The Difficulty with Tefila

Is it a good year for more intensive chinuch? Every year I wonder how Torah learning is going to play out. I want to continue the philosophy of them being able to choose to refuse. And I also want to make sure that we are being mechanech that we value Torah learning. Walking that line without forcing or pressuring or panicking is not easy. 

I don't keep track of their grades, but I think we are in middle school and early high school now. 

Since davening is a challenge for all of them, we decided to incentivize shul this year for Rosh Hashana. We made deals for them to come for the silent and repetition of mussaf. (Generally the majority of them sleep late in the morning and we have better luck with mincha/maariv than shacharis, both because of the ADHD length factor and the teenage late circadian rhythm factor). I was going to get them some fancy game like Mario Kart that they are reluctant to buy for themselves because of the expense. But they all end up preferring the matching amount in cash. We haggled through Shabbos lunch a couple of weeks ago, debating whether haggling about money on Shabbos was allowed (we decided it was like doing an auction at shul). I told them to negotiate an incentive that will make them feel excited to go to shul. Like they are earning something they're excited about and it's a worthwhile deal. I don't want them going to shul thinking they are getting the short end of the deal.

I also got them to agree to sit down with me for 7 minutes Mon-Thur so we can go through the mussaf Shemona Esrei together, so they have some idea of what they are saying, what the words mean and what the themes are.

Even 7 minutes has been a challenge, and reminds me why I unschool. (As one of them snarkily remarked about the daily 7 minutes: "We aren't unschooling anymore because I don't want to do this.") They are all close enough in age/ability that it's almost like a little classroom. They are all squirmy and reluctant.

One of them said, "Why can't I just read the English in shul?" I said you absolutely can. But without preparation, you aren't really going to understand the English. Even the English is complicated. Which we saw as we sat down to read it together.

I've been trying to give them a sense of the structure of the mussaf. It really is amazing how quickly they can get bored, how difficult it is go through the words, and how complex the phrases are.

I can really see why tefila is so arduous and meaningless for them. I hope at the end of these few weeks they'll have a sense of the themes and some of what they are saying. But they'd do better with a WAY simplified version. When I think of them struggling through the unfamiliar words and barely understanding what they are saying for hours, I can see why shul doesn't pull them.

I hope that spending the time preparing with them will be helpful in the long term and isn't too painful now. I'm keeping it short and I hope it will help them find it more meaningful. I don't know how much meaning they will find in shul this year. I hope as they mature they will eventually be able to find meaning in the long, complex prayers we say. I think studying them is essential to finding meaning in them. I'm trying to show them how much depth there is and how much there is to think about.

I was going to shorten the time because 7 minutes is a bit too long. But we are still in the middle of zichronos and there are only 2 sessions left. I don't know how much we will make through shofaros. I guess next year is another opportunity b'ezras Hashem.

chinuch and al pi darko

I have wrestled with the question many times of what will make a child love Torah and love mitzvos and what will make a child reject and hate it. What will make a child grow up to attend shul and will those same actions (nudging, pushing) cause a future abhorrence.

The confusing thing seemed to me that if you ask people "what did your parents do that encouraged you to go to minyan" and if you ask people "what did your parents do that made you avoid minyan" you'll find an overlap. Sometimes the very same actions people say worked is exactly what other people say backfired. 

Well, I'm pretty sure no one ever said "They made it fun and exciting and I swore I'd never do it again." 

But I think you'll find divisiveness on "they were firm and pushed me to do it even though I objected" and equal divisiveness on "they let it go and were relaxed about it." (Though come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever heard an adult say "I dropped it because it didn't seem like it was a priority to my parents." I have heard others denounce parents and say "If you don't show your children it's a priority, they won't know and they won't do it.")

So I was all muddled about this for a while. It's especially confusing when I'm trying to decide if unschooling and trust the process is a good idea. Or if I'm abdicating responsibility and making a huge mistake.

But recently I've come to some conclusions. And it seems so obvious to me now, I wonder why I didn't always see it this way. 

My children have very different personalities. I've found it useful when thinking about this area to look through the lens of Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies which frames what types of habit forming strategies work for different types of people.

Looking at my children through the above lens has allowed me to really carefully craft their "obligations" or "good for them activities" (i.e. "mitzvos") through strategies that speak to their tendencies. While one of my children may love structure and love accomplishing, another will shut down completely if there is a whiff of obligation.

In addition to that, there is also neurodiversity and learning style, which greatly affects whether someone is the type who can sit in the beis medrash or even sit through shacharis. And then there is the early riser vs. the night owl in terms of who is physically going to be really struggling with morning minyan. 

There's a reason why we have different expectations from different children. Some children are social and if their friends do it, they'll be inclined to do it. Some children are upholders and are pretty driven and motivated. Some children are just going to go the opposite direction if you push them. 

I just think a lot of this is personality and nature. I'm sure as parents we can do a lot of things to make things worse. But assuming we don't make things worse and can get out of the way, it seems like a lot of this comes down to personality. And that it's really important to factor personality into chinuch.

I know that an Eisav can be a Dovid HaMelech. But an Eisav is never going to be a Yaakov. As my children grow up, it just seems to me that for some children, gentle chinuch works beautifully. And for others, even Herculean efforts might be counter-productive and the best thing you can do is show love and support and shut up (which is a different but equally important Herculean effort). It seems the more I look at it, certain types of strategies are going to be a really bad idea for some kids and be at best indifferent for others. And other strategies will work really well--but it depends on the child's personality.

I'm reminded of Koheles perek 11:6

בַּבֹּ֙קֶר֙ זְרַ֣ע אֶת־זַרְעֶ֔ךָ וְלָעֶ֖רֶב אַל־תַּנַּ֣ח יָדֶ֑ךָ כִּי֩ אֵֽינְךָ֨ יוֹדֵ֜עַ אֵ֣י זֶ֤ה יִכְשָׁר֙ הֲזֶ֣ה אוֹ־זֶ֔ה וְאִם־שְׁנֵיהֶ֥ם כְּאֶחָ֖ד טוֹבִֽים׃

Chazal say have children or students both in your youth and in your old age. Because you have no idea what's going to work out. 

It's kind of comforting to have Chazal shrug and say, "It's a numbers game."

(I have a feeling that this post can be VASTLY misinterpreted so I reserve the right to clarify in the future.)

#goals

A dear family friend asked me how I set goals. 

That's a loaded question, and maybe I'll write a few posts addressing different facets.

But one of the subquestions was about goals for my children. I've written before about educational goals but today I'm thinking about grown children. Two fifths of my children are grown.   

I don't have goals for my grown children. 

All I can have is goals for MY relationship with my children. Which is about how I'M going to behave. Not about them. 

My goals for that are pretty simple: 

• That they enjoy spending time with me (which pretty much is about me keeping my mouth shut about their life choices and me being pleasant to them)
  
  
• and that I don't dread seeing or hosting them because I've taken on food or housekeeping tasks that overwhelm me.

Bribes/Earnings/Negotiations

I never did write about our Seder this year. Last year I was so demoralized (to be fair, it was the middle of a pandemic) at how much nobody seemed to be able to read Hebrew. It felt like I had failed in homeschool. ("In homeschool, the kids don't fail; only the teachers [moms] do!")(I just made that up.) 

 This year it turns out that everyone's Hebrew reading improved and they were pretty engaged and it was a lovely learning experience. I made a grab bag with some discussion points/scenarios/questions to answer and they really enjoyed that.

Jack and I have started learning for half an hour once (or twice a week). He's often running out of money so he earns $5 a session. He practices Hebrew reading and R' Winder. It's a joy to teach someone with the ability to sit. After two ADHD kids, it's a nice change of pace. He's doing great with R' Winder and I'm optimistic about his future ability to translate Tanach. 

Elazar has been working on the ability to tolerate minyan. He still is reading with me for 4 minutes at a sitting a few times a week. He's still not through Shemona Esrei.
He woke up on Shabbos morning before shul was over so I asked him to go to shul. He was very reluctant. After a bunch of back and forth negotiations, we agreed that if he can go to shul with his father when his father goes (if he gets a 10 minute warning), and if he goes to shul for musaf time if he's awake Shabbos morning, and if his over bar mitzva friends go to shul on Shabbos for mincha if he is with them then he'll go to shul for that. If he commits to that for a year, he can get a Nintendo Switch plus 4 games. 

This got him pretty excited but he's not sure he can commit to that. He's thinking about it.

In the meantime, he's still crossing off his Xs on his minyan chart (when he hits 30 he earns a game). He seems to be under the impression that he will simultaneously earn more Xs for new games if he commits to the Switch. That's not my inclination (when a new rewards system comes into effect, doesn't it knock out the old one?) but on the other hand, I'm not sure I want to mess with his enthusiasm. 

I think of it like this: Would I pay x dollars to see my child be excited for minyan? Would I pay double that? Yes. Yes, I would. 

The Wall of Awful and Davening

Tefila is not progressing as I would have hoped. Sure, we could medicate and maybe he could learn it more quickly. But he's going "at his own pace" and that is an exceedingly slow pace, indeed.

We've been arguing about reading Yaale V'Yavo. He's not up to it in shemona esrei. (He's nowhere near it.) I said it comes up every Rosh Chodesh, every chag, in bentching and in davening, he may as well get fluent at it. He said it takes him a minute and 30 seconds and he only wants it to take 30 seconds. I said practice it and it will take 30 seconds. It seems awful to him. He whines. (I'm glad he's not in school and this is not a daily, hourly battle.)

He's been having trouble with davening in general. It recently got to the point where he's been skipping breakfast. Because you can't eat before davening. And then he davens right before chatzos.

I've come to understand from Chen that tasks that seem to be not so difficult yet are procrastinated is a feature of ADHD. This is called "the wall of awful." Here is the video that explains it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo08uS904Rg

This whole video was pretty eye opening for me. Especially as I'm the type of person who doesn't have much trouble pushing myself to do things I don't especially feel like doing. It's a feature of ADHD that they have a much harder time "forcing" or "making" themselves do things they find distasteful. I know many people think, "I also don't like doing things I don't want to do. But I do it!" But it seems to me that there is significant neurodivergence here. E would actually develop tics, anxiety, and mutilate himself (in the event that he actually can even manage to do it).

So basically, he's spending the whole morning gearing up to daven. It takes him that long.

I asked a friend of mine if he thought E should be allowed to have breakfast and not skip it. Or would that make E feel like the mitzvos are too bendable. He said that's a question for a posek. I was trying to decide which posek to consult. One who has an understanding of the emotional elements of ADHD.

I consulted Chen, who suggested that he say birchas haTorah and then have a quick bowl of cereal. So he does some form of praise/request/thanks even if it's not the official one.

I sat down with E this morning and spoke to him about the Wall of Awful and how it's something he's dreading every day. I asked if eating breakfast would help and he said that he doesn't want to do that, since breakfast is the thing that motivates him to daven--so that he can eat. And if we remove that, he has no motivation. He doesn't want to do it and he only does it because of the chiyuv and he can only bring himself to do it if he's waiting to eat breakfast.

I suggested maybe he wants to move tefilin to mincha time instead. He said no, then it's hanging over his head for longer and the Wall of Awful is there for longer.

So we are trying to strategize and it's still challenging. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, I'm all ears.

 

On Waking Teenage Boys in Time for Shema

I knew this was going to be an issue. It's a known scientific phenomenon that teenagers have a delayed sleep cycle. Science has recommended (unfortunately to little avail) that teenagers start school no earlier than 10:30am. Teenagers go to sleep later and wake up later. ("this sleep deprivation is due in part to pubertal changes in the homeostatic and circadian regulation of sleep." and "In this review of human and animal literature, we demonstrate that delayed sleep phase during puberty is likely a common phenomenon in mammals, not specific to human adolescents.")

Shema is earlier than 10:30.

Yesterday, my husband and I were discussing whether or not to wake up our teenager for Shema.

As I see it, the question is: What action now is going to most likely end up with an adult who wakes up and says Shema b'zmano (in time)?

The trouble is, either action we take has a risk:

• Wake him up, and he may get annoyed and rebel and resent and not grow up to say Shema.
• Let him sleep, and he may get the feeling that it is not a priority and doesn't really matter and we didn't make enough effort to express our values.

I believe that half the people in shul as adults attribute it to their parents nudging/pushing/encouraging/valuing it.

And half the people who hate shul blame their parents for nudging/pushing/nagging about it.

How do we know which personality falls into which half? We don't.

Honestly, sometimes I envy those parents who tell their children their values and their children follow those values. This is not my first rodeo and to stick with the metaphor, some horses buck. 

So for now we are taking the position that teenagers sleeping late is shogeg (violation via carelessness, not via intentionality) אנוס רחמנא פטריה (against his will unable to do the mitzva) for biological reasons and hope that in the future, when his circadian rhythms revert to more normal hours, he'll desire to say Shema in its time.

For now, when it comes up, we have conversations about davening where I try to explain the value of taking the time to think about these ideas at the beginning, middle, and end of the day.

Last week I read R' Soloveitchik's idea about tefila being an appointment with Hashem, and how you don't show up late to an appointment. Hashem generously made hours for the appointment.

My son commented that he personally would have tried to get an appointment for later in the day if he had a choice. 

As I was writing this just now, I asked him: "If there was a king, and you could speak to the king about your needs, and ask for anything, would you wake up early to do it?"

"Probably," he admitted. Pause. "But, if I were seeing the king every day..."

Some Chizuk for Homeschooling Limudei Kodesh

 I was talking to a friend who is nervous about homeschooling, particularly on the Judaic Studies front. I jotted down a few thoughts and here they are:

It doesn't actually take that long to learn skills. It can be done in 2-3 years post high school in yeshiva.

There is a lot of Torah learning that can be done in an enjoyable way (telling stories etc., having conversation, learning topics like hashkafa or halacha outside any book) that can be tailored to students who are "not students." There was an amazing session at one of the Jewish homeschooling conferences I went to years ago and she talked about how in homeschool we have the freedom to avoid Chumash skills and hours of Gemara if they are not working for our child. We can be creative and there are SO many paths of Torah learning. Chassidus, Navi stories that they'll relate to, coloring, videos, hands on stuff. There is no need to go "the classic path" just because yeshivas do it.

Baalei teshuva are the scaredest to go rogue. They so badly want their kids to have the yeshiva education they didn't get.

People who got the yeshiva education are less enamored of it. Ari once told me the worst torture of boredom he ever had in his life was 7th grade Gemara and he used to think to himself, "if I can get through this, I can get through anything boring in the world." All he wants for his kids is for them not to suffer that.

It could be really exciting for you to get the skills at the same time your kids do. I'm in love with the Rabbi Winder books. (l'shon hatorah). I had ok skills before but this knocked me up to the next level and it's what I used to teach in high school. I was renowned for teaching skills--and I picked up those skills teaching my own children.

Time To Make ADHD Official

 I haven't been writing so much because as the boys get older, I'm becoming more aware of their privacy. I asked E his opinion about writing about this next step and he gave permission. 

Now that he's bar mitzva, he's been struggling to learn the davening (the entire year leading up to his bar mitzva was nowhere near enough time). The good news is that he doesn't feel like he's struggling. He just dislikes it and we don't do it much and it goes slowly. We do it 4x a week for under 5 minutes at a time. As I mentioned, this teeny amount of sitting results in that he doesn't have the bandwidth for mishna anymore.

I've really been unsure how to proceed. Is it the time to unschool and let him decide when to do it? I've always thought that eventually a child would be motivated and then it would come quickly. It seems to me there is a learning disability here, it's blocking motivation, and even if he is motivated, there will be no learning quickly.

At the same time, he does love to think and to learn, and the more I push and impose, the less energy, inclination and motivation he has for true and real-to-him learning.

On the other hand, this may be the kind of thing that when he grows up, he'll say to me, "Ma, I wish you would have pushed me a little more. Then I would know how to daven." <--That's something that usually unschoolers fret about and experienced unschoolers say is not a worry. Because a feature of unschooling is the confidence and experience that when you want to learn something, then you figure out how to learn it or you get help.

And yet, something is telling me that he's ready. He's ready for some nudging. And if this is not hard core unschooling, well, he's my oldest son and sometimes I'm just not deschooled enough and don't trust enough and maybe Torah is too important and maybe I'll relax after him and look back and say "I was too pushy and I could have had the trust and confidence to let it go."

I was walking with him on the beach and asking him what he likes to do and he said he'd like to learn coding but he thinks he's lazy.

That was kind of a shock because I don't believe that laziness actually exists. If a person wants to do something, they figure it out. If they don't do it, there are reasons. Conflicts. Difficulties. 

I asked him if he knows what neurodiversity means. He didn't. I explained that some people's brains work differently than most of the population. I said I'm not sure, but his might. That may be why he doesn't like to do certain types of work. Because it hurts his brain. That may not be the case, and if so we'll have to figure out how he can do learning that he wants but also doesn't want to do, if he chooses. But it's worth checking out if his brain is neurodiverse. He agreed.

I then looked into testing. The place we used for his older sibling is closed for covid now. And I also read that for special ed services in college (which Chen is making great use of and having a FANTASTIC college experience so far bh) he'll need to have been tested within 3 years of 18. So I'll hold off a few more years. In the meantime, though, I do think it's time to pursue the ADHD diagnosis to see if him having access to medication affects his ability to concentrate and do the type of learning he's interested in doing. Then we can test in a few years to see if he has any other learning disabilities.

9 Av 2020 Al Pi Darko Unschooling

I was debating whether or not to try to do something official with the boys. Generally in the afternoon, the older of us watch a thematic movie.

It turns out that I tried to engage one of the kids and conversation but he wasn't that receptive. But then another kid came in and he was interested and we watched a short video which led to a great discussion about what happened and a day of mourning, and the Titus Arch, and he was stunned that both Mikdashim were destroyed on (almost) the same day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5vuoX09ryw&feature=youtu.be

There was a program on our block and one of the boys went to it.

And it turns out Ari had a good conversation about the purpose of Tisha B'Av with the very kid I had tried to engage and failed to. That kid had asked Ari about it and they had a good discussion.

So we kind of keep an eye out for opportunities to talk about it, throw some things out (strewing) and see if anyone is interested.

A negative effect

A negative side effect of Elazar reluctantly practicing reading is that he no longer likes to do Mishna.  He feels "overloaded" from the 5-10 minutes.  (I've actually skipped learning the meaning of his parsha with him this week [which I'd been doing 2x a week, reading out loud to him and translating 3 or so pesukim] since he's been so unhappy and complaining about learning.)

This is a feature that his older sister had, too.  I wonder if it's an aspect of ADHD that they run out of steam so quickly learning things that are difficult for their brains and need the rest of the day or actual days or weeks to recover.  Her motivation and determination improved with age (and medication) but the mental exhaustion remains about the same.

Update

It went terribly.  E hates reading the same thing over and over and refuses to self rate.  He is bored out of his mind and won't even read it to fluency.  He's been reading one line, with complaining, 5-6 times.  He does not achieve fluency level (reading as quickly as speaking).  I figure he would need 10-15 tries to do that and he doesn't want to.

I tried to coax him into giving it a week.  I said it's a method I read about; can't we try it out?  He finds it excruciating.  I don't know if I should stick it out or if I should just try to have him read more.  That, too, isn't going very successfully. 

It may come to him actually not being able at bar mitzva age to read fluently, because he's so vehemently opposed to it.

hebrew reading fluency

The goal: To be able to read as quickly as speaking

E is pretty accurate at this point.  (Kaf and chaf, pey and fey, he still confuses.  And he doesn't ever use a shva nach yet.)  But I want him to be able to read more fluently.  Reading more doesn't seem to be picking up his pace (I've been trying that for the last month) and he doesn't like to read so much at once.

My friend told me about R' Jonathan Rietti's method to increase speed and accuracy:

Read a sentence.
Self assess how fast it was (assuming accuracy and fluency are already in place) on a 1-5 scale. Then decide if you want to read it again aiming for faster speed.
And we’ve done that repeating the sentence 5-6 times and speed does pick and AND it picks up globally not just for that sentence, if you keep up with it and practice.

I'll let you know how it goes!

here's how not unschooling goes

I told E I'd like to learn his parsha with him.  He said, "No, no, no" and curled up into a ball on the couch under a blanket.

I said to him yesterday, "Do you truly not want to learn your Parsha?" (This is me reading the pesukim out loud in Hebrew to him and then translating them.)

He said, "I know I have to, but I don't want to." 

Today was only 4 pesukim because he couldn't sit through what I had planned yesterday.  (I was trying to do one aliyah per sitting; he has a double parsha so that's 14 aliyos total.)  So he was dreading it but it wasn't so bad.

Then I spoke with him about wanting to improve his reading.  He was kind of dismayed at all the brachos he has to learn for the haftora.  I said reading fluently would help.  He said, "Noooooooo" it's difficult and he doesn't like it. I explained that if he would be able to read at the pace of talking, it wouldn't be hard to learn the brachos if he could read like that.  He said that he has trouble with the letters with the dagesh and without, being able to tell them apart. 

I asked him if he wanted to just work on knowing those first.  He said no.

He said he'd rather learn to read later.  I said I'd like to do it now.

I had him read a line from one of the haftora brachos.  I said only one line a day. 

He read it.  He started off very slowly with mistakes.  Got into a groove as he went.  It was a line with no tricky stuff.  He translated as he went.  (Score for speaking in Hebrew!)  The line finished and I said, "That's it."  And he said, "That wasn't so bad."

I'm glad it ended up not so bad.  I'm glad it's not torture.  I'm having some flashbacks to why I started this blog in the first place. 

I don't think I'm "ruining" him.  I often say in parenting (or homeschooling) there isn't "right" and "wrong" (aside from things that are harmful)(אין המקרא אומר אלא דרשני) as much as there are actions and consequences.  This action will lead to him having better reading.  It will also lead to unpleasant associations with Torah and learning.  Only time will tell if is worth it.  Plus there are so many factors we probably won't be able to tell which details contributed to a love/hate/indifference/passion for Torah and which factors opposed it.  Plus what works for one child does and does not work for others.  It's complicated.

I do my best and I daven.

bar mitzva and kr'iah the Hamlet conflict

It's come to this.  Elazar is definitely hampered by his lack of ability to read Hebrew.  (Well, hampered is a matter of opinion.  It's not preventing him from doing anything he wants to do.  So he's actually fine.)  For learning Torah, it's no big deal.  We read to him and he's happy to learn. 

For his leining and brachos, we are working around it.  He can read things he's familiar with, and he has a musical ear. 

I'm having a lot of thoughts about his inability to read tefila and how that will impact his chiyuv to daven.  His kavana is going to be very negligible until he wants to focus on that, anyway.  I've already expressed that I'm not sure what benefit davening will have for him other than being oppressive to him.  (Conceptually, he has a decent concept of tefila b'eis tzara [davening when he has a need] and we are one bracha away from finishing learning shemona esrei and it was a thoughtful and fruitful experience.  I doubt that will translate into daily prayer for him and I do think long term it will be impactful.)

So the question is whether it is worthwhile to focus on his reading.  It is 100% clear that he is currently not motivated to do so and does not want to.  It is 100% clear to me that if he could read more fluently, he would have an easier time fulfilling chiyuvim.  It is 100% clear to me that nudging him to read is not unschooling. 

I'm not married to the idea of unschooling for unschooling's sake.  However, unschooling principle is that if the child views the activity as valuable and desirable, the child will do it quickly, eagerly, efficiently, joyfully.

If I nudge him to read when he doesn't want to:  It is not quick.  He is reluctant.  His brain doesn't do it well.  It sucks the joy out of it, which has long term negative consequences.

Since he's my oldest bar mitzva boy, I'm having trouble letting the reading go.  Probably if he had been my youngest, I wouldn't think twice about doing the bare minimum for his bar mitzva and trusting that he'll be fine.

It turns out that it's much easier to unschool other children when you've already seen the first children grow up and turn out great :-P  This feels risky and I worry that I'm neglecting my responsibility. 

It also feels like he is mature enough to handle the rigor of putting in more effort for the sake of Torah.  It feels like for me to sit back and wait for that to happen does convey my values--and that those values are that it's okay to wait for Torah rather then הוו עמלים בתורה -- the value of toiling for Torah.  I don't want it to be painful, but I want to convey the diligence of putting in effort at this milestone age.

On the other hand, E's conceptual development is definitely on a different trajectory than the average kid.  Socially and emotionally he's very mature in some ways.  In other ways, expectations more usually associated with children about three years younger than he is would be more appropriate.  So maybe the reading thing would be better off waiting another three years.  Being enslaved to artificial milestones is something all homeschoolers seek to avoid.

(And the Torah seems to back me up on this, as עונש בידי שמים doesn't kick in until age 20.)

Bar Mitzva dreamin' on such a winter's day

I often describe unschooling as a whole bunch of Sundays or vacation days.  We wake up, we do whatever.  There is no pressure, no "things that need to be done  or accomplished" and just that pleasant feeling of the day or days stretching out before you with no obligations.  In that space, we can be creative, enjoy each other's company, explore things that interest us.  There is a lot of relaxing, feeling close to each other, laughing, casual chatting.  Plenty of opportunities for "Hey, let's do this" and "Okay, why not."

When people start to homeschool, we sometimes ask two questions: What is your child's learning style and what is the homeschooling parent's style?  Take both into account. 

People think I'm relaxed because I unschool.  And I mostly am.  But I also have a part of me that adores lists, schedules, and checking things off.  That is draconian about time.  And about accomplishing.  And finds it exhilarating to juggle Lots of Important Things.

Overall, I haven't found that way of life a higher quality of life, either for me or for my children.  I won't hold my kids back if some of them want the High Achiever lifestyle, but I really like the modest, slow, relaxed lifestyle.

When I think about what I'd like Elazar to be able to do for his bar mitzva, all my High Achiever senses and bells and whistles go off.

Even though

• Elazar is maturing and growing every day in body, thought, mind, maturity, and emotions
• Pushing someone to daven or learn before they are ready or more or faster when they are on the path anyways seems foolish and counterproductive

(This is counterbalanced by the thought that sometimes people will do a lowest common denominator unless nudged)
(This is counter-counterbalanced by the philosophy that unschooling doesn't believe that about people.  People will learn what is interesting and what is valuable.)

• My understanding is that 13 is still young maturity-wise, and many kids have a conceptual explosion around 15. (Which, uncoincidentally, is the age the Mishna brings down to start learning Gemara)

I've been davening out loud next to him so he gets some familiarity.  Then I sing the opening haftora bracha with him.  (He's almost done with that, so in another month we'll start with the end brachos.)

We have only one bracha left in shemona esrei.  This morning we learned
וכל החיים יודוך סלה
Everything alive praises You.

Elazar said: That's not true; there are people who don't believe in God

I said: You can praise without speaking.  For example, if you see a beautiful work of art, do you think, "Wow, the artist is amazing!"
Elazar: Yes
Me: So anything can "praise" the Creator in that way
Elazar: But this says "everything alive." What you are saying also applies to inanimate things.

Me: 

Me: You are right.  You stumped me.  Good question.  You unlocked a riddle in the Shemona Esrei!  I'll be thinking about it.  Thank you!

I want to work on his reading.  I want him to be able to bentch out loud if he's called on it.  (I really want him to be able to daven for the tzibbur, but before that comes "ability to daven at all" and "desire to daven.")

I want to learn Elazar's parsha with him.  I want him to be able to give a speech about his sedra if he wants.  

(This is counterbalanced by the idea that learning on a schedule with a specific deadline in mind frequently compromises the quality of learning and adds pressure)
(This is counter-counterbalanced by the idea that some people find a deadline motivating and encouraging)
(This is counter-counter-counterbalanced by the idea that Elazar certainly does not)

Why I love learning with my kids

Today we learned the bracha of Teshuva (2nd request in Shemona Esrei).  I asked E:
When we ask H' for something, is it something we can control or H' can control?
He said: It depends.
I said: Teshuva.  Who is in control of that? Us or Him?
E: Us.
Me: So what are we asking for?
E:...
E: He could put the thought into our head...
Me: Is that what we are asking for? Mind control?
E: No, I wouldn't want that
Me: It's a riddle.  Go forth and think

The following is my probably inaccurate memory summarizing our conversation

This morning we had a little parent teacher conference about some aspects of bar mitzva readiness.  Ari was considering buying siddurim for each kid.  Notwithstanding that we already have 2 children's siddurs on the shelf (and boy #3 is often still asleep when I do tefila in the morning) that the boys already don't use, I didn't think it was a good idea to have the kids follow along while I daven.

Right now, I daven out loud.  They play video games and sing along when they feel like it.  I feel that having them follow along (or I even considered Elazar just standing next to me for shemona esrei and me being motzi him that way) would be excruciatingly boring for them and not confer any actual benefit.  I suggested that during Avos U'Banim, when Ari has the kids for learning, he work on reading Shema, Shemona Esrei, bentching and other brachos achronos. (And Asher Yatzer, which I forgot to mention.) 

The question is, will E be able to daven 3x a day with a minyan and a full davening?  If not, what is the bare halachic minimum?  Ari asked what about birchas Kriyas Shema.  I am singing them out loud to Elazar every day. (Not maariv, but shacharis.)  So he is becoming familiar with them.  I don't know that making him sit with an open siddur would help, and it can definitely pain him and make him miserable.  And if, at bar mitzva age, E finds he cannot focus on the whole thing and have kavana, and he hates it, then what do we recommend for him?  Just Shema and Shemona Esrei 2x a day.  Mincha just Shemona Esrei.  Bare minimum halachic requirements. 

Ari wants to make sure that E can count at a minyan.  To that end, he will need to know how to respond (amens, kedusha, kaddish, etc).  I suggested Ari go through that with him.  Is it better to do that at the minyan or outside the minyan?  (As I don't know, I leave that to Ari's discretion.)

Ari also felt that he had pushed E too much during Avos U'Banim.  I told him that I had discovered from my learning with E that he enjoys learning trope outside the context of reading and translating.  And he enjoys translating when he doesn't have to read (meaning you read the word to him and he translates) and he enjoys understanding the pesukim when you tell him the general translation but it loses enjoyment for him when he has to sit and decode a lot.  He'd rather each word or phrase in the pasuk be read to him, ask him what the words mean and have him answer/guess, then tell him generally as a whole what the pasuk means. 

I said that I think that not pushing reading and translating makes sense.  Because he enjoys other aspects of learning Torah.

• If you read it to him, he likes translating some of the words if he knows them
• If you sing him the trope, he likes learning and repeating the trope
• If you tell him what the pasuk means, he enjoys thinking about it

He does NOT like reading.  He does not like going slowly and translating it.  Will having him do that increase the likelihood that he will learn Torah in the future?

Will having him read and decode increase his future ability to learn Torah because he will have the skills?

These are important questions.  (Wish I knew the answers!)  It seems to me that focusing on the parts he enjoys and not pushing the parts that pain him will keep his learning positive and enjoyable.  This will increase the probability that he will learn Torah as an adult.

But what about his lacking skills?  Either he will be motivated to gain skills, or he will learn using translations.  My sense is that pushing the skills will more likely end up (in E's particular case) with him avoiding future Torah learning.

I said to Ari that I think focusing on the 3 types of learning that he enjoys above and avoiding what he dislikes will make him more likely to learn Torah by himself at age 25.  Ari said, "Really?"  

It's kind of scary to not do the "classic" educational stuff.  Will we be providing him with the education necessary to be a ben Torah?  

On the other hand, traditional education would be a disaster for this particular child.  We are already out of the box.  It's a tough line to figure out what is "pushing too hard" and what is "avoiding our responsibility to make sure he is capable of fulfilling his responsibilities."  What is he capable of and what is he truly not capable of?  What will foster a joy and love of Torah and what will push him away?  What can he really handle and what is a good idea for him to handle?

With so many kids who have gone through the school system being disinterested, not halachically observant, not having a strong emotional and spiritual relationship to Torah, and lacking skills, at least I feel I can't do worse than that with alternative education.  That's not a very high bar, though.

learning E's bar mitzva parsha

We've been doing ok on the birchas haftorah.  We found a video and sing along to it and E's been learning it. 

I've had a hard time sitting down with him to learn the parsha.  Not leining; Ari's doing that with him.   It's hard to find time to sit and learn with him.  I guess I'm settling in to the new school year at work and the yom tovim are coming up. 

I realized also I'm having a hard time focusing.  What are our learning goals?

Today I had a conversation with Elazar.  I said that learning his parsha involves 4 skills:

1) leining/trope
2) reading
3) translating
4) understanding

I asked him which skills he is interested in working on and which skills he wants to pursue.  He said that the reading part is the hardest for him.  But he also felt that the reading would be important to have by his bar mitzva.  He figured he'll be working on reading with his father at avos u'banim, so he'd prefer not to do that with me.

He said he likes figuring out what the words mean if I read him the words.  So he doesn't mine trying to translate it and having me help him.  He thinks that's fun.  (And he generously added that when I read it to him, I could read it with the trope.)

So that's the plan.  I read it to him, and together we'll translate.  And then try to understand the pasuk.  We'll see how that goes.

Summer Update I: bar mitzva prep

Things have been kind of brewing under the surface.  Everyone grew recently.  Lots and lots of inches.  Suddenly, they are all big. 

Elazar has been showing an interest in davening.  He asked about going to mincha, because it seemed short.  A week or two after that, he asked to go on a specific day (or Ari invited him, I don't remember).  And now he's been going to mincha regularly and asking about maariv on Motzei Shabbos. 

This past week I told him that he can daven in English, and he said what about saying Hashem's name? Doesn't that have to be in Hebrew?  I said ideally yes and he can say "Adonai" if he sees "God" but if it's too difficult, he can just say it in English.  He got pretty excited about that but asked how he will know the English.  I showed him that there are siddurs with English and he was thrilled.  Ari gave him one in shul.  Yesterday I told him that there is no rush to finish the whole thing while everyone is davening, and if he wants to slow down and try to understand parts of it a little at a time, that's more important than actually saying the whole thing.  He said but he can't ask either of us what something means in the middle of davening--me because I'm not there, and Ari because he's davening.  We said you can ask us later or just try to figure it out from context.

On a side note, the boys played a trivia game yesterday and I understood from the adult playing with them that it was a game "for those who are in school," i.e. my kids didn't know the answers.

I'm trying to think carefully about Elazar's next year.  I want to prepare him for as much as he can do before his bar mitzva, but I want to be very careful.  It seems to me that waiting a year or two or five or even ten for him to be motivated and do things with joy and because of his own desire would be FAR preferable than pushing him to do it so he is ready and capable at bar mitzva.  It's a tricky line.  The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to wait.  On the other hand, there is something about anticipating responsibility and preparing for it with respect and eagerness. (I suppose "eagerness" being key, and if "eagerness" slides into "dread" maybe we want to stop well before that.)

Online Pornography & Chinuch Part I

So we are heading into the "I'm totally inexperienced" portion of parenting again.  Since my oldest is in her twenties, it's been a while since I've felt myself in this position, even though every child is different and there are always new challenges.

I have three younger brothers, so I have always had a sense of little boys and what they are like.  However, I got married young and did not live with them when they were teens.  I was already dating my husband at the oldest of my brother's bar mitzva.

So just as I never had a boy's education regarding mishna and gemara (though I did learn mishna in elementary school and some gemara post-high school), I really am not sure what I'm doing in terms of male puberty, male teenager-ness, all sorts of things.  Ari does have some strong ideas (one of the more salient that no 7th grade son of his shall ever be bored out of his mind in gemara) but day-to-day, I'm in the trenches with them.  And I'm kind of feeling my way.

It's been my experience that when I learn on the job, the oldest one suffers.  I can't get experience until I get experience, and that perforce means mistakes.

With that intro, I recently began the murky world of navigating online pornography.

We allow unlimited multimedia in our home.  (Here are our basic internet safety guidelines.) We do not have filters on our devices.  (I actually recently checked, and all of the computers default on the google browser to "safe browsing," and I changed 11yo's tablet to safe browsing, too.)  When they were young, we had only desktops and no tablets allowed in bedrooms.  But when teenagers start cocooning, they need privacy, they like to be on screens, and easily get around restrictions.

How to achieve self regulation?  How to achieve thoughtfulness?  How to avoid "going down the rabbit hole" of pornography?  Is that something a parent can influence?

As my sons get older, I've been wondering how to talk to them about it, what approach to take.  I have begun asking around and gathering information.

The first thing I did was ask a family with 3 boys, ages 17-21.  I got some very good advice:

• They don't want to navigate it alone; they want parental guidance [both secular and halachically]
• They want to be left alone to figure things out themselves without their parents angsting about what they're doing
  (I realize there is some contradiction.  I asked more than one person and it's important to remember that even in the same family, different kids have different needs)
• They do not want to feel like their parents are upset or horrified 
• It's really important to feel comfortable, like you can bring up questions to your parents and have a conversation about it, and they won't freak out.  And that the parents will give them information.  And that the parents won't be worrying about everything.
  
  Armed with that information, I asked some seasoned unschoolers what their approach is.  That will be Part 2.