're standing there. Devastating. But we do similar things to our children. We'll talk about our child in front of somebody else and say, “You can't believe what he did to me in the place. You can't believe he dropped everything in the supermarket. He did this, he did that,” and the child is standing right there. We do that, and we don't realize that they're real people and have feelings. We have to preserve their dignity.
When we have to reprimand a child, it should be privately, not even in front of their siblings. We have to pull them aside and talk to them privately. We're not allowed to embarrass our children. It's Halacha (Jewish law). It's Halacha, like any other person in the world whom you're not allowed to embarrass. Your children fall under that same category. We're not allowed to talk Lashon Hara (evil speech) about our children. We're not allowed to hurt their feelings. Our children are people. When it says we can't talk Lashon Hara about people, our children are people. We are not allowed to talk Lashon Hara about our children, so there has to be a purpose. It should have a purpose. It shouldn't just be getting it off your chest.
The truth of the matter is, it's something I take seriously, because sometimes just wanting to talk about it can destroy my husband's feelings about his children. Sometimes, if he doesn't have the same relationship that I do with them and he's so happy with them, I don't know that I should break that down so much. I don't know that I should tell him everything. You want to tell your husband. You want to share with your husband. They're his children, too. You want help with disciplining, or advice on what to do—yes. But even then, there should be a purpose. I'm not saying I wouldn't tell my husband things about my children; I would. Let's be careful not to destroy his feelings or his opinion of the children when we don't have to.
“He wants to know, because he's not there with the kids, so everything is great information, even if it's not so positive. It's a yearning to know because they're your kids and you're not with them.”
You could tell your husband. You can't tell your husband? Okay, but I want us to keep in mind that just talking about the children to other people for the sake of talking, because it's fun to talk about our children, is not something we should do. As they get older, if they think you're talking about them to your sisters and friends and whoever you're with at the time, they resent it terribly, terribly, and it destroys the relationship. I also don't know how much they want to trust you. They want to have some trust, too, and to know, okay, who do they want you talking to? If someone sees them and says, “Your mother told me what happened the other day,” it's like, “Hello, Ma, what is that?” So there is an understanding of a certain trust.
Preserve their dignity. Respect them as human beings. Try not to embarrass them, insult them, or criticize them in front of people. Be careful how we criticize. Criticism is one of the worst things a parent can do to a child. One of the worst things we can do as a parent is criticize. When a parent feels they have to correct, that's different from criticizing. Correcting can be done in a positive way. Criticism is always negative. Correcting could be saying how I think you could have done it better. Criticizing is always pointing out what you did wrong. When you always point out to a child what they did wrong, you tear down their self-esteem. Leave them their dignity. Let them feel good about themselves, and treat them as human beings who deserve respect.
When we treat our children with respect, we really teach them how to treat others with respect. They will treat us with respect because we treat them with respect. We don't realize that if we don't treat our children with respect, they will not treat us with respect. Then we'll think, “Well, how dare they?” But we're talking not so nicely to them, and then they come back and talk not nicely to us, and we don't know where they got it from. They got it from us, from the way we're talking to them. We're saying, “Oh, be quiet, leave me alone,” and then when they answer us like that, we expect them to be super-duper idealistic and respectful no matter what we do to them. But they learn what they see, and they learn what they hear. If we're respectful, they're going to learn to be respectful, too. We have to treat them with respect—not manipulate them, but be people who treat people with respect.
Make the decision about what's right. You don't have to listen. You don't have to do what they say. Listen, care, maybe compromise somehow, but you're not necessarily doing what they want you to do.
“Is this when I say they want me to get their things? I'm getting my shoes, my phone, my mask, my stuff. You get it. That's the situation with my kids. I don't want to get their things. It's yours; go get it. It's your coin book, it's your...”
“Right, right. No, they're asking, like, is that when I tell them, ‘You get it’? I feel like if my kids tell me, ‘No, you get it,’ I'd be like, that's the situation.”
Right, okay. So maybe for Chinuch reasons—for teaching reasons, education wise—you might want to say it in a slightly nicer way. Okay, we're busy. God bless you. Please Hashem, keep you busy with having children and taking care of children. It's the most beautiful busyness in the world, but I understand. I'm not saying we're perfect human beings. But as we're talking about it and discussing it, maybe if I don't want them to come back to me and say, “Get it yourself,” I would say, “You know, honey, please, it's yours. Go get it.” Sometimes I could get it for them; sometimes I can't. You definitely have that right. It's not wrong to say. It's the correct thing to say. It's correct to teach them to get it themselves. If you want to say it a little more respectfully, then you're teaching them how to say it respectfully. Okay, that's all.
“My son told me, ‘But when I say please, when you say please, I listen to you, so could you please go get more stuff?’ Like, okay, okay.”
The truth of the matter is, if there's a reason, you don't have to say yes. But I want you to learn how to be strong. I want you to learn how to take care of yourself. I want you not to be lazy. I want to teach you how to, um—you know, it's funny because I don't know why this pops into my head. I'm saying how there are double standards, but I found a way to tell my grandchildren why I could have diet soda and they can't. So I told them because it has to make sense to them. I said, “Grown-ups drink this because they want to get smaller, and children want to get bigger. Do you want to get smaller, or do you want to get bigger?” I said, “Grandma wants to get smaller. Grandma doesn't grow tall anymore. Grandma is just going to grow this way. I don't want to grow anymore, so Grandma wants to get smaller. But you don't want to get smaller; you want to get bigger, so you can't drink this. This is going to make you smaller.”
I'm saying there's a difference between what I can do and what they can do. There's a difference between what I feel is right for me and what's right for them. You might be able to say, depending on how you say it and how old your child is, “You're at a stage of life where I want you to be independent. I want you to learn to do things for yourself. I want you to be strong. I don't want you to be weak. I want you to be strong. I want you to be the type of person who can do things for yourself and grow. I can do it for you. It's easy for me to do it for you. But that's not what's going to make you strong. I want you to be strong.”
My son is so proud of me. He said, “Mom, it's me.” After I tell him, “You could do your secret,” he's stretching his right arm. After he puts—“Oh, look what a big boy you are.” You praised him afterwards, which helped make the effort worthwhile. Show them that they really could do it. You can say, “Let me see how much of it you could do. Show me what you could do.” Get them started. Get them into it. Because there's a reason. There's a reason. “Yes, I'm teaching you to do things for yourself. I'm teaching you to be bigger. I'm teaching you to grow. I'm teaching you to be strong.”
“My son's two and a half now. When he comes home from school, we're in the house most of the time, just hanging out until it's time for bed, dinner, and sleep. Very often he says, ‘Mommy, can you come play with me? Mommy, can you come play with me?’ But it's like four hours of ‘Mommy can't come play with me.’ Is it hurtful to him as a patron for me to say, ‘Can you play with yourself while Mommy's resting, while Mommy's making dinner?’ Will it hurt him?”
No, no, but give him some time, which I'm sure you do. Okay? There's a compromise in that, too. I hear that he wants to be played with. He wants my interaction and my attention. But then rationally I'm going to figure out how much I can give, how much I should give, and how much I'm able to give. I take his thoughts and feelings into consideration, and I let him know that. “We're going to play this game later. Maybe tomorrow we'll do this thing together. We'll have this project set up.” It won't be as much as he wants whenever he wants, but you're taking it into consideration and telling him and showing him that. Sometimes we'll take out the game and say, “I'm putting it here because we're going to play with it tomorrow.” He can see it. It's a visual thing. He can see that you've thought of it, that you're going to do it, and that you're going to put it there. So no, you can't be with them as much as they want, because that would be 24-7. But then, when you do something—let's say you prepare that, and something comes up beyond your control and you can't—
Right, so be careful what you say. You have to say it in a way that leaves room for things to work out: “If it works out, and if I can, and if Hashem lets us, then that's what I'm planning to do. Let's see what happens.” Things don't always happen the way they're going to happen, and the child will be very disappointed and remember it for years and years and years. However, we're only human. They get disappointed; they also have to learn how to deal with disappointment. But we're not setting them up for that. We try to be very consistent with our words, but remember to say, “If everything goes well and Hashem works it out, then that's what I'm planning to do. Let's see what happens.” Say it that way, so you're not setting yourself up.
“A few weeks ago you said we're talking about competition, so it shouldn't be like, ‘Let's see how fast you can finish first.’ But if they ask, can you say, ‘Let's see how quickly you can put your own shoes on’? Wouldn't that create competition within themselves?”
Use your judgment. Use your judgment. The question is, I don't like to pit the children against each other in a competition over who can get dressed first, even though that might help you get them out on time. It can cause resentment and competition between the children, which is not healthy. But you can tell them, “Let's see in how many minutes”—I'm going to put the timer on, and when you're all done, tell me and I'm going to stop the timer. I'm going to see how long it took, to give them an incentive to work faster against themselves, as long as we're not making them neurotic. You have to balance it. That day when you see them start to shake, then you know you went too far.
“Yeah, they will. They will.”
Anyway, right, right, right. So what are you doing? They're creating their competition on their own. Try, very nonchalantly, not to punish and forbid them, but tell them that it's not the way we want to see things. Hashem doesn't judge like that. Hashem doesn't compare one person to another. Hashem judges every person according to their own self and their own ability. Really try to steer them toward that in a nonchalant way. It's natural for children to do that. They will do it, but we have to try to steer them away from it. At least we're not telling them to do that.
“Could you say hi? I don't think they really fall for that. I don't know. I don't think you can just say that you both won.”
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't really work. It doesn't really work. So it isn't something that works. I just try to get each person to do the best they can against themselves and not against anybody else.
“I must say, getting things: I always have to remind my son, ‘Pick up your pajama, put it in the hamper, your dirty clothes.’ Sometimes my husband forgets to pick it up, and it's thrown around. What do you say when they say, ‘But Daddy forgot,’ or, ‘Daddy didn't do it’? Daddy didn't do it, and he does everything that Daddy does or doesn't do. Obviously I don't make my husband look bad, and as much as I tell my husband in private, sometimes he just really doesn't—he's not trained in a sense. I'm trying to train them to be aware of these things. So how do you answer that?”
I don't know for sure, and I don't know if what I'm saying is right, but I would think, “Look, everybody makes mistakes, and we're still going to do the best we can. Each person has to do the best they can. People do make mistakes; even grown-ups make mistakes. But it doesn't mean we're not trying to do the best we can.” Let's say he's downstairs, and I'll say, “Hi, I need you to come upstairs. You forgot to put your pajamas in the hamper—”
“Only because I want him to realize it's something that—you can't have things thrown around. So he tells me, ‘What about Daddy? Call Daddy and remind Daddy to come pick it up.’ So Daddy's bigger than me. Daddy's bigger than me? Yes. Daddy's bigger than me. I'm not in charge of Daddy. I'm not in charge of Daddy. Daddy's bigger than me. That's all.”
All right. What? Okay, that's good. He can do it for Daddy, too. “Daddy's bigger than me. I'm not Daddy's son. Daddy's not my son.” And that's my Shalom Bayit (peace in the home) rule. My husband is not my son; he's my husband. I don't tell him what to do. I really don't tell him what to do, and he's not my child. If it's something that affects us in our relationship, then we'll discuss it as two adults. But he's not my child, and I don't tell him to put on his coat, button up, or do the things I would tell a child to do. He's not a child, and I would explain that to my children, too. He's not my child. You're my child. He's the daddy, the dad. When you're a daddy, do what you want to do, you know? But you're my child. He's not my child, all right? He's a daddy. There is a difference. We're not on the same keel. It's not the same relationship. There is a difference.
Okay, preserve their dignity, please. Let's treat them with respect. Let's not embarrass them. Let's treat them in a way that helps them feel good about themselves. Care about them—really care about them as human beings. Take their ideas and opinions seriously.
Basically, we talked about that already, and I don't think that—and if number nine is basically the same as that. The other way is to take their likes and dislikes seriously, even if you can't give in to them. That's an important point to highlight. We've said that. We've pointed that out. But I think it's important to know what their likes and dislikes are, to know your children and who likes what, and to take some time to ask them questions. “What's your favorite subject in school?” Or, “If you could spend an hour with anybody in history, who would you spend it with?” Obviously, I'm not talking to a three-year-old, but you can find out who they think is interesting in life. Or, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?” Sometimes have conversations with them so you can really find out what they like and don't like.
I know Rabbi Horowitz once had something on his tape where, when he would come in—specifically fathers, because mothers are basically with their children more than fathers, and fathers don't always know—he would sit down with the father and ask him, “What's his favorite soda? What's his favorite treat? What does he like to do when he's off? What does he do when he goes in his room?” A lot of the fathers wouldn't know any of the answers. Does he like orange soda? Does he like Hawaiian Punch? What does he like? A lot of the fathers just wouldn't know. He was showing them that they weren't talking to their children enough or finding out enough about what they like and don't like. And yet we have a situation where kids don't want to talk to us, don't want to tell us, and don't want to know. The earlier you start, the better. Care about what they like and don't like. Know, want to hear, and want to listen. Let them feel that you try to understand them, too.
In the same vein, try to think: Where is that coming from? Where is that feeling coming from? Where is that fear? What is that fear? What is that feeling of needing to be in control? Why does he feel he has to be grown up now? Try to understand how they feel. Maybe—maybe it's just me, but I feel it's very hard to be small. It's very hard to be young. I didn't find being a kid the happiest time of my life. I found that once I was married, I was much happier than I was single, even at young ages. I still prefer the challenges of life I've had since then to the feelings I had as a young kid. I think children go through a lot of pressure in life: to make friends, to feel adequate, to have self-esteem, and with their fears and feelings. I had that as a child, so I project it onto other children and think maybe they're feeling like that, too. I take that into consideration. That feeling of wanting to be his father—maybe he's feeling, you know, that it's so hard being small, so hard not being respected or not being able to do things. It could be something he needs help with to boost his feelings.
Yes, birth order very often has a lot to do with personality, with how they deal with things and how they see things. Try to take their feelings into consideration again. That doesn't mean you do what the child wants you to do. It just means you're trying to understand. Try to be empathetic and understand where the child might be coming from. If you understand them, then when you say yes—and that's it, yes—after trying to understand them, that understanding should bring you to a better way of dealing with them, because you took the time to understand what they're going through. There might be something you can do to alleviate that fear, that problem, or whatever they're going through.
“Sometimes you have it yourself. When I was little, I got lost when I was three years old. Ever since then, I was always afraid and always holding my brother's hand. Now my son is like that. He's very neurotic about, you know, don't go here, don't leave, grabbing them, making sure they don't go in the street. He's like that. How do you not relay those fears that you yourself have, the mood going up and down?”
We're only human, and the truth is we do give our fears over to our children. Why is my whole family afraid of dogs? There's not one of us who isn't. What are you going to do? Yes, if I can control myself and not give over those fears, it would probably be better. But we're only normal. We can only do the best we can. Keep it in mind, but don't expect that you're going to be perfect. It's a temperament. It's a temperament of a child—you have to—okay, all right, it's a temperament of a child. Each child has a different temperament. Some children love spontaneity, excitement, and change. All of that is thrilling to them. Some children can't handle anything that goes against the schedule. You have to know your child's temperament and deal with them according to the way they need to be dealt with.
So if a child needs a pattern or a system, work with that. Give him a schedule. Write things down. Do it in pictures if he's too young to understand words. Give him a sense of things in their proper order if that's what he needs in his life. Try to calm him. Life teaches them resilience. You're going to teach them to be calm.
“She's saying he's a nervous wreck. I'm worried. I don't want him to be a nervous wreck. I don't like that idea of being so nervous.”
Try to calm him in his life. The calmer you are—the more you bring calmness into the family—the more he'll calm down. Even if you're not that temperament, if you're not calm, you're triggering his own temperament and his way of being nervous. You have your way of being nervous; he has his way of being nervous. They're different ways, but the more calmness we can bring into the family, the more he'll calm down.
“I can't, because it's going to fall, and then it's going to make a puddle, and I'm going to flip, and it's not going to get in the sink. He's so nervous. But he makes up, like, the excuses I've never heard in my life.”
Right, okay, so tell him that we'll deal with each thing as it happens, and that you hear him. There is a possibility of that. Don't tell him—accept his opinion, okay? You could say it, but you could also tell him, “Yes, that could happen, but the truth is I'm okay with it if it happens.” But it's really his personality. It's not a sketch.
“Yeah, no, I think to assert—”
I don't know your child. I don't live with him. You live with him. But there is such a thing as being that personality, and there is such a thing as that temperament. At least it probably started from there. He might be playing it up, but it probably started, at least, with that temperament. I do believe children have different temperaments. I think they're born with those temperaments. If we think back, we could even see differences in our children from day one, literally from day one: who was calmer, who was more feisty, who was more nervous, and who didn't even notice. You have some kids you have to remember to feed. There are kids like that. You have to remember to feed them. There are different temperaments, and they're born with them.
All right, we work with it. We learn to balance it. We try to balance it. I would tell him, “Yes, it's possible, but I'm not worried about it. It's okay if it falls. We'll clean it. So what's the big deal? I still want you to put it into the sink.” So, yes, it might happen. It happens to me, too. I spill sometimes, too, but I still want it in the sink. Most of the time it doesn't happen. You'll try to make him feel calm about what he thinks might happen, so that even if it does happen, it's not so bad. We can handle it. We're not going to get nervous about it. Don't worry; just put it in the sink. We'll handle it. Don't say it can't happen or won't happen, and don't just say he's saying that because he doesn't want to put it in the sink—which maybe he is. But don't tell him that, because if he's not, he's going to resent it and remember it forever.
I always like to believe my child. Don't give in, but believe them. Believe them. “You're really worried like that? I hear you, but you know something? I'm okay if it spills. If it spills, we'll deal with it together.” Try to put it that way. You try to do your best. So let him eat as much as he wants, but don't give him junk food that will keep him from eating his food. Let him eat as much as he wants to eat. Not eating is not—no child starves to death, and they're not malnourished. They're not. They're not going to starve to death, and they're not malnourished. They'll all be fine. Don't worry about it. Feed him healthy foods. Don't let him eat junk all day. And if he says that if he eats too much he's going to get a stomachache, he might be right.
Let him eat as much as he wants to eat. The less I eat, the healthier I feel. I have problems when I eat more. So who knows? He might be telling you what's absolutely right for him. Children know themselves. Children know themselves.
“Maybe he's not a big eater. Maybe if he eats too much, he gets a stomachache. When you see different temperaments—let's say you have a child who really requires a lot of your time, energy, and effort, and another child who can be happy just doing things on their own—but sometimes you feel like you're not giving the child who can do things on their own enough time because the other one needs so much time.”
Right. That's it. You know it. You noticed it. You're going to give it some time. You're going to go over to that child sometimes.
“The child who's happy playing by themself?”
You're going to go over and say, “Oh, that's so interesting. I see what you're doing. I see what you're making. It's so nice. Do you want to show it to me?” Then walk away and give them their space, because they want their space.
“But tell them if you want to do it.”
Yeah, yes, yes. As long as you're aware of it and try to balance it, that's the thing. Balance. Balance is the key. Balance is the key to everything. It's not an extreme on either end. Balance is the key to everything: we're going to find the right balance. Okay, balance.
“But do they recognize that you're giving the other child more time because the other child needs it and they're able to manage, or do they feel like maybe you're favoring one over the other?”
It's impossible to know what they're thinking, but I would worry that they might think I'm giving too much attention to the other one. So sometimes I would explain. I would ask the child's feelings quietly, by themselves, when nobody else is around: “I know that I spend time with him because he needs a lot of time, and I noticed that you play so nicely on your own. Does that bother you?”
So now you're telling me her age. It's a different story. You know, she's only two. So then I wouldn't worry about it at two. A two-year-old will come to you if they want you. A two-year-old will pull on you and nag at you if they want you. But that temperament, as she grows older, might turn into the situation I'm talking about. Then you would say—and I don't know that I did this when my kids were little, but I would think of it now—quietly and privately, when nobody's listening, “I do spend a lot of time with so-and-so because he has trouble with the homework,” or whatever I have to do with them. “I wonder how that makes you feel.” Don't even tell her, “Does that make you feel jealous?” She might think, “Oh, I should be jealous. I didn't realize I should be jealous.” Instead, ask, “I wonder how that makes you feel, and how do you feel about it?” Maybe there's something we can do together sometimes.
“I put her in the crib, and she's happy. She'll do whatever the other ones are like. She gets no attention from me.”
So give her attention when you can, and I'm sure you do. But don't worry about it. If she's happy, she's happy. Make sure she's happy, though. There's a difference between being quiet and unhappy and being quiet and happy. If she's happy, that's wonderful. All of the years and everyone should have one. So that's what we're up to right now. We're going to take their feelings into consideration, try to understand who they are and work with that person. Take an interest in them as a person, in their uniqueness. That's part of knowing what they like and dislike. It's part of knowing who they are and their talents. Try to key in to each one of your children.
Hashem should bless you all. Please Hashem, with many happy, healthy, wonderful children. But you should be able to focus on each one. It's a blessing. It's really a blessing. The more you have, the harder it is, but it isn't impossible. It really means that your focus should be more on them.
When you have young children, it has to be a priority. You can't be all over town, all over the place, and still feel that you're able to focus on each of your children. There's a time for running around and a time for staying put. I'm not saying you have to stay in your house and never go out. I'm not saying you can't have outside interests. But today's women try to do too much while their children are too young, and I think that's one of the problems. One of the problems is that we're not the old-time mothers anymore, who are home, focusing on being a mother, and happy being a mother. Be happy being a mother, being with your children, being home, being home. I know that's also a temperament. There are some women who are happy being home, and there are some women who can't be home. They can't be home. But we have to know that's part of the problem. Part of the problem is that we're doing too much, running around too much, involved in too many projects, and don't have enough time to focus on each one of our children.
Make your life less complicated.
“What are you supposed to do with them at home all day? I cannot be home all day; I go out of my mind.”
That's right. You go out of your mind. Okay. If your personality and your children's personality work better with getting out, you can get out. I'm not telling you not to go out. But try to calm yourself down by accepting being home, liking being home, and having projects to do with the children when you're home. Okay, okay. If they're active boys who need to be outside, take them outside and let them be. Let them play outside. Give them more outside time. But you have to try to find a way to deal with being home, too. Don't plan to be home if that's the temperament of your children. Don't plan to stay home extra because I told you to. Don't do that. If that's the temperament of your children and they need to be out, you have to know your children and understand what's best for them. They need to be in the park. It's snowing, it's cold, the park is locked, but you'll be there anyway because you need—right, okay. So does my daughter. It's a trampoline, and you have to do what you have to do. Put the locks where you have to put the locks, and safeguard where you have to safeguard.
But sometimes you really have to sit with them and try to do a project together, or build, or tap into the things they like to do and give them that time. They're young. They're young. They're active. They're smart, and they need to be stimulated in the proper way. It takes a lot of your involvement. You can't say, “Go play, boys.” You can't do that. Yeah, you can't do that. All right, enjoy the time you have. And there's also the possibility of daughters, but okay. He's not the boss, right? He's not the boy.
Okay, that was the beginning of the class. That's how we started. We are the parents. We know better. We really are the ones to make the rules. Know your child's temperament. Know what you can and can't do. Know what's best for them. But also know that within my child's temperament, I have to be on their wavelength. I have to try to play with them, encourage them, and stimulate them in a way that will work for them. That will mean running, jumping, skipping, hopping, and all the active things they need. It's the trampoline in the living room. It's jumping jacks and all kinds of things you're going to do with them based on what they need. She's young enough to do it, for sure. But Baruch Hashem, I feel I'm young enough to do it, too. We have to keep up with it. We have to keep up with it. You have to keep up with it. All right, and that's it.
You know, the truth is, you have to let—I love it. I don't know, I'm just thinking of them. One of my grandsons—I said it before—it's just such a cute thing. There are different temperaments in different kids. My husband bought a giant electric train that goes on giant tracks you put in the living room. You sit on it, and you go around this giant figure eight between my living room and dining room. He bought it for one of the Purim extravaganzas I have in my house. We had this thing, and whenever the kids came, we'd put it out. The kids all love it. They take turns. Each of my grandchildren goes around and around on that figure eight. Of course, when it was one of my grandchildren's turn, all of a sudden he's in my kitchen. He's like—yeah, I mean, big smile on his face. He doesn't have to stay on this figure eight. Why are they staying on the figure eight? He's got a car. He's going wherever he wants. He didn't like it. We were cracking up. We're in the kitchen, and he comes in with a big smile on his face. That was it. No tracks. Who needs tracks? We keep you in place. He didn't want to stay in place. He's the type who's just going to do it, you know. “Stay on the tracks? Who needs tracks? Don't put tracks on me, honey. You gave me a car. I'm going. I'm out of here.” And he was out of there.
There are different temperaments. You have to know your customer, and you have to know what you can and can't get away with. You have to do with each child what they can do. But you have to be involved when they're little. You really have to be involved, and you have to be happy to be involved. Enjoy it. Have fun with them. Play with them. Don't do anything else. Make macaroni and cheese for dinner and just have fun with your kids. Play with them and be with them. Don't do other things. Make the beds; nobody will know. Or, if you have upstairs and downstairs, close the door. Nobody has to know. Enjoy your children. Have fun with them, because if you have fun with them, things will work much better.