the eternal basement issue

My path is not staying clear.  Twice this week I sent the boys down to clear my path.

Further, I sent the boys and their friends downstairs to play this week.  And they didn't want to go.  Why?  Because there was no room to play.  The basement is not a functional space if they have no place to go because it is too messy to be there.

So I told them I was going to clean it up sometime this week, and could they please pick everything off the floor that they wanted to keep, since I'd be throwing everything else out.

Chaos ensued.  They all reacted according to their natures.  Elazar said no problem, throw everything out, he'll get to it or not.  Aharon came immediately over and asked for help.  He said that he wants all of his legos, but there is no room for the legos on the shelves.  So I said we need to clear off some shelves and I'll help him.

Jack began to scream and cry.  He had numerous issues.  First, the basement is supposed to be a space that they don't have to clean up.  It is supposed to be a space for them to spread out their arts and crafts.  They only play ball on Shabbos.  Why do I have to say I'll throw everything out; why can't I help him put things away.  If we keep putting things away, then there won't be space for them.  (Then let's throw things out, I thought).

I made a number of mistakes.

• I was not kind.  
• I felt out of control.  I didn't negotiate peacefully, listen carefully to what they were saying, try to understand.  I wanted to go in and throw everything out.
• I let the basement get too bad to the point where I was upset instead of taking care of it weeks ago when it was getting to me.
• They were overwhelmed, unhappy, and stressed.  Jack especially felt very tense that his space was under attack, I couldn't hear him, and that things were going to go in a way that was upsetting to him.  No one was too happy with how I handled it.
• I forgot my principles--that when I am comfortable with what I am asking, and can be clear about how they can achieve it, I can be kind.  Insistent and firm, but not mean.  I need not pressure, raise my voice, have a mean expression on my face, talk over them as they try to explain the issue.
• I felt guilty for making them clean up when they the space messy.  I felt bad claiming my need for a path and a working space for them to be because it conflicted with their needs for that space.  Instead of trusting that we could work together, talk it out, and come to an agreement, my guilt had me pushing and insisting on my way at the expense of listening to them and stressing them out. 
• The basement took more than 20 minutes to clean up.

What I did ok:

• I didn't scream.  I didn't really lose patience.
• I have categories that are not too hard to direct: legos, balls, weapons, a&c, costumes.  They finished that in under 20 minutes and the rest was for me to throw out.
• I did listen, I did hear.  Yes, I could have been kinder.  But I did hear what they wanted and we did work it out.
• I threw out lots of little lego pieces.  I always feel compelled to keep small pieces "in case" they need them for creative work.  But there are plenty.  It's ok.
• I gave myself permission to throw out a stroller that always falls apart into 2 pieces that I keep for guests who come over.  It annoys me.  If/when I have a grandchild who wants one, I gave myself permission to buy a new one when that day comes.  
• The basement is clean(er), it didn't take too long, it didn't overwhelm me or the kids too badly.  I hope I learned some things about how to run the negotiations next time, so that I can talk to them kindly and with confidence that we will work it out and our needs will be met.  

Classic Conflict

When I named the previous post "Zos Chanuka" I had in mind to write this one.  By the time I sat down to write it, it slipped my mind.  Although life's pace is slowing down, sometimes I have a dizzying amount of things on my mind.  Getting Chen's college application in was a huge relief, but there are still things to follow up on, play practice to drive to, doctor's appointments, and Jack wanted baseball cards so to earn them I said he can learn for $1 per session and now he keeps wanting to learn.  (מתוך שלא לשמה, בא לשמה, I keep saying to myself as he listens with half an ear and dreams of baseball cards.)

So on the last day of Chanuka, I davened before the boys were awake (that's been happening, so my grand plan of davening out loud has not been working as frequently as I like, and I prefer to daven before I start my day or it doesn't happen) but held off hallel until they were all around. 

(BTW, Elazar just came over to me and asked me to edit his story with him, but I had to refuse him because I have something scheduled in a few minutes.)

So I start singing hallel, and just as I start, Jack gets up to go play with the neighbors.  I gesture for him to stay for hallel.  The other two know that I like them to be around when I daven out loud, because they were usually awake when I did it.  But Jack sleeps late and rarely was around (which is ok, because out of the 3, he's most likely to go to minyan for social reasons and also pretty likely to have the zitzfleisch to learn the davening).  So he didn't know the protocol.  So he's getting annoyed that he has to stay there when he wants to go play.

So instead of davening being a fun, quick, singing hallel that kind of gets in their head that they hum later, hallel is turning into a sulking child and a frowning, chastising mom kind of a hallel.

Then I think: well, the idea is for them to have a positive association with tefila and want to do it.  And now he is getting upset and resentful.  So I'm actually accomplishing the exact opposite of my goals. (My other goal is for them to be familiar with davening, but at the expense of him resenting it?)

From an unschooling perspective, obviously no question--Jack should leave.  But I started it, and maybe I should demonstrate that it's important to me by insisting Jack stay?

Ultimately I shooed him out.  I didn't think it was worth having him there and being upset he had to be there.

I think in homeschool, we often end up choosing the relationship over pushing the lesson.  Either the relationship between parent and child, or the long term relationship to learning.  The child ends up learning less, but hopefully has more positive relationships.

Succos

You're catching me here in a season of doubt and concern.  As the kids (Elazar really) move on to new intellectual and emotional stages, I fear that unschooling won't work, that leaving things alone is not demonstrating trust that Torah is interesting enough that they will desire it if left alone; instead, I fear that it gives the kids the impression that it is not a priority.

We bought lulav sets for both Jack and Elazar this year.  Jack had one last year (he is careful) and Elazar is now 11. 

At first they were excited.  They made the bracha and were very happy.

I had them go to shul and just go in for hallel.  I love hallel, it's short, there is singing, and there is shaking lulav. 

Well, after one time, the boys were disgusted and dreading it.  Ari and I discussed it and felt that it's not a huge imposition and they should go the second day, too.  By chol hamoed, I just had them make the bracha and we sang the verses of hallel with the shaking and did that.  By the last day, we just bentched lulav and picked it up.  Both expressed relief that it was over.

So here I am, hovering between "it wasn't so burdensome and we were mechanech them" and "this is exactly the opposite effect I wanted for them--instead of loving mitzvos, they didn't like it and are glad to be done with it."

For next year, we can make it optional (and E can pick it up at bar mitzva when he is obligated).  Or we can say, this is what we do now.

Again, I don't think either way will greatly make a difference.  But waffling between two methodologies doesn't sit so well with me, either. (Though I have often found that a lot of parenting is penduluming between extremes, always striving for balance and moderation.)  It really speaks to my general feelings of being insecure about unschooling.  And I do know that unschooling is compromised if there is pressure and nudging.  A child does not really feel free if there are expectations.  A child does not pursue with appetite and joy when being fed things that are not appetizing to them.

It seems to me that pushing a little ends up with both negatives: they don't end up with the chinuch, the skills, the knowledge, the ability.  And they do get a taste of the dread and the dislike.

Math & Middos

Jack has no money left in his "bank account," the spreadsheet I use to keep track of their money. 

On Friday, we were driving.  He was angry and shaking my seat.  I said if he doesn't stop shaking it, he'll have to move to the back back of the van.  He didn't stop.  I told him to move.  He started screaming about moving.  I said that I'm counting to 5 and then I'm taking a dollar away from him.  He started moving.  I stopped counting.  He stopped moving and started screaming again about how he hadn't heard me warn him he'd have to move.  I finished counting and said he has to give me a dollar.  He started screaming that he didn't know I was counting.  I said I'm starting to count again, and then it's another dollar.

He moved.  He spent the next half hour screaming about how it isn't fair, he hadn't heard the first warning, he hadn't heard the counting.

He said that he was never going to give me any more money to put into his account, because right now it has negative one.  And if he puts money in, then I'll get a dollar from him.  But if he never puts money in again, it will always stay negative one and never get his dollar taken away.

I thought that demonstrated a pretty decent handle on how negative numbers work and I'll put that on the quarterly report.

On a side note, I may have mentioned (I looked for some posts but couldn't find--wait, I vaguely remembered something and searched "succos lollipops" and found this post) that Jack has a particular middah that I personally find challenging and end up getting into conflict with him about. 

My most recent attempt to deal with this was for us to talk in whispers when we begin to argue.  It's been pretty helpful because no matter how heated, it's difficult to escalate too much while whispering.

He gets into a mentality sometimes where everything is bad, or unfair.  He wallows, has a hard time getting out of being unhappy (he's always had trouble self-soothing from the time he was a baby and small toddler), and eventually he turns to grandiose solutions that are impractical or absurd, and gets even more furious when we won't implement them.  Or he focuses a lot of mental energy on the aspects of unfairness and how he is logically correct.

Because it triggers things in me, it's been difficult to parent this well.  I've tried valiantly and failed spectacularly on numerous occasions, often ending with me becoming verbally abusive.  My sister and I have gotten into more than one fight when she asked my why I was allowing him to carry on so aggressively and publicly.  (Note: she was right.  I got very defensive and we had more than one argument, but ultimately she stuck to her guns and I tried to open myself to what she was saying and she helped me process some of my conflicts and helped me focus on what types of boundaries were important to hold with him as he tantrummed and it was extremely helpful.  Having someone close to you watch you parent and give input, while painful, can be very helpful.)  Staylistening has been useful but has not addressed the basic middah.  I figured it's the kind of thing that hopefully if I don't make it worse, he'll eventually get the time and maturity to work through it. 

I've noticed an irony in parenting.  Lots of times as parents, we see a trait in our children that we think is negative.  So we try to "parent" it out of them.  But it's possible that if we just give them space and don't make it worse, then they'll end up being mature enough and emotionally healthy enough to manage it and navigate it as they grow.  (This I probably learned from radical unschooling.)  Shyness, for example.  Or "selfishness," I've seen, can be something that might need to be addressed, but it's also possible that selfishness is developed through a scarcity mentality and that being in a home with kindness and generosity will eventually lead to being kind and generous.  Or anger, which I used to think with my oldest that I needed to train her in self control, but it turns out that parenting with firm but kind boundaries and giving them space to have and feel the fullness of their feelings sort of ends up with them being able to manage their anger (well, the jury's still out on this one as my youngest seems to have an extra dose of my FOO's temper, and he's still young, so we'll see in ten years or so).

So I realized with Jack that it's important for me to be there as a loving presence while he goes through this complex wave of emotions.  And it's important for me not to "fix" it, and it's important for me to maintain the "no" while still being kind.  (That's where I often fail/ed.)  And it's important for him to have the experience of being so upset and grieving all the things that come up for him each time (life is unfair, his brother gets things and experiences he doesn't, he has no friends, his life is miserable, etc.) and to really have it be okay for him to be sad about all these things in a profound way, and for him to have the experience of it ebbing and him climbing his way out. 

I don't think it's useful for me to cajole him out of it, or coax him, or distract him, or try to fix it.  Those are all futile things we do in life with our own pain.  The best thing I can do for him is to be there for him as a loving presence that has confidence that these feelings will not destroy him and that he can and will feel them without the world ending.  And let him see that it does ebb and it is okay.

I had a recent epiphany.  I realized I was buying in to Jack's narrative.  I identify with him.  I agreed with him that it is a tragedy that his brother has more friends, has more fun, goes on more playdates, and gets more invites, more presents, more shalach manos.

It occurred to me that maybe it's not a tragedy.  Maybe it's just his chelek, his situation, and that learning to navigate his feelings and be able to tolerate the pain and pick himself up afterwards is actually a good thing.  Maybe even a better thing than having more playdates and more shalach manos.   

Sometimes it's nice to acquire more tools for the toolbox

So you think you settle on an approach, and then kids change, or what worked for one kid isn't working for the next, or you change, or you understanding things differently.

Lord knows I moan about being conflicted about unschooling vs teaching until even I am sick of hearing myself.

I want to talk about sibling rivalry for a bit.  When my kids were 5 or 6 years apart, there wasn't that much sibling rivalry.  When my kids were 2.5 yr and 17 months apart, sibling rivalry became part of my daily existence.  I've waxed eloquent about the bullies2buddies methods and how useful they are.  He gives actual scripts to use, which have been very helpful.  I've even written to him with questions and he has helpfully written back.  I stand by this method and I really love it.  I combine it with playful parenting, which means that I try to take aggression as a cue that they need active and playful wrestling/roughhouse type attention.

I have found this to be more robust and more fun and efficient than what I used to do in my twenties, which was to sit the kids down and have them make eye contact and share their feelings and take turns speaking and make sure they both have a chance to talk and feel they are being heard and brainstorm for solutions. (It even is exhausting to type that up.)

And then.  

I'm in a radical unschooling group.  You think I'm unconventional? :-D I don't qualify as a radical unschooler.  These people are fully committed to unschooling not just academically, but as a way of interacting with their children in every way.  This affects bedtime, meals, discipline, and all sorts of areas.  Some of the underlying principles are abundant generosity and respecting your child as a human being.

So I'm reading with interest, and they start talking about sibling rivalry.  Here is a link (with further links on the bottom of that page).  What sparked my interest is how many of them expressed that leaving the kids to deal with things on their own was not something they would do.  A lot of unschooling (contrary to popular assumption) has pretty hands-on parental involvement, having the parent there coaching, helping, empathizing.

Since this is exactly not what bullies2buddies advocates, and since I am apparently exceedingly defensive and a glutton for punishment, I kept reading.

The truth is, even using bullies2buddies I do keep a fairly close eye (looking for these factors).  But I have heard many people speak about how they felt that they were brutalized by unequal sibling situations (my own sister included, with me being the manipulative and obnoxious older sister), so I wanted to see what advice there was.

What I got from it (though it generally astounds me how much I don't grasp in the first few readings of things) is, like the other radical unschooling principles, to approach their conflicts with a genuine desire to hear both children's needs and a strong desire to help them get their needs.

Obviously, in a sibling rivalry situation, two sets of needs are in conflict.

And I still use bullies2buddies in the sense that I don't go to them or stop them while they are fighting.  I'm usually sitting in the same room or close by, and they know they can come to me.  I still use a lot of the same scripts from bullies2buddies.

But now there is an added component.  I really try to understand what is deeply upsetting to each child (as opposed to in the past, where I was mainly focused on finding solutions.  Yes, I empathized, but I never get really worked up about lego like they do).  I hope this attempt to understand naturally gives them the sense that their needs are valued by the family.  I think it gives a different tone to the arguments.  There is a sense of "both of your emotional/practical needs are important.  What can we do?"

This played out a bit yesterday when (naturally, just about 10 minutes before I had to get ready to go to work), Jack came in screaming that he had a lego set that he couldn't build last year, but THIS year he can, but Elazar made a fidget spinner with an important piece.

Basic bullies2buddies script, I didn't get involved, I agreed with Jack that he has rights over that piece.  Jack left.

In comes Elazar, blazing in fury that Jack just took his fidget spinner and broke it.  No warning, no discussion, just grabbed and broke.
Well.  I agree with Elazar that this, too, is unfair and upsetting.

Looking at this in the framework of the radical unschooling, I perceived that both of them make perfect sense.  Both of them have claims.  Our goal is a peaceful, happy home for all members of the family.

Perhaps this is obvious.  It was not obvious to me.  It was not clear to me to view conflicts or sibling rivalry in the framework of a goal of having a peaceful, happy home for all members of the family.

As I said before, obviously not all members of the family can be peaceful and happy at all times.  By definition, if there is more than one person, then there will be conflicts.

But I don't know that it was ever so clear to me to enter conflicts with the idea that each person's peace and happiness is a priority to us.  So if there is a way to work it out and that increases your peace and happiness, that's what we are trying for.

When that is the goal, peace and happiness becomes an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset.  Everyone becomes more generous because there is a security that the family goal is as much peace and happiness for every individual as we can work out.

So Elazar agreed that Jack had the rights to take the piece back.  He objected to the manner in which it was done.  I asked Jack to look at Elazar and for Elazar to say how he feels while looking at Jack.  Because Jack knew that his claim of the piece was protected, he was able to look at Elazar and hear his pain and see the effect it had on Elazar that he took the piece so abruptly and without discussion.

Part of the abundance mentality is that Jack readily agreed to rebuild Elazar's fidget spinner.  And to even improve on it so that it worked.

A follow up blow-up occurred when Elazar was not satisfied with how Jack fixed it.  (I even overheard Elazar say to Jack, "Should we work this out later?" because they were in the middle of cleaning up the neighbor's playroom when this argument went on.)

Again, the goal of peace and happiness for everyone is such that Jack agreed to keep trying until he found something that satisfied Elazar.  But it was also agreed by everyone that the original piece--belonging to Jack--was not an option and if that was the only piece that would satisfy Elazar, Elazar would have to compromise.  Jack did try and Elazar did graciously accept a lesser vision of his fidget spinner (albeit one that functioned better).

Chinuch in the Teen Years

My boys still refuse to wear tzitzis.  They aren't comfortable; they scorn even the soft cotton ones.  I've been thinking a lot, having been through the teen years with my oldest and now going through them with my second.  And it's really changing how I'm thinking about parenting the boys in their teen years.

I was talking to a dear friend of mine who parented 5 wonderful boys and her sixth is a girl.  As I was talking to her about girl teenagedom and mother-daughter relationships, she said to me that it's too bad she'll have gained all this knowledge from parenting her daughter through her teen years and then she won't have another girl to parent with the benefit of this knowledge.

I half joked: "Take it from me--it doesn't help."  But that's not strictly true.  Some of the lessons I learned with Sarah: how to de-escalate during conflict, how to take a step back, take a deep breath, how to shift my tone and my body language out of "bristling" and into "listening" mode; how to assume that if they say I'm yelling at them or if my tone is aggressive, then to dial it down, whether I think I've been aggressive or not; how to cool down from an encounter and then later, when we are more calm, ask her to please explain her position and really, really try to listen without explaining where I'm coming from-- all of these things have only been helpful as I stumble through these years with the next teenager.  However, with each child being so different, and the challenges being so very, very different, I am often just as much in the dark now as I was the first time.

I simultaneously grapple with major issues (as people always used to say, which I never really understood, "little people, little problems; big people, big problems"), while I am also very immersed in little people and the drudgery of caretaking.  I have the experience of parenting littles while having an awareness that within the decade, the boundless desire for them to be in my personal space and have me share their lives is going to shift into the desire to separate from me, to individuate, to reject me, my values, and everything I stand for in clarification of where they stand on things.

This has gotten me thinking about a lot of things that I never realized would be an issue with boys.  Growing up a girl and feeling the burden of halachic modest dress and later covering hair, I never realized that boys grapple with minyan, waking up for shema, wearing tzitzis and covering their heads all the time.

When I was a young and naive parent, I assumed that at bar and bat mitzva, my child would joyfully pick up the "עול מלכות שמים" the yoke of mitzvos.  My daughters would dress with skirts to knees and shirts to elbows, and would daven every day and make brachos before and after meals, and their newly bursting intellects would enjoy the wondrous Torah that we would learn together.

Well.  Suffice it to say, reality is different.  Even with Chana's (not so) recent transfer into full nocturnal, along with recent studies that say that teenagers should start school not before 10am made me realize that in a few years I'll be heading into a monumental battle, especially with my middle son, who has naturally preferred a 10pm-10am sleep schedule since he was two years old.

I've observed teens AND adults fully grown, those who attend minyan regularly and those who don't.  Of the minyan go-ers, some tell me their parents instilled it in them, and some tell me they came to it themselves.  Of the non-minyan go-ers, a huge percentage tell me that their parents pushed and annoyed them.

Personally, I feel that telling my teenager what to do is generally an exercise in futility, frustration, and conflict. (To a large degree I feel that telling any of my children what to do tends to devolve into that, which perhaps is why I gravitated towards unschooling, which has a different approach to that whole issue.)  However, I also feel strongly that the internet exerts a very strong pull on the concept of identity and values, and although my teens are smart and skilled at analysis and tend to make good decisions, I want our family values and our Torah and Judaism to be one of the voices in the conversation.  As I may have mentioned before, when I consulted with my Rabbi, he suggested that I take opportunities to share my thoughts and values in conversation, and stay away from nagging and being annoying.

More recently, I've been thinking about my own upbringing.  I was brought up "Modern Orthodox," and when I stopped wearing shorts and began covering my hair when I got married, I crossed over into the land of "crazy""strict" according to my parents, even though I had studied the halachos in school and considered them to be as binding as the laws of Shabbos and kosher that I had grown up keeping.

Modesty was something my mother cared about in terms of the spirit of it, not in terms of halacha.  We wore shorts to midthigh and went swimming in bathing suits; very tight shirts and dresses were our battlegrounds and it had nothing to do with halacha.  My mother rarely told me to daven; davening was between me and God.  Brachos were between me and God.  Everything was between me and God.  I decided what I wanted to keep and how much and what I really thought.  My parents didn't have much opinion except being extremely supportive of my education and my Torah study.

My approach until now, which was to be mechanech my children to keep the Torah so that they will be keeping Torah halachically when bar or bat mitzva, did not take into account the complexity of teens wanting to figure out for themselves who they are and where they stand.  It didn't account for the fact that they often use their parents as a safe space to push against as they discover themselves, as the book Untangled describes with a pool metaphor--we are the walls of the pool and we need to be stable and be there as they push against us to swim, and come back to us to take a rest and breathe, and push against to go swim again.

And inserting myself into the ruminations doesn't seem to be useful.  If a person is grappling about halacha and God and values and restrictions and meaning, isn't the grappling simply about that person thinking about those issues?  What possible good can it have to throw into the mix their complex and conflicted relationship with their superego/parent?  Waking up for minyan and going to shul should be about the question of tefila and being part of the tzibbur; is it a value to have the person also grappling about whether this act is going to please or annoy the parent?

(One might say that there is a value in doing things to please the parent, as per Yosef Hatzadik seeing the image of his father and refraining from adultery with the wife of Potifar.  I don't disagree with that.  But it does seem to me that me pushing for certain halacha observance during the teen years does muddy and cloud their thinking and grappling unnecessarily.  They get distracted thinking about halacha observance vis-a-vis parental opinion instead of it just being about their values.)

This is not an unschooling post

The vocab in shlishi was so difficult, even though it is short, that Chana began complaining with only 5 pesukim left to the aliya.  She agreed to do 2 more and save the last 3 for this evening.  She said that going through the parshios where they build and make all of the things they are discussing in these parshios will NOT go quickly because she is not remembering this vocabulary.

Maybe if I were a little more flexible about Chumash and thinking in terms of the goal of her understanding the mishkan and not wrestling with the text, I would probably not have her go through all these pesukim and translate them, but instead we would take out a book with pictures.

I read a Marshall Memo this morning with the title: Day schools are not about Jewish Identity, but Jewish Literacy.  I'll post it in the comments.  But it did remind me why I do have Chana grapple with the text and I don't just do pictures.  I don't know if I'm just making her frustrated and just pushing her to do pointless translation that won't even stick into her head.  But I want her to engage with the words of the Torah, the specific words that are used.  I want her to be intimately involved with them.  To spend time reading them.  To have a relationship with them.

Of course, I risk that her relationship with them is dislike.

On the other hand, maybe acquiring skills is painful, and when she comes out the other side she'll be glad she has them.

On the other other hand, maybe I'm making her bang her head against these words, and she's not relating to it in a meaningful way, nor will it have a positive impact long term.

(Yep, since we homeschoolers are completely and 100% in charge of our children's education, we agonize about ponder these things.)

One of the pesukim was so fascinating.  It says the kohen gadol will wear the Tzitz (crown), and it will be on his forehead "l'ratzon" for the jews before Hashem.  First Chana asked what "l'ratzon" means.  I said shoresh "ratza" and it will be something desirable.  She didn't understand.  I said it was like the pair of shoes that she keeps asking me to buy.  The shoes are "l'ratzon" to her.  So she understood, and then she asked what that even means in Hashem's framework because He has no needs.

So I got all excited because we never did finish those brachos in shemona esrei and there is a bracha "retzei" that asks for our prayer to be desirable to Hashem.  So my brain is already creating this awesome little lesson about what makes a prayer more "desirable" than others (e.g. kavana), meaning there's a qualitative difference and that's described as "l'ratzon" or not, and I'm showing her the bracha... and she tells me she's not interested.

So we closed the siddur and the Chumash.

It is my opinion that because a great deal of Chumash time involves activity that Chana does not enjoy, she is eager to get it over with and not inclined to pursue these questions.

On the other hand, I've always been inclined to leave questions as questions until the student pushes to think about or find an answer.  This question won't go away.

pre-mashiach era

I think that generally my children listen to me, respect me, do not speak to me with chutzpa, and are appropriately respectful to authority, even when they disagree.

Note the use of the word "generally."

This morning I forgot to wake Chana up to go to a museum trip that she didn't want to go on.  I forgot to tell her about it the night before.  We had discussed it when I signed her up, and probably the week before, but unless I let her know that the next day's schedule is different, she wakes on her own schedule.  (For example, I never have to wake her up for Parkour, since it is every week and she knows when we have to be out of the house.)

She dislikes most trips.  Even though I staunchly maintain that learning how humans lived 100 years ago is best discovered via museums where you can actually see how they lived, she thinks it is boring and complains about most field trips.*  So start off with her standard dislike of trips, then compound her unhappy mood by waking her up by shockingly saying, "It's time to leave right now this instant," add into the mix that she is twelve, and you have a grouchy pre-teen that is sulking for the entire trip and thereafter.
(*Perhaps I will one day write a post about how Chana and I navigate her dislike of field trips.)

When she came home, I very much wanted to do Chumash.  However, I knew that if I brought it up, she would snap at me.  She might, indeed, valiantly try to control herself from snapping at me.  She might begin snapping at me, take a deep breath, and continue in a more controlled tone.  (She also might yell at me angrily.)  The gist would be that she is tired, cranky, not in the mood, and she's not doing Chumash, and I shouldn't even ask.

Knowing this would be the likeliest outcome of requesting to do Chumash, I decided to skip it, spent some time talking to her about my morning and the many things that came up--not excusing me forgetting to wake her up with enough time to get ready to leave, but giving her some perspective, and just generally reconnecting emotionally and trying to open myself to her bad mood and understand her feelings.

When she felt better, and I felt like she wasn't sulking and wasn't angry at me anymore, immediately the urge came up to tell her to do Chumash.  Again, I felt that although she would probably be able to control herself even more certainly, she would still be upset at being asked to do Chumash.  So again, I controlled myself and refrained.

Although I stand by my decisions, and think that they were correct and made with her best interest and the best interest of my relationship with her and her relationship with Torah, a part of me feels like what is wrong with our society.  How does it come to this, that a mother is nervous to ask her young daughter to do something that is part of her daughter's daily responsibilities?  How are parents afraid of their children?  How is it that I have to take into account that my children might lose their tempers and feel outraged that I ask them to do something?

I consider my children respectful.  I sometimes hear children speak to their parents and I am horrified.  I would not tolerate my children speaking to me that way.

And yet, a lot of the method, in this generation, to raise children who will not speak to their parents that way, is to be extremely careful about what things will infuriate the children.  To choose carefully what to ask for and to choose words and tone carefully.  To speak respectfully to them, and to learn to de-escalate when the dialogue gets heated.  To back down when they are stubborn, and to discuss it at least 24 hours later when things have calmed down. To separate the discussion the chutzpa tone from the discussion of the actual issue.  All of this takes diligence and patience and a great deal of evaluation and thought.  And practice.

I cannot help but think that there were other generations where respect for authority was more ingrained in society.  Where children and teenagers were conditioned from a young age to respect their elders and to listen to them.

I'm not saying that is necessarily the better way.  Questioning authority leads to the removal of injustice, the removal of corruption, the removal of bureaucracy, and to innovation and creativity and discovery and freedom.

Furthermore, I've said many times, as much as children "should" respect elders, elders "should" behave in a way that is worthy of respect.

However.  It does astonish me that parents cannot simply ask their children to do things and expect compliance.

In Gemara Sotah 49b it says:
b'ikvah d'meshicha chutzpah yasgeh

Before Mashiach comes, brazenness will be rampant... Truth will be hidden, youths will embarrass elders, and elders will stand in front of the small;

 A son will disgrace his father, a daughter will stand up against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are his household...

a little bit about how we evolved into homeschooling

One of the reasons I got more and more "unschooly" as the years went by is because, as we were living life, the only conflicts we seemed to get into revolved around me pushing for academics when they weren't interested.  We would be having a thoroughly nice day, relaxing and enjoying each other's company and pursuing whatever activities we were pursuing, when I would start pushing "school."  We have to do math.  We have to do Chumash.  We have to learn this, do this, write this.  Or we'd be leaving for a trip and I wanted to make sure they got their daily assignments in.  And that would cause stress and strife.

Always, when looking back at the day and the conflict that we had, I would go to my still silent voice and ask myself what I want my children to get from their homeschool experience.  And always, always, it wasn't a specific skill or piece of information (beyond the basic reading, writing and arithmetic).  It was that I wanted my children to have emotional health and the ability to lead lives filled with wisdom, exploration, joy, and healthy relationships.  

I found that pushing my educational agenda was often counter-productive to that goal.

I found myself focusing on my relationship with my kids instead of on schoolwork.  I found myself choosing to spend pleasant time with them instead of having them do "work."

more whining about rashi

i'll leave it for you to decide who the subject of the title of this blog post is, me or chana :-P

we've been briskly moving along these last couple of weeks, with chana doing her chazara and new pesukim and rashis.  a few days we had to slow down because the pesukim were complicated, but then we hit a batch of simple ones.  so it's been business as usual and with very little input from me, so there wasn't anything to write.  chana's actually been deciding on her own to pick it up, so it hasn't even been on my head.  i hadn't even thought about chumash and she decides to do it (except today she has a friend over.  so i guess we'll do it this evening). 

then we blasted through that whole bunch of pesukim, and i picked a pen up and underlined a bunch of rashis.  i haven't counted them, but chana said it was 24 rashis.  i don't know if that includes the ones she is in the middle of doing already.  last night she went crazy about the amount.

she asked the usual questions: WHY? why do i need to do rashi?
you already told me i'm so good at it.  why do i have to do more?
why do i have to do so many?
i feel like you are doing this because you hate me! (ok, that's not a question)
why do i have to do this? i hate rashi and i hate chumash!

since none of these rashis were particularly complicated, but clearly all of them together were overwhelming, i began to question myself.  am i making her do too much?  is this going to make her hate chumash and rashi forever? 

i'm happy to say that i am finally an experienced homeschooler.  this has happened before, many times.  i've asked the questions and had these doubts and fears, many times. 

i think the answer is:

maybe.

maybe i am pushing too hard.  maybe it is too much.  but maybe it's fine.  maybe pushing is what she needs. 

maybe i'm making a mistake.  maybe not doing it would be a mistake.

i have to just trust that this is a long term endeavor, and there is a lot of feedback (meaning if your child is complaining miserably, at length, over and over, you really ought to rethink how you're doing it).  nothing is written in stone.  you can always backtrack and try something new.  maybe you will do it wrong.  maybe you are doing it wrong.  odds are, you are trying harder and care more than anyone else in the world, because it's your child.  maybe you are pushing too hard or not enough.  what are the chances of getting everything just right?  do your best, be willing to be wrong, and trust in the longevity and freedom of homeschooling.

as far as practical, i think i may be erring on pushing chana too hard.  with sarah i erred on pushing her not enough.  there are and will be effects both ways.

i do, find, though, that if i continue to push chana too hard, the conflict lets me know that it's not a good idea.  a little discomfort and a little unwillingness i understand.  feeling like she's being tortured constantly is probably not beneficial.  (though that scene from the original karate kid comes to mind--where he's being put to work and put to work pointlessly and fruitlessly and frustratingly, until the epic moment when it all clicks and he understands the purpose and he has skills.)

we'll see how it goes today.

what if we only did chumash when it was an optimal time?

in case anyone was wondering, chana is up to shlishi in bo and so far we have done 12 rashis.  elazar mostly forgets to wear his kippah and i mostly forget to remind him.  he's very busy playing outside.  our conversations have been including more halacha and parsha and hashkafa, but he hasn't asked to learn inside.

i was discussing with my friend channie about the conflict of doing chumash when it isn't really a good time, and then being less than patient and relaxed because it's not a good time (like before we have to go out, or when the little ones are awake).  the other option is to only do it when it's a good time, but that sort of ends up being... well, close to never.  for example, we've done 2 navi stories this summer.  if that gives you a feel (which is what i always worry unschooling will turn out to be--basically no skills). 

(though i must interject that the theory is that at a certain point, they become motivated, and then BOOM they work hard at it.)

anyway, we were wondering is there any happy medium?  we don't feel like we can wait until it's convenient, because it rarely is a good time.  but if we do it when it's a terrible time, that is a recipe for conflict and anger and negativity.  and even if we skip it when it's a terrible time, well, we might be skipping it 4x a week..

i've learned by now that certain things should be avoided at all costs with chana.  do not do chumash while she is hungry.  do not do chumash when we have to leave the house soon.  do not get all blame-y that we haven't finished yet when someone wakes up from a nap in the middle of chumash (i obnoxiously still have trouble with that one, but luckily, chana calls me on it, so i'm improving).  chana is pretty good about doing it the night before or the night after or double the next day if we aren't going to make it.  it's just that I find it exhausting to do it at night like that.

channie suggested doing it when it's not a good time, but being super nice with lots of love and hugs and play.  naturally, although i wholeheartedly agree, i've found that in practice, it is difficult to dredge up love and hugs and playfulness when you are feeling on edge because you are being torn in different directions.

but i feel it really negatively impacts giving over a love for learning when i am teaching with gritted teeth and impatience and radiating stress and wanting to be done and, horror of horrors, exuding disappointment that she didn't remember something or couldn't translate something. 

so, in looking for a happy medium, i'm thinking about the following solution.  during times when things are really busy, i don't want to skip chumash because i want to convey that it is a priority-והגית בו יומם ולילה--that we immerse ourselves in it daily.  but precisely during those times when i'm feeling a time crunch, i'm going to try to set aside only 15 minutes for chumash.  and during that 15 minutes, i'm going to have only 2 goals. 1. to do a "mashehu" of chumash.  a smallest amount.  2. to have it be an enjoyable learning experience.

will i be able to do this?  we shall see.  if it doesn't work, then i'll do what i always do: look at what happened, look at what i did, look at the result, reevaluate, form a new approach, and try again.

what negative things am i teaching in the course of chumash lessons?

so today i violated "never go against a sicilian when death is on the line!!!" again!
today it took the form of "never do chumash when chana hasn't eaten."

she woke up 11am. she was babysitting at 12:30 (ok, we also violated "don't do chumash when you have to crunch it into a small time"). i spent the first 20 min of her learning doing fractions. having nothing to do with chumash, we have dropped her math curriculum since last year before pesach because fractions were confusing. i have been feeling like maybe she might grasp it better, so yesterday i suggested it, and the idea was well received and so i did a little lesson this morning.

then we took a break and did chumash. ideally, we would have left chumash until after she babysits. ideal for her. for me, i like to get it done so it's not on my mental list of "things i have to do today." as always, this becomes a conflict of better for my emotional state as the one in charge of the household vs better for her emotional state as the learner. although i believe that you will get the best "bang for your buck" ie "intellectual work for the effort" if you go based on the learner, if the teacher's emotional state is not taken into account in this imperfect world, ain't nobody happy.

but truly, whenever i push because i don't want it hanging over my head (which begs the question: if I feel like it's hanging over my head, and it's a responsibility i want to get over with, how am i possibly supposed to imbue chana with love of learning?), it ends up sort of backfiring because chana is not in an optimal state. and really, for me to be rushing to get it over with is not an optimal state for me, either. ideally, i'd like to be relaxed, have nothing else to do (ha! haha!) and look at this as a time for me to chana to enjoyably explore the torah.

anyway, i asked her if she wanted to do new pesukim first or chazara first. she chose new pesukim. we decided to finish sheni since it is pretty short and simple. we did the new pesukim pretty easily. and we reviewed the story of yesterday's pesukim outside.

then it came time for chazara. there were, what, only 6 pesukim and not difficult ones? (i didn't mention in yesterday's post that chana accidentally did an extra pasuk because she just kept going). she started whining that she didn't know one of the words. (which was from that brutal chamishi from last parsha that i didn't push). i told her what it was, but she kept whining. she had a headache. she doesn't know the words. she can't do this.

then i got annoyed and said i'm not listening to you talk to me like this.

which was fine with chana and she just sat there. this is a dynamic that we get into often
("how do you homeschool your child?" like you do any other parenting! with all its attendant conflicts, mistakes, etc). but then we only had 10 min until she was being picked up to babysit and i still had 5 rashis to get to, 2 from yesterday and 3 new ones.

so i said to her i wanted to get going. she, rightly but obnoxiously, countered that i was the one who told her we weren't doing more until she calmed down. and now i wanted her to go. but she wasn't calm yet. naturally, she said this in a rude voice because she wasn't calm and i was pushing her. you gotta love (not) how you (me), the parent, create these ridiculous scenarios by saying one thing and then pushing another. i sent her out of the room (thereby being more ridiculous and punishing her for her tone which happened because i was not giving her time to calm down). then i followed her out of the room and told her that we don't have time, and i'm being pushy, and i apologized and told her to eat, and i was choosing 2 slices of american cheese because we don't have time for her to leisurely eat a bowl of cereal (which i knew she'd prefer and which takes her 5-10 min to eat). she looked daggers at me (she's got a finely honed "evil eye" or "look of death," as i like to call it) and took the cheese.

then she came into the room with no cheese. my first thought was that she threw it out in a fit of standing up for herself (or defiance, as the textbooks call it :-P). i asked her where the cheese was, and it was all crammed into her mouth. she broke the ice in our dynamic by being comical about this. kudos to chana for not sulking. i latched right onto that peace offering and appreciated her humor. we giggled about it and settled in to finish chumash.

the food helped and chana was perfectly happy to do the rest of chumash. as an added bonus, her ride was running late and we even had plenty of time to do the rashis.

chana asked which camp yaakov was going to be in: the one that would get killed or the one that would escape. i did the rashi (not inside) with her where he said he would fight.