Baruch Hashem (Blessed is Hashem), we're continuing with parenting and building self-esteem in our children, B'ezrat Hashem (with Hashem's help). We spoke about giving our children a feeling of being capable by giving them opportunities to succeed and building them up in ways that allow them to succeed. Find something in every child; every child has a strength. We have to look for their strengths. They don't have to be the exact strengths of everybody else. Everyone has their own individual strengths. We have to look for them, find them, and encourage them. Then we have to show the child that they are capable. Let them be capable. Let it be real, not just words.
Competent means that I can do it well enough. Competent means I can get the job done. Competent doesn't mean perfection, and it doesn't mean that I excel. It means that I can do it. We have to be careful about making our children feel competent. If they feel that they're competent only if they're perfect, they will never feel competent. We have to help them understand that they're allowed to make mistakes as long as they learn from them. Mistakes can actually be very beneficial if we learn from them and grow from them. They do not have to be perfect. Capable and competent do not mean perfection.
Very often, our children feel that they need to be perfect in order to feel competent. But competence is different. Competent means, “I got the job done.” Does it have to be perfect? No. Does it have to be the best? No. It should be the best I can do. I should be striving to do my best. Competent means, “I got the job done.” We should try to give our children tasks they can get done, and not overwhelm them in a way that will make them feel that they are never competent. If we give them things they cannot do, things that are not age-appropriate, or things that are overwhelming or just too much, then we will be setting them up to feel that they are not competent.
If we criticize everything they do, they will never feel competent. Criticism is something we have to be very, very careful with. To criticize is to debilitate. Criticism really stops a person from growing. We think that when we criticize, we're helping them correct something. But correction and criticism are two different things. I can correct in a positive way. Criticism is always negative. Correction can also be positive. As a mother and a teacher, I need to correct, but I do not want to criticize. I don't want to criticize. I can do that if I'm careful, if I think about how to say it and what to say. Show the right way without necessarily saying that what they did was wrong.
We can always say, “I see why you did that, and I understand your reasoning. I can see that that would make sense. But I was thinking maybe this way would be a little faster, a little easier.” There's a way to say something instead of saying, “That was a dumb way to do it. Why did you do it like that? You thought you were going to get it. You thought you were going to get it done.” A put-down is never helpful. Correction is helpful; criticism is not. It's not about how to criticize correctly. It's, “Don't criticize.” You can correct, give direction, show, and model.
I think it's also a good idea sometimes, when we're working with a child who really can't take criticism well and isn't feeling confident about themselves, to make a mental note of the corrections you want to make about the job they just did. Write it down if you need to, and do it at another time. Don't do it at the time of the actual job. When you do bring up that point, don't bring it up in connection with what they did before.
A simple example is setting the table, as we said before. If you ask the child to set the table, then they set the table. My girls, God bless them, would move my napkin and switch my fork around every time I set the table. When your daughters get to be teenagers and older, they start correcting you. I would set the table, and then my daughters would come and put the napkin on the other side and move the knife. I didn't do it according to etiquette or the way it would be shown, so they would switch it for me.
Now, every time I'm alone in my house and setting the table just for me and my husband, I feel like my daughters are looking over my shoulder and watching where I put the napkin. Nobody's going to see it. My husband doesn't care. He doesn't notice where the napkin is. And I still feel them over my shoulder. It's something I don't think I would want to do to my children. I wouldn't want them to have the feeling, “I keep doing it wrong.” Every time I set the table, I still feel that I'm doing it wrong.
So at that point, I wouldn't come and just switch it. I might say, “I was reading somewhere that the proper way to set the table is like this. Maybe we'll do it like that next time.” Not, “You did it wrong.” Just basically, “Maybe we should do it like this. Maybe we'll switch it. Maybe that's the way we'll do it.” But not at the time. Don't make the correction then. Make a mental note: “I'll change it later.”
To feel competent is to feel that I did the job well enough, and it's good. If I'm criticized about everything I do, then I'm never going to feel competent. When a person feels that they're not competent and they're constantly being criticized, they give up. I hear it from teenagers very often: “Why should I bother doing anything for my mother? She's never happy with what I did. She's never satisfied with what I did. There's always a complaint.” And it's true. The girls say, “I'm not. Why bother?”
When we appreciate what our children do and compliment them, we don't criticize. We correct. We're allowed to correct. There is a difference. As we're going along, if there are instances where you want to understand the difference between correction and criticism, just remember: criticism is always negative. Correction is said in a positive way.
Someone asked, “When can we go along without saying something? You can't always agree, right?”
I said, “Right. It depends on the situation. Every situation has its own rules. We're talking generally. I'm not going to say that if two children are hurting each other, I'm going to say, ‘I'll take a mental note of this, and we'll talk about it later.’ Some people can do that; it might even be the right thing to do. But that might not be where you want to do it.
“We're talking about a situation where you told him to put away the toys, and they're not exactly the way you like them, but he did do the job in some form. You take a mental note of how you would want him to do that job next time. In a positive way, you'll try to correct, but not criticize. Don't walk into the room and say, ‘Come on, the books don't go there, the pencils don't go there, this doesn't go there, and that doesn't go there. Is this what you call cleaning up after yourself?’”
So that's the difference. I'm not talking about situations where we have to step in and do something, because then you have to step in and do something.
Someone said, “To praise and then say ‘but’ takes away the praise completely. It doesn't fool them for one minute. It's just criticism and nothing but criticism. That's the situation where I want to say ‘but’—it takes away the praise completely. It doesn't fool them for one minute. It's just criticism. Then I make the decision to take a mental note and say it next time. The next time I ask them to do the same job, I'll say, ‘You know something? I would really like those books over there. I would really like the puzzles on the shelf. I would really like...’ Then I would say it. That's how to make exactly the correction you wanted to make. You had a—so, in a situation where there's campaigning or something that needs to be taken care of right now, you know, still we're synthesizing that time of situation. So discipline, I think, has to be taken care of.”
“Right,” I said. “Be as matter-of-fact as possible without—”
Stop right now. Come to the table. We're going to decide what's going to be done. All right? Don't act like animals and say, “I can't stand to be here. What are you doing to each other? You're going to kill each other.” There's a difference. Try to keep it more level and matter-of-fact: “This is unacceptable. It will stop this minute, and we are going to talk about it.” That's okay. You can do that. And don't get involved in all of that. “Okay, fine. Sit at the table. We're going to discuss it.” Or, if you have the peace of mind, separate them and say, “We're going to discuss it in 15 minutes, when I finish feeding the baby.” But whatever you have to do, keep it from becoming personal, overwhelmed, or emotional comments, because that's when we say the wrong thing. Very hot.
Someone said, “But if we—”
I said, “Right. So if you can train yourself and really try to have those stock comments, and cut as much of the other stuff out as possible, that's where we do less damage. You can repeat it as many times as you have to when they want to make you say more. When they say, ‘But she did that,’ and go on and on, you can repeat, ‘This is unacceptable behavior, and it will stop now.’ You can repeat that a million times.
“Do you want to discuss it? We'll sit down and problem-solve: your point of view, your point of view. Don't tell me, ‘He said, she said.’ What happened? What happened? What are the possible ways to find a solution? I don't want to just hear the problem and the other problem, but we have a certain time limit on the problem. Can't go on and on and on 什么 on and on forever. What's the problem? What's your point of view? What's your point of view? Let's find a solution. It's got to work that way. Try to keep it as focused as possible.”
Someone said, “Right. I have seen it done, even in heated situations. It's a personality thing that makes it happen a little bit easier. But if we're not that kind of personality, and we just stay on that keel, then we have to work even harder to do it. Those stock answers you have to have, and that's it. You don't have to get into more than that. When you want to stop it.”
So, we're saying that for our children to feel competent, we should not correct everything they do, and we should not criticize everything they do. When I said we should not correct everything they do, we are going to correct where it needs to be corrected, but they do not have to do it perfectly. They do not have to do it exactly the way I do it. If the job is done, the job is done. You have to be a little more flexible in your own point of view of what is competent.
We tend to want things done exactly our way, and if they're not done exactly our way, we feel the job was not done. That's not fair, and it's not the way we want them to feel about themselves or about how they see other people. Tell them, “Okay, that's your way of doing it. I can see that. I can understand that, as long as the clothes aren't going to get ruined. I would have put this there and that there, but fine. That's the way you want to do it. That's okay. I can live with that.” I have to be able to be flexible.
If I do that, then hopefully my daughters will grow up and, when their husbands do things a little differently, say, “That's your way of doing it. I see that it could work like that, too. It's not the way I would have done it, but it's a little different. That's okay.” When we teach them that it must be this way and we're so rigid, we don't have to be so rigid. Yes, there are certain functions in the household that have to be. There are certain standards of cleanliness and certain kinds of organization that work better than others. But it doesn't have to be my way a hundred percent. You have a way of doing it. It works like that, too. That's good, too.
The kids say that they can't be a hand whatever, so they'll pick up six or seven blocks. “Am I supposed—” No, because six or seven blocks is not enough. You would have to motivate and encourage them to do more, but they're physically capable of putting the blocks away. Whether they're emotionally capable of doing it is another story.
Motivate them by saying, “Let's take all the red ones. Let's see who can pick up a hundred blocks. Let's see who can pick up ten blocks. Who can pick up ten blocks? Let's see who can pick up a hundred blocks. Let's up more blocks.” Try to motivate them, do it with them, and show them that it's not a big deal and it's not a hard thing. Sometimes our attitude about the job makes it seem so hard when it's really nothing at all. It's not a big deal to throw the blocks in.
I think that if they picked up six blocks and that's it, even though they're young, they're old enough to do more than that. I would try to motivate them more than yell and criticize. I'll put on the timer and say, “How much can be done by the time the timer rings?” Those types of things. With young children, we try to motivate and stimulate them. “When all the blocks are put away, I'm going to read the story,” or do whatever the next activity is that they wanted.
Whenever my grandchildren take out my zillion Legos, they come to me and say, “Grandma, could you bring up all the fake food?” I say, “Sure, honey. As soon as the Legos are away, we'll pick up the food,” because I have a zillion of each piece. I don't have one thing; I literally have hundreds of pieces of each toy. Then they'll say, “Could you go get it?” I'll say, “Yeah. Are they finished? I don't know. There's still Legos on the floor. Tell me when you're ready, and I'll go get it.” It'll get done when it's done. The next thing happens when they're motivated to do it, when they have an incentive. Having an incentive helps them do it.
Someone asked, “Let's say, in terms of homework, I know my son can write anything within the lines it's supposed to be in, but then he decides the middle letter is going to be a capital L instead of a regular L, or whatever. Sometimes I say, ‘The truth is, right now my goal is to get the answer and not focus so much on the handwriting.’ But then sometimes I say to myself, ‘There are rules in writing, so what do you let go, and what do you not let go? I know he can do it because he's done it.’”
“Right,” I said.
“Off the bat, I'm thinking I might ask the teacher, ‘Do you want me to stress this or that?’ It's hard to stress both. He can concentrate, it's going to take too much time to concentrate on his penmanship, on his neatness, and getting the correct answer. It might be too much to concentrate on. There may be times when we're going to concentrate only on penmanship, and times when we're going to concentrate only on accuracy. It may be too much for him to concentrate on both.”
The parent said, “But I feel like a lot of times, I just decided to use the capital L in the middle of the word. Sometimes there are rules you need to follow in writing: capitals at the beginning of a name, whatever. But sometimes I just want to use a capital L. I thought it would be nicer. Things like that.”
I said, “I don't know. I'm not going to answer so quickly and say that I'm not going to do it. I know for sure there's something going on there: he wants to do it in the middle, and he wants to. It might be a power-control thing. It might be wanting to express his own creativity in some way. I don't want to answer superficially and tell you just to demand that he do it that way. I would look into it a little more and try to figure out what's the story there. Why would you want to put a capital L in the middle of a word? If it just comes to him and it's too hard to concentrate, okay. But if he's feeling that this is creatively—”
The parent said, “Sometimes I would say the capitals are easier for him, so I let it go. So I let it go.”
“Right. So that's the question. My question, and what I'm trying to understand, would be: what's his thinking?”
“Yeah. So maybe.”
Someone else said, “My son does that also. They like to play around with it, just for fun.”
“Okay. So then it might be something they grow out of, and it's not something to worry about too much. I don't want to say that I know the answer, because I don't. If it's a huge deal, the teacher will say it. And then, you know, sometimes that appears—”
“If she wants to, right?”
“Yeah. That's why I'm saying to ask the teachers, ‘Do you want me to stress this or that? Is it a big deal or not?’ There are going to be certain teachers for whom it's a big deal, and certain grades when it's going to be a big deal. That's the way it's going to be.
“It's funny; I'm thinking that when you use a computer, sometimes capital and lowercase letters make a big difference if you're trying to get into some program or something. You could even say that in a matter-of-fact way: ‘When you get older, this might be a problem. Sometimes it makes a difference.’ But I don't know. The truth is, I'm not sure. We would check out what's going on in that situation. I'm not 100% sure.”
To feel competent is very important. The next one says that they should feel that they are lovable. Lovable. “I am worthy of your love.” Unconditional love. Very often, as much as we tell children we love them, they don't believe it. Or they don't believe it when they're not behaving. They pick up all the other nonverbal cues and clues we're giving them, that they're just a pain in the neck and nothing but trouble. They don't feel lovable. They don't feel worthy of our love. How do we make them feel worthy of our love? There's one way—and only one superficial way, I would even say—and that is verbally: verbally express our unconditional love.
You'll see different personalities in children. I have one daughter who apologizes for everything. She's so sorry, and she didn't do anything. It's like, why are you so sorry? When she says it, I think of her personality. She's extremely sensitive and emotional. She has always felt, “Oh, do you forgive me? I forgot to pick you up on time. I forgot to do this. I forgot to do that.” I'll tell her, “Honey, I'll love you forever. It doesn't matter.” It's like, “Oh, my kids just broke six things in your house.” I'll say, “Okay, honey, they're my kids. I love them.” You're always welcome back. It doesn't matter. You're my children. You don't throw your own kids out of your house, even after they're married.
Your own grandchildren are your children. That's my opinion. I don't know about everybody else's opinion, and I know that there are grandparents who don't have this opinion. But they are still your children. Your grandchildren are your children. Just as you are not allowed to throw your own children out of the house because they broke something, in my humble opinion, you are not allowed to forbid your grandchildren to come over because they're going to break things. They are your children. These are your flesh-and-blood children. To me, there is no difference, except that they don't live with me on a permanent basis anymore. Whatever they do, they are my children. They have to know that there's nothing they can do that will mean they can't come back here.
“What? Because you're irreturnable.” Well, they say that, but I have trouble giving them back. I love them dearly. Your children have to know that there's nothing they can do to lose my love. Yes, they can do wrong. Obviously, we all make mistakes. But they can't lose my love. That doesn't mean they're now going to do bad things because they feel that way. No, that's not going to happen. But they should feel that they are worthy of my love unconditionally.
Someone said, “When I had my last baby, about a year ago, a new baby brought commotion into the house, for sure. Everybody was tugging at me from every direction. One of my friends told me that she tried this and it worked: at a certain time, give everyone the chance to be your baby. I thought, ‘Well, I'm going to take my eight-year-old, sit her on my lap, and pretend she's my baby.’ She was going to break out of my arms, but I said, ‘Let me try.’ My eight-year-old is my oldest. I put her on my lap and said, ‘Do you know, ma'am, that you really were my baby all the time when you were my baby?’ They were all so accepting of it. I like people, they're going to think I'm so silly.”
I said, “I call my children my baby. I always call them my baby. To me, the word baby doesn't mean youngest. It means they were born to me, and they never lose that status of being my baby.
“Now my grandchildren tell me, ‘I'm not a baby.’ I say, ‘You're always my baby. Your mommy is my baby.’ That doesn't change. I learned it from my mother. She calls me her baby. I am still her baby. She introduces me to her friends as, ‘This is my baby girl,’ because I'm the fourth girl, and then there's my brother. He was the baby boy, and I was the baby girl. So I'm still the baby girl.
“One of my friends jokingly asked, ‘Oh, you're the baby? So where's your blanket?’ I said, ‘I left it with my grandchildren.’ But I am the baby. I tell my children and grandchildren all the time that the word baby means, ‘I love you, and you will always be a part of my life.’ That's what it means. It doesn't mean you're the youngest. Nobody said the youngest, but you are my baby, and so is your mother, my baby. That means they are a part of my body. They are a part of my body, and they always will be.
“The word baby, to me, does not mean youngest. If I say you're my youngest, yes, I tell them, ‘This is my littlest, this is my biggest,’ and so on. But baby means you're mine. Baby means you're mine. It means I love you. It means you're a part of my life always. That's what I'll tell my children and my grandchildren. You're always welcome, and you can always come back.
“I have one little terrorist grandson, and he's so good by me because he wants to be good by me. He wants to come back, and he wants to behave. He'll tell me, ‘I could come back, right? Because I'm good, right? I behaved, right? I could come back.’ I tell him, ‘You were the best. You were so good.’ And he really is—you see how good he can be. Then I'll tell him, ‘But, honey, I love you, and you can always come back.’ I encourage him to feel that. He's responsible. He feels he has to be responsible if he wants to come back. And you have to know your customers. He needs to hear that. But he knows he can always come back. He knows he's always welcome. He knows he's my baby, just like they all are my baby.
“That's what your children have to feel: unconditional love. They are lovable, even when they do the wrong thing. And they have to know that I do the wrong thing, too. I make mistakes, also. We still love each other. It's mutual. I love you forever, and please, Hashem, you'll love me forever.”
Someone said, “I think parents love their children more than children love their parents. That's probably an important way of life, because if our children loved us the way we love them, they probably wouldn't get married and move out on their own. Hashem had to put that into the system so they could be independent and move on in life, because it would be hard to do.”
Someone else said, “For us, moving away from our children would probably be harder than our children moving away from us. But how do you develop that when you have a child you really want to help, and he needs the help, and he doesn't listen and it helps you terribly and you—it kills you?”
“Right.”
The person continued, “How could you still love him? I know that I don't love him anymore. I mean, I'm not loving him.”
I said, “I know what you're saying: ‘I can't love him anymore. It's so hard.’ It's not an easy thing. But it's something that we have to feel. Maybe we have to feel. I don't want to give easy answers to hard problems. Not at all. Please, Hashem, I'm not trying to say things that are quick and off the cuff.
“But I think that I need, in my own mind, to be more accepting, more lovable, and to feel that Hashem is in charge and Hashem decides what will be. I can only do my best, and B'ezrat Hashem, he'll come through as he grows and matures. The more love you can show despite what he's going through, the more he'll be able to come back to it when he's ready.
“There are many stories about that little showing of love. There was a rabbi whose son was going off the track, and it shouldn't be anybody's situation, please Hashem. He was stopping, one by one, doing one less mitzvah (commandment) and one less mitzvah and one less mitzvah, until he was really doing nothing. This was a very religious rabbi, and this was his son. Every morning, the father would put the netilat yadayim (washing of the hands) cup outside his son's door. The son wouldn't use it. He wouldn't even use it. But every morning the father would change the water, and the next night he would put it out again. He kept doing it.
“One day he went to a great rabbi and said, ‘Am I wasting my time? Should I stop doing it?’ The rabbi told him, ‘Never stop doing it. Don't mention it to him. Don't tell him anything, don't ask him anything, but put it there.’
“Years later, when the son, Baruch Hashem, came back, they asked him what had done it. He said, ‘I knew my father never gave up on me. As much as I was bad, as much as I did, I saw that netilat yadayim cup with the water prepared outside my door. And even when I didn't use it for years and years and years, he didn't use it, but later on he felt the warmth and the love that was still there, and his father didn't give up on him. And that's what turned him around.’”
He was doing nothing at all. So we have to continue showing love. It's as hard as hard can be, but we have to have a post-it note on his door saying, “I love you. I hope your day was good.” If it's hard to do it face to face because you're going to remember all the emotions that go with it, leave a note here or there, or put something extra in his bag before he leaves. Let him feel it. Let him know that he is still lovable no matter what, unconditionally. Try to work with—that's your main thing, your whole thing. Don't try to correct him. Don't try to change him. Just try to love him, because then it'll come back by itself. That's the most important thing: that they should feel lovable.
It takes a long time. Sometimes it takes until they're really grown to want to do it on their own. They have to get out of their system all this rebellion, anger, and frustration. It's part of their growing. But when the love is there, they'll come back to it. They will. They will come back to it.
Sometimes, to feel lovable—let me see what I wrote here. For a child to feel lovable, it's important that they also feel that we can enjoy being with them. For our children to feel that we enjoy being with them is different. There are mothers whose children drive them crazy, and it's hard to be with them. The children know that their parents don't enjoy being with them. They love them, but they don't want to be with them. It's like, “Oh no, there's a day off from school. Help! What am I going to do? They're home for three days in a row!” The mothers are panicking. Why are you panicking?
It's harder now. I find that I have to change my expectations of what's going to happen on that day. If I know my children are home from school for a couple of days, I'm going to tell myself, “Okay, I have to focus on having fun with the kids. That's what I have to do. This is my job. I can't be thinking I'm going to make supper, clean the house, and get the errands done, because I'm not. The children are home. Let's just have fun and let things go for a little bit.” When they're home, let's have fun. You can't have fun 24-7 or the whole day, but try to enjoy your children's company.
What I found for myself when my children were young was that I enjoyed their company by engaging them in games and activities that I actually enjoy. When they wanted to play cards, it had to be a card game I liked. If we're going to play a card game I don't like, then I'm not going to enjoy being with my children, and they're going to know it. If I like to play—I don't know, I hate the name of it—but if I like to play spit more than I like to play war or steal the old man's bundle, I'm going to say, “No, you want to play with Mommy? Let's play this game.” I'll show them how to play it, because at least it's something I enjoy.
As my children grew, I taught them games I really liked to play, like master and law bear and whatever other kind of games. At least when they were home sick and all of them were, when we had the flu, I had a card game with my daughters. We took out the bridge table, had fun, and I enjoyed their company.
It became such a cute thing. It hasn't happened in the longest time. When they were all single—because now, Baruch Hashem, my mother's grandchildren, the nieces and nephews, are mostly all married—my mother, who's 120 in good health, please Hashem, is Frida, and she has her Fridas. There were three Fridas out of the four. The fourth one was too young. My mother got into this Fridas canasta game. They used to go to my mother, or my mother would be by us on Shabbat, and they would play their game. They were really playing, and it was cute.
One winter we had high snow, and my mother was stuck in her apartment on E7th and S. She's in the building, and she was by herself. There was no way she could get out of the house. The Fridas called each other and said, “Let's walk to Grandma and we'll play cards.” There was tons of snow. They put on their boots, walked to my mother's house, and had their card game. It was a game my mother liked to play, so she really enjoyed their company, and they actually got good at it as they went along.
If I want to jump rope, I'll jump rope. If I do something I can enjoy, then it will help me enjoy being with my children. If it's something I don't enjoy, play with them, do it with them, draw, color, paint, be a kid, and enjoy it with them, obviously. But with each one of your children, when you're with that child, enjoy what you can enjoy with that child.
On a three-day vacation, you have a 17-year-old and a 10-year-old. How are you going to play the same game? The boys are like, “I don't want to be the same with my sister. I don't want to be the same with you.” You have to decide together and compromise, or do one thing one day and something else the next. You have to work it out. Sometimes you split up. My daughters do that with their children: “I'll take the girls, you take the boys.” They'll split up the cousins or something. Some things work together and some things don't, and it's a compromise.
What I'm saying is that when we're picking an event to do with our child, it may not be something everybody can enjoy because we're different ages. But when I relate to my children and want to show them that I enjoy being with them, if I pick something I enjoy doing, then I'll have a better life and a better chance of showing them that I enjoy being with them.
If I pick something that I can't stand doing—I remember trying to go ice skating with my girls. God bless them. I tried a few times. The truth is, I took them because they wanted to go, but I can't do that. I'm not good at it. I can't do it. They needed me to take them; they didn't need me to do it. In the end, I say my Tehillim (Psalms), sitting on the beds, and wave to them as they go around. Leave me alone; I'm not going on the ice. I can't do that. But I don't have to do everything they do. I can't tell them, “You can't go ice skating because I don't like to ice skate.” That's not the point. The point is that there were things we liked to do together.
There were things I could tell them when we picked out things to do. If it's something I want to do, I've exercised with my daughters as they were growing older. We did an aerobics class together because it's something I needed to do, something I wanted to do, and something that's good for them, too. We did it together.
Someone asked, “But isn't the purpose to make them realize that they're enjoying the time being with you? It's not our selfish desire to enjoy our kids. We want to make sure our kids are enjoying being in our company.”
Someone else said, “I do it differently. I play cards with my kids. If it's a game I don't like, I just pretend that I like it because I see them enjoying it.”
I said, “If you can enjoy it, then that's fine. But if they sense that you can't wait to stop, if they sense that you can't wait to get away from it, then you're not showing them that you love being with them. I'm just telling you that, for me, it made it easier, and it made it easier for me to do it longer if it was something I also enjoyed.
“But you're right. Like I said, I take them ice skating even though I can't ice skate, because that was something they wanted to do, and they appreciated that I took them. I will play with the younger children games that I don't necessarily love to play. But I found that when I do something I can enjoy, too, it'll show what you want. Use your judgment. Use your judgment to enjoy the time you're with your children. They sense when we're not enjoying it.”
Someone said, “I just find that in practical everyday life, besides the two days of winter vacation, we have no time. They come home at 5 o'clock. Then there's an hour of supper, an hour of homework, straight to the bathtub, straight to bed. They have to be in bed early. When you wake up the next morning, everything I have to do with them all day is either rushing to the bus in the morning or rushing to the next activity in the afternoon. It's just hard, and it's always, ‘Come on, let's go.’”
I said, “That's the lifestyle we all have to lead today to keep up the pace, and it's very hard. Keep it in mind: who's going to be a kid? We have to put in as much of that time as possible. It could be 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Whatever minutes we have, give yourself some part of them that can be enjoyable. We do need some enjoyable time. If you know that's the way your life is, then you're going to have to set aside 10 minutes a day for fun time, if possible.”
“No, no, no.”
“If you only have 10 minutes, then you only have 10 minutes, and we're going to share those 10 minutes. This is our 10 minutes of fun. Work out a way that will work. I think it's important, given that we're in that hectic pace of life, to find those 10 minutes. Find those 10 minutes and even be silly and crazy. I love being silly and crazy with my kids. I used to do it at playgroup whenever the children were really getting out of hand. If I got sillier than them, it calmed everybody down. I started dancing like a nut, putting on crazy music, and doing crazy things. Everybody stopped to watch me. I was nuttier than them.
“You come in and say, ‘This is our 10 minutes,’ and put on music and start dancing around the living room. You only have 10 minutes, but you take those 10 minutes. It breaks the ice. It breaks the tension. Then everybody has to get back to what they have to do. Maybe they're not going to get back to what they have to do. You're going to ask me, ‘What?’ I'm not telling you that I have all the answers. I'm telling you we're going to try different things, things that work sometimes.
“That hot chocolate on a winter day, with a couple of little marshmallows on top—they'll remember that when they're grandparents, and they'll tell their grandchildren that their mommy made them hot chocolate with a couple of little touches. Tiny little things. We don't have a lot of time, and it's mostly stress. Put in a little something of fun, a little something of, ‘I wanted to spend this time with you,’ even if it's just 10 minutes. That's all we have. But put in something that makes them feel, ‘I enjoy being with you. I like being with you. I'm not looking to get rid of you. I like being with you.’ That's something that will make them feel lovable.”
The next thing says that they should feel that they are loving. Loving means that they can give love as well as receive love. Teaching them to give love is, I think, taking care of the fact that we want to be cared for and nurtured, but we also want to take care of someone else. We also want to feel that we can nurture and give love. When we allow them to take care of us, they feel that they have the ability to give love as well.
Sometimes people do that with pets. I'm not a pet lover. I understand the concept. Somehow, people have an easier time loving pets than people. I guess pets don't interact as much. It's more of a one-way relationship. It's like, how bad could the dog be? It's a dog. You expect that of him. People will do that, or take care of plants or whatever. It's that feeling of being able to nurture.
Children have it in them, especially my little girls. God bless them, my little girls are born with it. My littlest, Linda, who's just turned two, had to have a baby in her arms all the time when she was a year old. She's the youngest, so she doesn't even see a little blanket on the baby. That's all she wants. She has three brothers who jump around all day, and I don't know where she got it from, but that's what she wants. She wants to give love and nurture.
My children take care of me sometimes when I need it. Ask them to tuck you in when you're lying on the couch with the afghan there, and say, “Oh, that feels so good. Thank you, honey.” When we tell them in a demanding way, and they feel that they're taking care of us, it's okay. Don't be supermom. You don't have to be supermom. I don't think it's good for our children when we can do everything. We can't do everything. You should not feel that you have to do everything.
As your children grow, and even from a young age, give them the sense that it's a partnership. We do for each other. We take care of each other. We love each other. As our families grow, we see that more and more. You get older, you need them more, and it's going to be something that—I always needed my children. I always needed their help. They knew I needed them. I couldn't do it all.
My sister, God bless her, was more the type who didn't need anybody. She could do everything, and she wanted to do everything. Her daughter got engaged, and she had a l'chaim (to life), a meeting of the family at her house. Every single dessert was made by my sister. Everything. I never saw—I mean, we do that. My daughter did that. My first daughter made her whole l'chaim. She knew she was getting engaged. She liked cake decorating and making things, so she did her whole thing.
But most of the time you go to a l'chaim and one person made this, another made that, and someone else made something else. It was a community thing. My sister made everything. She didn't need her children's help. She did everything herself. I never felt that way. I needed my girls. They helped me. We worked together. The only reason I say girls is that I only have girls. I'm not saying I need my girls and don't need my boys. Don't misunderstand me. Our boys are very capable of doing just as much, and it doesn't have to be only in the masculine roles they are put into. It could be anything. A boy can do dishes, and a boy can make sambusak. I've seen it done. My sons-in-law have helped me do it, so I know it can be done. It's not something they can't do.
I have one son-in-law who bakes beautifully. He does. There are more male chefs in the world than there are women, really. Baking and cooking are more of a male, masculine field. We just see them in the home as being the mother's role. But I needed my girls, and they knew I needed them. It was a joint thing.
Now, when I'm trying to help my mother-in-law—and God bless her, please, until 120—I see how hard it is for her to accept my help because she was brought up with the mentality, “Don't need anybody ever. Don't need anybody ever.” I say, “Why? That's not reality. It's an interdependent society. I need you, and you're allowed to need me. Why do you feel—” She says, “No, no, no. You're not supposed to bother your children.” I say, “I bother my children all the time. Why, Mom? Why can't I? I will do anything in the world for them, and please Hashem, they will do anything in the world for me. What do you mean I can't bother my children? Of course I can ask them.” She says, “You can't ask me.” “Oh, no, no, no. I would never ask you to do—” Why?
I challenge that because there's a mentality that a mother has to do it all herself, can't need help, and can't need anybody. That's not true. We need each other. It's a loving thing to need each other. It's a good thing to need each other. I'm happy when I do things for my mother-in-law. I'm happy when I can do things for my mother. It's a good relationship. It starts when we're little. When our children are little, teach them that yes, you care for me and I care for you. I'll do for you, and you'll do for me. I don't mean that I'll only do for you if you do for me. I'm not saying it's a balance sheet where I'm going to look at who owes whom what. No, it's a partnership of love, a partnership of caring and being there for each other.
At certain stages in our life, the balance is different. They need me more than I need them, and then I'm going to need them more than they need me, and then it flips back and forth. But we need each other, we love each other, and we give care to each other. Let your children care for you. Let your children take care of you. Sometimes that's not wrong or bad. It will give them a sense of feeling when they take care of a younger sibling lovingly and you tell them how good they are with that, how sweet they are to help, and how nicely they can share. When you say it genuinely, they feel that they are a loving person. They are capable of giving love, and that's going to make them feel good about themselves, too.
We don't want to be takers. We want to be able to give, too. Being able to give helps a person's self-esteem. It helps them feel loving as well as lovable.
Those are the basics, and then we're going to go into more. There are a couple more. We should show them that they are unique. It's something we definitely spoke about before: the concept that Hashem creates each person for a special purpose, and it is our job in life to find that purpose. There is no such thing as a person being created as an extra, without some special, unique purpose in life, because Hashem doesn't just create extras. We each have our job, our task, our purpose in life, and we are born with exactly what we need to make it happen. We have the ability to take care of those things that Hashem wants us to take care of. If we try to utilize every bit of who we are, then we will fulfill our purpose in life.
The clues are in us. Who am I? What can I do? Where should I go? That's going to be my uniqueness. When they say, “But this one does it better than me. I don't have this like that one,” you tell them, “That's Hashem's plan. That's what Hashem needs. He needs you to be you. He doesn't need you to be Him. He needs you to be the best of you. Look inside yourself and build inside yourself. Don't look outside. Look inside.” But what's inside you, you have to use every bit of it. Use every bit of it to the best of your ability. That's each person's uniqueness. That's what Hashem wants from us.
Valuable. I have something special to contribute to the world, to my family, to my friends, and to my society. We have to feel valuable. Each person has to feel valuable, and that goes with being unique and being part of Hashem's plan. We are valuable, and my mitzvah changes the whole world. My good deed changes the faith of the whole world. We have Torah to teach us that. We have the religion that tells us that everything I do affects the whole cosmos. Everything I can accomplish is much greater than I could know, and that's a valuable thing to know.
A person should feel that nothing is insignificant. You do something good quietly in your room, and nobody even knows. You whisper a Beracha (blessing). You say something quietly that's nice, and it vibrates up to the Shamayim (heavens) and changes the whole world. That's valuable. A person's good deeds are valuable. A person themself is valuable. Nobody could be replaced. People cannot be replaced. I say it all the time: things can be replaced, but people cannot be replaced. I'm not worried about the things. I'm worried about my people. That's important in my life.
Things are things. There's no materialistic things. I'm not very sentimental about things. Things come and go. It's fine; we'll replace them. But people are unique and valuable, and you can't get that. You can't create that again. So that's what we're going to base our children's self-esteem on. That's what we're going to base our own self-esteem on. We will continue with other basic ways of doing it and practical ways of doing it as we continue, B'ezrat Hashem. Thank you.