We are continuing with parenting, focusing on trying to build self-esteem and confidence in our children. We want them to feel confident, capable, lovable, loving, valued, and unique—all of those wonderful things we hope they will have and feel about themselves. We want to help them feel that way about themselves.
We left off with listening, and the proper way to listen without judging. That was last week. The next point on the list is remembering people, places, and things that are important to your children. That one is always hard for me because remembering names is not my strong point. Actually, I won’t even say it’s not my strong point. It is very, very, very, extremely my weak point. It bothers me very much, and I feel so bad that I can’t do it. I think part of the reason I can’t do it is that I’m afraid because I don’t do it well. Our emotions get involved in our abilities when we think we can’t do something.
When a child thinks they can’t socialize well and won’t be accepted, they actually make it worse. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy: the anxiety makes it worse. My anxiety about not being good with names makes me panic when I try to remember somebody’s name. If someone tells me their name, right away I’m panicking inside my brain: “I’m never going to remember it.” But with our children, please Hashem, give us the ability, strength, and memory to remember the people, places, and things that are important to them.
When we remember their friends’ names, it makes them feel important. It makes them feel that their friends are important to us, too: the people they like at school and the people they talk about. Their teacher’s name is very important to them, too. A child’s teacher could be somebody they really think is so important in their life, depending on how old they are. Taking that extra care to remember the special people in our children’s lives also makes them feel that we value them. It’s like, “If she takes the time to remember my friend’s name, that means she cares about me.” I’m not confusing all of her friends, which I might be doing, but it’s something to keep in mind. It shows that you make an extra effort and feel your children are important—and they are important to us.
The next point is to keep the sharing mutual. Share similar situations from when we were growing up. Talk about ourselves sometimes. Talk about when we were children and growing up. What were our friendships like? How did we deal with social interaction? Did we think it was hard or easy? What helped us through it? Sometimes, if we share our feelings and experiences with our children, they feel that we cared enough to tell them. It makes them feel important that you’re sharing that with them.
We’re so busy getting dinner, bath, bed, homework, and everything else done that we don’t have time to talk about anything else. We don’t have time to share. It’s like, “When are we doing this sharing bit?” Maybe on Shabbat. Maybe Hashem gave us Shabbat. Baruch Hashem (thank God). Hopefully, that day is a day when you try to cram it all in. It’s hard to cram it all in. But before bedtime, if you spend a little time with each child, talking a little and telling them something of value, something about yourself, they feel that you want a relationship with them. You’re not just the manager of the home who has to get all the details done. You’re also a person who loves them and values them and wants to build a relationship with them.
So spend a little time sharing those mutual kinds of situations with our children, trying to find similarities and things we like. Sharing also means finding things we like to do together, on whatever level. He likes to draw; you like to draw. There are things we like to do together.
Just this past Shabbat, it was nice. It was my birthday, so my daughters made a whole booklet of questions. They asked my daughters, my sons-in-law, and all the grandchildren questions, including how old they thought I really was. One of my grandsons said maybe a hundred. He wasn’t sure, but it was the biggest number he knew.
One of the questions they asked us was, “What do you like to do with Grandma?” My daughters answered, too. Do you know what my daughter said? “When we used to go to the kosher (ritually permissible) gym together.” I don’t have time to do that anymore, but it was a lot of fun. It was a mutual sharing of an interest we both had, and it was a bond between us. There was something we used to do together. I would pick her up and we would go. Now, if she comes to my class, that’s nice, too. I feel like I have a bond with her, that there’s something we share.
A relationship needs some sharing, even in a husband-and-wife relationship. We need something to connect with, bond over, share, and feel that we share together. There are things we can share even with our youngest children. We can share things we enjoy doing, too. Find those things that help you connect with your children. You might like to bake together, or whatever it is you like to do together. Enjoy it together and show the similarities. Let it be something your child really enjoys and that you really enjoy. Find similarities within each relationship. You can relate to each of your children in a different way, in an area where you can both connect. Whether it’s songs, talents, learning, or whatever that connection is that you both enjoy, find something you can share.
Sharing means sharing hobbies or similarities in the things you like to do together. It means sharing stories of your own childhood, of things you went through at school and with friends, whether they were easier or harder, and relating to what each of your children is going through.
Sharing sometimes also means sharing my concerns. The book said to share my concerns, but depending on the age of your children, there is an appropriate amount of sharing my concerns, and then there is worrying my children. I have to be careful with that because I tend to share too much. I tend to be too open and say too much. One thing they can be happy about is that they know I’m not hiding anything. They never have to worry that maybe Mommy isn’t telling them something, because I have a hard time keeping things in. You see it even in my classes: whatever’s in my heart just comes out. I don’t know how to screen it or keep it in.
There were times with different children when I felt I shouldn’t have said so much; that was too much sharing. One of my daughters is a tremendous worrier, and if I sneeze in front of her, she won’t sleep all night. It’s like, “Honey, there was something in the air. I’m fine.” But she’s a worrier, so I have to be careful how much I share with her.
The truth is, I try to build her up about that. I try to tell her, “Honey, I don’t want to be afraid to tell you that I’m going for a checkup. It’s not something you have to be afraid of.” She’s a married woman at this point. She’s not a baby. She has to toughen up a little bit. Life is like that. They call you back and say, “We saw a little something on the test. Come back and check it out.” I’m not going to fall apart at this point. I say, “When they tell me to fall apart, I’ll fall apart.” If I fall apart every time they call me back and say, “Redo the test,” I’m not going to make it.
How do you deal with it if you’re that kind of person? I’m exactly that kind of person, and I see it in my son. A psychiatrist told me once that my husband is like that, but not nearly to my extreme. My father is more like that, too. A psychiatrist told me, “You are going to ruin your son if you don’t work on yourself.” But how? I mean, you hear stories all the time.
I changed the way I feel, the way I just described. I took on Gone with the Wind and Scarlett O’Hara: “I will think of that tomorrow.” That became my motto. When she had very, very scary things to deal with, she said that in the movie, and it really affected me. Why do I have to deal with it before it’s an actual event? When it’s a worry, a projection of a possibility that might happen, I have no time and no energy for it. This is my feeling, and it’s not my natural feeling. My natural feeling is to think that doom is on its way. But as I’ve grown up and seen that I cannot continue to live like that, I’ve realized it’s too exhausting. It’s too exhausting.
99.9% of the time, the things we worry about do not materialize, so I don’t want to deal with them until I have to. If they call me and say they want to recheck something, okay, I’ll recheck it. I’ll take it seriously. But am I going to panic that something is wrong? No. If they tell me something is wrong, I will deal with it. Right now, I’m not going to put myself into that mode, and I try to teach my daughter that. Every time a situation comes up that she’s very worried about and then turns out to be nothing, I point it out to her. I say, “Honey, put this on your list of things we worried about for nothing.” You have to know how many times in life we worried and killed ourselves—literally made ourselves sick, frustrated, upset, worried, nervous, and physically ill—and it didn’t materialize into anything.
I want to realize that and say, yes, things do happen. I’m not saying everything works out for the best. I’m not saying nothing ever happens. Things happen when they happen. I’ll deal with it. In the meantime, I don’t want to know about it.
But you’re saying that, and I worry when my children are out. I call to check that they’re okay. If it’s dark and she’s driving, it bothers me. I worry when they come and go. We have to be careful. We have to worry. We are mothers. It’s part of our job. It’s our job to worry.
How much we worry, and to what extent it affects us, is something I have to work on. It’s intellectual, but intellect has a big effect on my emotions. If I tell myself, “Oh my God, she probably got into an accident,” then that’s what I focus on. If I say, “She’s an intelligent girl, she’s driving carefully, and she’ll be home soon. Cut it out,” then, in the back of my mind, I may still be thinking, “What if, God forbid, something happened?” But it’s not what I’m focusing on or letting myself focus on.
Yes, call me extra times and let me know. Please don’t make fun of me for calling you. It makes me feel better, and it’s something I need for myself. It’s going to be a combination of things I can do to make the situation as safe as possible, but I’m also going to try to stop that. I’m going to try to work on it. It means I have to say, “Cut it out. Cut it out.”
Every single night when I was younger, until my husband came home, if he was 10 minutes late, I pictured the scene in my head. I pictured how I would react and go through it and what people would say. It’s a long time. They’re always a little bit late. They tell you they’re coming home at a certain time, and it’s always a little bit later. I can’t do that anymore. When those thoughts come into my head, I say, “Honey, you did it for 30 years. You had to. It’s enough. You did that already.” Baruch Hashem, everything’s fine. If, God forbid, something’s not fine, what good is falling apart now? Does it help me to fall apart now, as opposed to, God forbid, falling apart if they give me bad news? If there’s bad news, they’ll give me bad news. I’ll fall apart then. What do I have to fall apart now for? These are moments Hashem gave me when there is no bad news. Why should I pretend there is bad news?
I’ve trained myself, and I’m not saying I’m good at it. That’s the way I used to be, and it would still be my first reaction, but I don’t give in to it anymore because it’s ridiculous.
“So you just talk to yourself?”
Yes, all day. I’m very serious. First of all, I teach in high school, so some of the kids I deal with are really teens at risk. You should know that this kind of parenting really damages the relationship. On the one hand, I hear from some kids that their parents don’t care. They’re so busy, whatever. On the other hand, you hear about kids whose parents smother them: “Don’t forget your coat. Did you get there okay?” Calling them every five minutes. The kids don’t have space to breathe.
That’s a matter of balance. It’s not that hard; it’s not that bad. I know, and that’s something I think about. We have to be careful. There’s a balance. Our children want to know that we care about them and are concerned about them, but they don’t want to feel that we’re harping on them and smothering them. That applies to our own feelings, too. I’m trying to teach my daughter because I see that she’s probably like I was at the beginning of my relationship. I’m trying to teach her what I’ve learned over the years: “You know something, honey? If it’s something, we’ll deal with it. Why should I deal with it now? I don’t want to deal with it now. Why should I be miserable this week and then the test comes back and they say everything is fine? Why did I have to kill myself for a week? I don’t want to. I just don’t want to.” It’s very, very hard. I just don’t have the energy for it. When I was younger, I was stronger. I guess I had the energy to fall apart over every little thing. I don’t have the energy for it.
It’s also scary. You hear scary stories everywhere you turn, and you start playing them in your head over and over. When it comes, please Hashem, it shouldn’t come lo aleinu (may it not befall us) on anybody. But if it comes, I will deal with it. In the meantime, I am not. I just refuse. I’m not saying it’s my nature not to worry. My nature is to worry, and I go against that head-on. I will deal with it if I have to. Give me the facts. You give me the facts, and I’ll deal with it.
When I was very, very sick, I was at a point where I literally couldn’t function and didn’t know what to do with myself. I had been healthy and at the height of happiness, and then, out of nowhere, I was hit so hard and brought so low that I didn’t know how to adjust. I was scared to move. I couldn’t move anyway, so that was okay, but I was so frightened, it wasn’t even funny. Nobody knew that I needed psychological counseling at that point, but I did, and I had to do it for myself.
I remember that what helped me turn around was coming to this conclusion: I don’t know what tomorrow brings. I don’t know what I’m going to have to deal with, and I can’t control it. But, you know something, Hashem? If I have to deal with it, I’ll deal with it, and I’m not going to be anxious about it. I’m just going to say, “Whatever You want me to do, I’ll do.” Finish. I had to say, “I’m going to function.” I decided that was my motto, that was what I was going to do, and it was a turning point. It was a turning point.
Instead of thinking, “Oh my God, what if this happens, and what if that happens, and what if I go back to the hospital, and what if this is not good, and what if that is not good?” I couldn’t live like that anymore. It wasn’t going to get me from here to there. It wasn’t going to get me out of bed. It wasn’t going to get me better. I couldn’t do it.
I said, “I don’t know what Hashem wants, but whatever Hashem wants is what’s best. I’m not going to say, ‘I can’t handle it, I can’t handle it, I can’t handle it.’ If Hashem wants me to handle it, I’ll handle it. When that time comes, that’s what I’ll deal with.” Then I was able to get better. I was able to get better. I couldn’t get better till then. I couldn’t. If I was going to live with the anxiety of what might be, I couldn’t function. I just couldn’t function.
I said, “You know something? Whatever Hashem wants, that’s what’s going to be. If Hashem says—God forbid a million times—if Hashem says there’s going to be news I don’t want to hear, that’s Hashem’s will. Is it going to be easy? No. But I’ll deal with it then. I’m not dealing with it now. I’m not dealing with it now.” I did it too long, for too many years. It took too much of my energy and strength. I don’t want to do that, and I try to teach my daughter: “Don’t do that, honey. Don’t do it. Hashem knows what He’s doing. If you need to deal with something, you’ll deal with it. Don’t do it.”
Going off on a little tangent, let’s say someone is not feeling well. With our children, we want to teach them to trust Hashem. If my son has a stomachache, I’ll pray to Hashem to make him feel better, but sometimes he’s not going to feel better, or he’s not going to feel better right away. My question—it’s probably more my question than my children’s—is how do you teach your kids to trust Hashem when you see all these things that cause anxiety? I’m not talking about the anxiety itself, but the actual reality of things going badly, very, very badly, the worst things in the world happening to people. How do you teach your kids to trust Hashem? What’s the attitude of “Hashem knows best” when you’re seeing, let’s say…?
I’m not going to tell young children what I’m going to tell you. Everything is age-appropriate. Right now, we’re going to say, “Hashem’s going to make you better, and it might take a little bit more time.” You pray to Hashem, and, Baruch Hashem, his stomachache is going to get better. Hashem made me better. The cut on your hand is really a miracle. We take it for granted, but the skin can open, repair itself, and close up again, and there can be a scab. The whole process of healing is such an unbelievable miracle from Hashem. We say, “Hashem is going to make it better,” and, “Look, Hashem made my boo-boo better.”
When they get older, they have to understand what we have to come to terms with in life: trusting in Hashem doesn’t mean that I trust everything is going to work out well. I trust that everything Hashem does is for the good. There’s a very big difference. Trusting in Hashem does not mean that everything I want will work out the way I want it to, or that everything will be good in my eyes. Trusting in Hashem means that whatever happens, I trust it’s because Hashem knows what’s best.
“Would you say that an older child, even with the Holocaust and children dying—babies and all that—in a brutal way, should look at it as Hashem wanting it?”
It’s very, very scary when we say anything about the Holocaust, because it’s such an emotionally powerful, horrific event, perhaps the most horrific event we can think of in our time, and we don’t want to trivialize it in any way. But, at the same time, we have to believe there was a tremendous purpose to it, and I believe that it saved all of the world. I believe the kapara (atonement) of the Holocaust was probably a time when Hashem was ready to destroy the world, and He did that instead. I’m not saying I know, and I’m not saying—but we know that when Hashem destroyed the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple), it was instead of destroying the Jewish people as a whole.
Many, many people were terribly destroyed during the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. We think of the building, but it was a holocaust for sure. It was a holocaust involving tremendous numbers of people who were killed, and the starvation and dying of hunger they went through during that time of the Churban (destruction) probably was worse than the Holocaust. It was probably even worse, but it’s not within our realm of history to understand. Yet it saved the future of Bnei Yisrael (Children of Israel), and without it we could not have existed.
I truly believe that without the Holocaust the Jewish nation could not have continued. The people who gave up their lives Al Kiddush Hashem (for the sanctification of Hashem)—the fact that they gave up their lives was Al Kiddush Hashem—had tremendous and instant, instant pleasure and reward beyond our highest expectations of what they could get.
The people who suffered the worst are the survivors. The people who passed away did not suffer. No—and you’ll kill me for that; please, it’s on the tape. I don’t mean that. When they went through it, of course it was the worst thing in the world. But at the moment they gave up their lives, their suffering ended and their tremendous reward began for eternity. The survivors are still suffering today. The survivors don’t have that. It could be that their continued pain is our continued kapara. I don’t know. These are things we don’t know.
As we grow older, we have to understand and accept that everything Hashem does is for our benefit. That’s what Bitachon means: everything is going to be the way Hashem knows it’s best. Bitachon does not mean everything is going to be okay. Bitachon means that everything is going to be the way Hashem knows it’s best, and everything has a reason, and I don’t have to understand the reason. I just have to know that Hashem is there, in control, and He’s doing it. I trust Hashem, because I don’t know that everything is going to work out well. The worst can happen, and does happen. I will deal with it if I have to, understanding that it’s the will of Hashem and that it’s really what’s best.
I talk myself out of it because, thank You, Hashem, 99.9% or even more of the time, it doesn’t materialize. If it does, please Hashem, give me the strength to deal with it, but I’m not going to deal with it now.
What I can feel comfortable about is the percentage—the percentage of good to bad, the percentage of times things actually work out okay compared with the percentage of times disaster happens. We think of all the disasters we’ve heard about in our lives, but there’s also a lot of Beracha (blessing), a lot of recovery, and a lot of people who are well. We don’t focus on the good; we focus on the bad. We have to turn around and focus on the good as well, and realize that the ratio is mostly good. The ratio is mostly good, and therefore we can’t focus on the negative. The negative is really positive in Hashem’s eyes.
All of that has to try to give me strength. I’m not saying I’ve made it. These are the techniques I use to combat the anxiety I have. I’m not saying I don’t have anxiety. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m telling you the strategy I use to fight it. But you have to fight it. You have to fight it constantly.
She was in the hospital to give birth to her baby, and they told her the baby needed to stay in the hospital because they needed to do testing on him. He had some sort of rash or something. She started to panic and think all the worst things in the world. “How could I not bring my baby home? I can’t believe it.” She tried to call her husband, I guess, or whoever, but she couldn’t reach anyone. Finally, she said to herself, “You know what? It’s not for sure what’s going to happen. But if it does happen, and it happens to me and my baby, it must mean that Hashem thinks I can have success. It must mean this is what Hashem wants of me, and Hashem knows what’s best.” She was really able to calm herself down with that. It’s a coping mechanism, but it’s more than that. On a psychological level, I’d say it’s a coping mechanism, but on a religious level, it’s our life’s job of emunah (faith). That’s what we have to do.
As far as how much I share with my children—which is really where we were—I have to be careful that I’m not over-worrying them or bringing them into situations they’re not mature enough to deal with. I’m not sharing concerns they really don’t need to know about.
I’m remembering a great-aunt of mine, may she rest in peace, who had lost her husband when she was pregnant with her seventh child. It was a long time ago, so there weren’t even all these Bikur Cholim (visiting the sick) organizations that would run to her rescue. It wasn’t like that. Her husband had no insurance, no bank account, or anything. She was just going to have to raise these children by herself, and who knew how?
But she told her children as they were growing up, “Listen, I want you to know we’re really very rich, and Daddy left us a lot of money. I have it in the bank. But we’re not going to use it unless it’s a real, real emergency. It has to be the worst emergency to use it. But know that the money is there. The money’s in the bank. We’re really rich. We’re not going to spend it, but we’re rich.” That way the children wouldn’t be worried that they didn’t have a dime or a way of surviving, because that was the truth of the matter.
Baruch Hashem, they did wonderfully and survived wonderfully. Every once in a while, the children would tell us. My cousin, I think, even wrote a book about her mother and told the story in the book, so it’s not as though you shouldn’t say it. At certain times in her life, she wanted a new bicycle, and her mother said, “Honey, we can’t afford it.” She said, “But what do you mean? We have that bank account in the bank.” Her mother said, “Yes, we do, of course we do, but this is not an emergency. A bicycle is not an emergency. That’s not when we’re going to use that money. I’m sorry, it’s only for emergencies.”
Even if they were mad at her because she had the money but wasn’t spending it, they didn’t have to fear where their next meal would come from. They didn’t know the truth until they were probably all married and settled. Her boys, Baruch Hashem, got old enough to work and help and bring in money. Baruch Hashem, they raised beautiful families and did beautifully, and she raised a family. But she did not want to concern her children with the fact that they were really in a terrible situation. That was not something you share with them.
We have to know what to share and what not to share. With my mother-in-law, my mother, or whoever, I feel more comfortable. I told my daughter, “I know I don’t want to worry you, but I want you to know that I tell you the truth. I don’t want to be afraid to tell you things, because then you’re always going to think I’m not telling you. I have to be able to tell you. You have to learn to deal with it. I don’t want you falling apart. I want to be able to say I’m going for a checkup without you crying all night.”
She would literally cry all night, worrying, “What if they’re going to tell Mommy something bad?” I don’t know; maybe it’s because she was a young girl when I had that incident and she knows about it, and maybe she heard about it too young in her life. They hear things we don’t mean to tell them.
“I think it’s nice to share with them. It’s hard, but certain things are not for the kids.”
“Right, right. You can share with your husband or whoever.”
Absolutely. “Why don’t you tell me when you’re going to the doctor?” Why do you have to know? You know what I’m saying? It’s nice sometimes, depending on their age and your relationship with your children. Your relationship will grow as your children grow. It will be different as they get older. But the point is, there is a certain amount of sharing with our children that is good.
When we discuss minor concerns with them—maybe the holidays are coming and I have a lot to do and have to figure out how to work it all out, and it’s really a lot on Mommy’s mind—they may have similar situations when a lot of tests are coming up at school at the same time and they feel overwhelmed. It’s that kind of overwhelmed feeling. “But I know that if I take one thing at a time, I can do it.” You draw similarities between what I’m going through in my life and what you’re going through in yours. We all have our times. It shouldn’t be things they can’t handle. It should not be things they can’t handle.
We should not discuss Shalom Bayit (peace in the home) problems with our children. They’re constantly eavesdropping because they’re always worried. If there are issues you know your children should not be hearing, then you really have to not talk about them.
“But you assume they’re sleeping, or whatever, and they’re sleeping.”
Then you know you can’t talk even when you think they’re sleeping. You have to be very careful about what you say and when. In that situation, you have to assume they’re hearing. What they hear when they think you don’t know they hear it is even more powerful, because then they know it’s the real stuff.
Sometimes I would want him to hear because I would want him to learn, as you’re saying, to deal with certain things. Sometimes I’d be really upset and wouldn’t want him to hear something. But sometimes I’d say, “Okay, he heard it, and I want to see how he’s going to react to it now, because I know he’s like me.” When I was little, I used to hear things too much. Or not even hear them, just see reactions on my parents’ faces. My father was pretty distant when I was little. So talk with them about how we cope. Talk about how things did work out okay and how we did deal with them.
If you know they’re experiencing that, don’t ignore it. They also say that if our children—and they should, please Hashem, never see it—but if they do see a husband and wife arguing, show them that you made up. If you know your kids heard something between husband and wife that wasn’t so nice, you are obligated to make sure they know it was patched up and that you don’t feel that way anymore. They can’t only hear one side and not hear the other.
“No, but it’s none of their business that Daddy and I are now all romantic and happy together.”
I’m not saying it should be inappropriate, but yes, they should know that you made up and you’re okay now, and that was something you dealt with and it’s over. They should never hear us argue. They should never hear us fight, and they should never hear Shalom Bayit issues between husband and wife.
What I started to say was that a woman should not discuss these things with her children. It’s harder when daughters get older and become your best friends. My daughters are my best friends in life, and I would talk to them. But I have to know that it is inappropriate for me to discuss why their father got on my nerves. That’s not what I tell my daughters. It’s not something I should tell them. It gets harder as our daughters get older, we’re very close to them, and they feel like they’re our best friends. It’s still their father. We’re not allowed to do that. If I have to tell somebody, if I need to tell somebody, I tell my sister, but I shouldn’t tell my daughter. So there’s sharing that’s appropriate, and sharing that’s inappropriate.
Sharing events and maybe slight frustrations in my life that I had to go through, and how it was difficult, is different. I know I shared with my daughters my crazy experience of going for jury duty and totally freaking out. I had gone to jury duty, and they had me waiting to be on a case with a guy who was an armed robber. He had gone into a place, and the truth is, he was sitting there in the courtroom. The guy was actually there. It emotionally wiped me out. I was in the room with a guy who shot somebody. I couldn’t handle it. I started to cry, and I was sitting by myself. Everybody else was very interested and intrigued. I laugh at my reaction now, but it was such an extreme reaction. I didn’t know where to run with it. They wouldn’t let me out of the room, but I wanted to get out of that room. I was so frightened by the whole experience.
But we laugh about it, and I tell my children about it. We talk about it. When she had jury duty, I said, “You’re not going to be like me. Please don’t be like me. That was absurd. I couldn’t help the reaction, but it was so weird. It was such an extreme reaction. I couldn’t handle it.” We shared that, and it was funny. It was something I went through that they could handle, and we laughed about it. I said, “Okay, are you okay?” She went to jury duty, and I didn’t even cry. I said, “Great, honey, you did good.” We can share things with them like that. We can share things in our lives that were important to us, but it doesn’t have to be the scariest things in our lives when our children can’t handle them.
When we say to share with them, some people have a relationship with their children where nothing is their business. “Why should I tell them about me?” Or they want to maintain the facade that they never make mistakes, only did the right things, or were always perfect. Come on, tell them when you got thrown out of school. It’s okay. “I remember what happened when I said the wrong thing to my teacher.” The child is going through something with a teacher now, and you say, “Yeah, it happens. I remember it happened with me, and I said this, and this happened.” The child feels a little comforted, a little like, “Oh, if Mommy could get through it, I could get through it, too. She understands. She went through things like that.” We can talk to them. We can share with them.
“If they’re going through something and you’re still going through the same thing, would you share it? Or is that a weakness?”
It depends on the child and the circumstances. If the child is old enough to understand that this is a lifelong thing we work on and I’m still working on it, that could be something to share, and it could encourage them. A young child doesn’t want to know that Mommy can’t handle life, because they’re depending on you to handle life. It depends on the child’s age and the actual circumstance. When we’re talking in generalities, it’s hard to say what was right and what was wrong.
I don’t want to give my child the fear that Mommy’s going to fall apart at any minute and that I can’t trust from today till tomorrow. I’m not going to let them think that, either. But we always go through these things, and we’re always afraid of these feelings. Of course everybody’s afraid something bad could happen tomorrow. But we have to be strong and tough. I’ve grown and gotten better over the years, and that’s something we can share with our children.
If a child complains of headaches, stomachaches, and neckaches a couple of times each day, it can’t always be those things. Once in a while it can be, right? But if she calls me complaining twice a week, every week, I know something else is going on.
There may be something else going on. It could be stress. Stress could cause those actual symptoms. So what is causing the stress? It might be stress, and it might be physical.
I always come back to this because I can’t help it. I had terrible stomachaches as a child. I was allergic to dairy, and I didn’t find out about it until I’d been married probably 15 years. Who knew about dairy allergies 50 years ago? No such thing. Dairy was what you lived on. Dairy was the best thing. Four glasses of milk and cheese, and if you were a good mother, that’s what you gave your children. There was no concept of being allergic to dairy when I was a child. As an adult, I know I’m allergic to dairy. I had tremendous stomachaches all through my childhood, and my mother was sure I hated school. She kept asking me, “Honey, why don’t you like school?” “Ma, my stomach hurts.” She said, “But honey, really, how come? Is something up? Did someone say something? Are you having a test? Why did you do good in school? Why?”
It still bothers me. I had a stomachache because you were feeding me dairy noon and night. I’m allergic to dairy. I didn’t know it until many years later. It was a terrible hurt that they thought there was some psychological or emotional thing going on and that was why I kept saying my stomach hurt. But it constantly hurt. I had very, very many stomachaches.
“Is that your daughter’s case?”
I don’t know, but I want you to be careful. It’s a hurt that doesn’t go away. It’s possible that it’s physical. It could be allergy-related. It could be food allergies. It could be allergies to the chemical products you use in your house, like Windex and Top Job and all the other lovely things we use in our house that are toxic. It could be that she’s stressed out and the stress is causing it. I always recommend believing that the physical symptoms are physical. Don’t make her think you don’t believe her. You must believe her. If it’s not physical, tough. In the end, she will love you for trusting her, no matter what else.
At the same time, have enough conversations with her, sharing stressful things you went through at school and times you did or didn’t get along well with friends, so she’ll feel a little more comfortable sharing with you if she wants to open up about herself. Otherwise, you can ask the teacher confidentially to let you know if they think anything is going on at school. You can have that kind of foresight and look for things, but don’t make her feel you think her symptoms are for psychological or emotional reasons.
Maybe you go to the doctor. I used to tell my children as they were growing up, when they were sick, “Honey, I know you’re sick.” They’d say, “My stomach hurts,” and I’d say, “Okay, your stomach hurts. I understand. But unless you have a fever or actually threw up, you still have to go to school.” I’m not saying your stomach doesn’t hurt. Of course it hurts. But there are certain criteria for what goes to the doctor and what doesn’t, and what ailments mean you stay home from school and what ailments you go to school with. Your throat might hurt, but it could hurt for two weeks. You’re not staying home for two weeks. You have a little bit of a cold. It’s okay. You can still go to school.
“Why can’t she take the child to the doctor two or three days later?”
Of course she can. But not from school—not to cut school.
“Right. She’s expecting I’m going to run and pick her up.”
If she’s having chronic headaches, neckaches, and stomachaches, or whatever symptoms you’re describing, too often, then yes, I might take her to an allergist. I might take her to a doctor who looks at it from a different angle. If you take her to a regular pediatrician who checks her breathing, ears, and throat, they’re not going to find something else that might be triggering this, like an allergy or some imbalance in her system that a different type of doctor might find.
Am I expected to get her out of school based on those symptoms? No. You can tell her, “Go back to school, and we’ll make an appointment,” as you’re saying. We’ll make an appointment on the next day off or after school. It doesn’t have to mean leaving school. It’s not an excuse to leave school, but you’re not going to ignore it or think it’s not real.
“So she should deal with it and stay the rest of the day, feeling whatever she’s feeling?”
You have to judge how badly she’s feeling and ask the teacher, “Do you think she could stay in school?” Sometimes they’ll say, “You know…” Give her an aspirin, or send her a Tylenol or something, and send her back to class, if you’ve given permission for them to do that. Work it out so you treat it as a real ailment, but that doesn’t mean you drive her home from school every time she calls.
Along those lines, just from an older person’s perspective, on Sunday I had to go to a funeral. It was my cousin’s mother-in-law, and I was with her the whole time. By the time I left, I was so emotionally drained. My whole left side felt like it was tingling. I started panicking because the person who passed away had died very suddenly. I know my father and I have very similar personalities, and he was driving me back. I said, “I really don’t feel well. I really do not feel well.” He said, “It’s okay. It’s just nerves. It’s just anxiety.” I said, “I really don’t feel well. I’m telling you, I don’t feel my left side.” He said, “Are you breathing?” I said, “No.” I was very nervous. He knew me already, so he said, “You know what? I’m going to take you to your doctor right now.”
My husband was freaking out: “You’re so psychological. This is ridiculous. The four kids are home. What are you doing?” I guess my father whispered to him, “Just let me take her to the doctor.” He took me to the doctor. I was so ready to pass out. They took my blood pressure, and the doctor said, “It’s normal. Everything’s normal.” I know this because I was like this when I was little. Finally, he told me, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You have a lot of stress. It’s just stress. It’s not, God forbid, a stroke. It’s not, God forbid, anything.”
I left, and my father was very reassuring. The truth is, he came from Jersey. It wasn’t as if he had nothing to do. Then he said, “Do you feel better?” I said, “Yeah, thank God, I feel better.” He called me two hours later: “Do you feel better?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Sometimes you just need to go and get reassurance.” Even when I was little, I needed to go to the doctor because the doctors would say, “No, it looks like there’s nothing there,” and then my anxiety would ease. That’s not necessarily always easy to do. But maybe she is feeling anxiety, and the doctor can tell her there’s no physical reason for it.
But you can’t do it all the time. At one point, you’re going to have to kick in for yourself and say, “I understand what anxiety is, and I have to deal with my anxiety.” As you grow up, you can’t constantly run to the doctor every time. But I also felt in that story the love, care, and concern of your father, his willingness to give his time to make you feel better, even if it was psychological and emotional. That was what you needed. I think it’s a tremendous feeling of relationship and care, to feel your father was there for you.
“Right, because it felt like he would understand. My husband thought I was crazy.”
Right, and yes, it was nothing, and your husband might think, “You see, I told you so.” But that’s the wrong attitude. It’s not about saying, “I told you so.” This is what loving and caring is about. When a person is having anxiety and it brings on physical symptoms, we have to take seriously that they’re going through a painful situation. Taking it seriously helps alleviate it. When we tell them it’s nothing, sometimes that makes it worse.
“It’s from the doctor, not from the mother.”
Right. I would try to check whether there are allergies or something she’s experiencing. Then, when you decide there’s nothing, you don’t tell her she’s making it up. You tell her, “It’s unfortunate. Some people have symptoms they have to deal with, and it’s hard. But you still have to get through school. You still have to go to school. Unfortunately, you get headaches and neckaches. That’s the way your body works. You have to learn to deal with it.”
After you check it out and see it’s not allergies, you tell her, “I hear you. You’re right; you do have that, and you do feel that, and I feel terrible. But if you stayed home every time, or if I picked you up every time, you’d get less back. It wouldn’t be something we could do. That’s not coping with reality.”
The reality is, I might get headaches or migraines a lot. I have to learn how to deal with that. I can’t just say, “Okay, I’m staying in bed.” I have a job. I have to get to work. I have to do things. That kind of reaction is going to make her feel, “Oh, I don’t care about her. I don’t care that she should stay in school and not feel the way she does.” So take her for her checkups and tell her this is the way it has to be. Otherwise, she’s not going to make it through school. You care about her very much, but you care about the overall picture. If you miss that many days of school, you’re not going to make it.
I used to tell my children there were certain criteria for staying home, like having a fever, and I had to see those symptoms. Otherwise, I believed they had those symptoms, but they might need to go to school. Not all the time—I was sometimes in the mood to say, “She’s probably just overtired,” and let her stay home. I’m not saying I was rigid about it. But if I felt I needed to have some basis for it, then yes.
I remember getting yelled at by my doctor when I was in high school because I needed a doctor’s note after being absent too many times. The truth is, I was finagling a little, and he knew it. He was mad at me. I went to him because my throat was hurting, and he yelled at me, “So your throat’s hurting you? So big deal. You still have to be in school. Why am I writing a note that you didn’t go to school just because your throat’s hurting you?” He was angry with me, and I said, “Okay, I’m not going to be able to do this too many times.” He wasn’t going to write it. My throat was hurting; I wouldn’t lie. But big deal. In the winter and cold, your throat can hurt. Not everything requires staying home from school.
So that was the concept we’re getting from mutual sharing. This is where we were on the points. Next time, we should know that we covered this concept. There is a proper amount of sharing with our children, and then there’s an inappropriate type of sharing. A certain amount of sharing and caring, and showing that we went through similar things to what they go through, and that we also have concerns, and that we’re not a finished product but are still in the making and still working on ourselves to the right degree, is something we should share with our children. It gives them more of a bond and connection to us, and more of an idea that we’re real people who want a relationship with them. It builds that relationship and makes them feel important, that we care enough to build that relationship with them.
That’s where we’re going to leave it for now.