In the Ongoing Complicated Relationship I have

One of the things I like about Radical Unschooling is word choice, which helps frame things in a kinder, more effective way. Children are not "being difficult," they are "communicating needs." Children don't "misbehave" they are hungry, tired, drained, still lacking mature communication skills.

I've learned a lot of things that help me understand why I struggle when certain relationship dynamics come up with some of my children. I've discussed a lot of them in this post where I also linked to a few earlier examples of me trying to navigate these murky dynamics with one of my children where I frequently end up demoralized, overwhelmed, and unhappy with how it went.

An aspect that my friend recently pointed out to me is his attachment style. I was complaining that it seemed like he has radar for when I'm depleted. And then he asks me for something. And NO. I'm depleted. I'm wiped out. Why can't he ask when I have energy?

And then I get into a whole thing. I can have boundaries. I can say no. And I can say no nicely. (Except I can't, because I'm depleted) and so I say it not so nicely and then he gets upset and then he pushes harder and then I feel both worse AND angrier. I feel worse because I guess he really needs it AND I feel angrier because I'm so depleted and why is he doing this.
We go round and round and eventually I say a grudging and angry yes (and feel bad because if I was going to say yes I would have preferred to say a generous and immediate yes instead of creating a situation where he feels like his mother is begrudging and annoyed). Or I say an angry No and feel awful that he's not getting his needs met.
Sometimes, if I am fortunate and notice this as it's building, I can change my No to be a kinder No OR I can skip a number of the me saying I'm tired and him pushing more and more intensely and I can just get it for him. But I still felt overall like none of these were great choices. I am glad I can be kinder and clearer in my No and yeah I still wish I could catch the dance a little earlier and make it a Yes if I'm going to anyway. But what is with him and me? Why are we doing this? Why does he need me when I'm wiped out and why do we keep having this fight over and over?

My friend suggested that it was actually EXACTLY when I am depleted that his anxious attachment gets triggered. He has to test to see if I really do love him. Right at that moment.

And of course, I often fail. And don't give him his needs. And that "proves" to him that he's right to be anxious. Because he can't get his needs met. It's a pernicious, unhappy cycle.

He has a feel for when I'm extra depleted and then asks for attention specifically in a way that is extra irritating. So then he is "right" that I "don't love" him.

Yes, to some degree it's staying on top of his love language (gifts) so he's not depleted which definitely makes things worse between us.

But also he davka has a nose for waiting for my depleted moments and that's when he "needs" me. And of course I was failing and he was "right."

So now, armed with that insight, when I see him do it I don't tell myself "He needs me and wtf I'm too wiped out now."
I tell myself "He needs me BECAUSE I'm wiped out now."

He's nervous and so he checks.

And it was perpetuating him being right he can't depend on me.

So now that I know that, I have been finding it easier to find it in myself to give davka when he asks davka when I'm most depleted.

Because that's the love he seeks: do you even love me now when you have no mental space/energy for me.

Now that I know that's what he's seeking, I expect it more and it's not as shocking and surprising.

It's in my awareness. Like on my Pesach mental list is: 'go through chometz, kasher kitchen, make menus, find time and energy for J at the exact moment when I'm about to crack emotionally' etc.

Loving What Is: Upon Thinking Fish Should Be Taught to Fly

It's a blessing that somehow, I consider Chen's rebellious nature to be a blessing.  We've had so many talks about why there needs to be rebels in society, how it's useful evolutionarily for groups to have rebels, how rebels help change things that need to be changed.

It's a blessing that I came across Susan Cain's book Quiet and learned that Jack's cautiousness and hesitation and need to be very comfortable and secure before he can relax is not something that needs to be "fixed."


This past year Chen tested all the kids to find their love language and it turns out Jack's is gifts. This has radically altered my attitude.  Practically, I am trying to make sure to give him small gifts every day--little drawings, shells I've picked up on the beach.  And I noticed he either makes special food for himself with friends--sushi, bakes, french fries--or he asks to be taken out to buy a slurpee if he doesn't get a gift that day.  I also noticed that he is extremely focused on tracking when his packages are coming. 

The important thing to note about the gift love language is that it's often mistaken for an inappropriate or unhealthy focus on materialism.  I've found it helpful to think of it as a small gift is important every single day just as a kid whose love language is touch needs a hug every single day (or even numerous times a day).  If he doesn't get a small gift, he doesn't feel loved.  This affects his mood, his sense of things being right with the world, his equilibrium. 

You can see me wrestling with this and not realizing what is happening here and here. I'm not saying that I handled those situations badly per se, but look at them through the lens of gifts being his love language.  There is a whole layer of understanding missing that part of what is paining Jack so badly is that his cup was not filled, and he was "itchy" (so to speak) from the feeling of needing love (via gift).  Once you see that, you can see his mood and his reactions in a different context. 

And that's a context I'm totally missing at that point.

What does it lead to?  Less compassion, less understanding, less creative problem solving, less giving him the small physical gift he needs to feel loved.

I also was mistakenly looking at it through the lens of middos improvement, as if his desire for material things is a character flaw.  It's a nature and it's a way he feels loved.  This is something I'd like to help him be aware of and help him learn to satisfy in a way that is not overly expensive.  It's not something to fix.

I'm in the middle of a similar revolution of understanding regarding Aharon.  I'll make that its own post.

One of the things that makes Unschooling so Radical

Something that comes up when people worry about unschooling is: What if the kid grows up and feels that the parent has abdicated responsibility for educating them and the parent should have done a better job and forced them?

I've tried to explain that when unschoolers want to know something and feel like they need it, they simply pursue it.  Ask for help if they need.  (For example, when Chen took a college course and realized she didn't know exactly how to write an essay, she asked me to run through it with her and I told her about introductions, stating points, backing them up, and conclusions, and she began writing essays.) Today I read something by Caren Knox and it gave insight as to why this is and how it works and it absolutely resonated with my experience (bolding is mine):

Someone said that they find watching their children feeling bad about failing painful.  She responded:

One thing I’ve noticed in most long-time unschoolers I’ve known is that they inherently understand that they’re learning all the time, and that they experience not reaching goals or not quite getting something, not as personal failure or a shortcoming, but as one step in learning. I doubt they’d even be able to express that, unless they’re particularly self-reflective; for them, taking “failure” personally isn’t part of their experience of life. (This, of course, also depends on the personality of the child. What I’m saying is what I’ve noticed, generally speaking.)

They’re able to assess what happened without self-recrimination. “Oh, I didn’t know xyz was part of this thing I’m trying. Now I know, so this time I’ll add in xyz and maybe it’ll work now.” “Jeez, I am not so great at organizing this thing. I’ll ask Banu how they did it for the thing they did.” [<——- Very doubtful any unschooler has said anything like this out loud. This is my clumsy attempt at portraying the inner, perhaps even unnoticed by them, thoughts of an unschooler facing something not working as they planned or imagined.]

In school, something not working means FAILURE. You had one chance, and you screwed up, so that’s it. You get an F or a C or some other measurement that means you did not get this thing, and you will not get this thing, because this is the only time in the curriculum this is done. And people seem to think that means something about you personally. “You’re bad at math.” “You’ll never be an engineer.” “You’re slow.” “You’re a bad student.” “You are falling behind.” “You have a disability.”

Unschoolers have experienced life differently. There is plenty of time to do what they’re trying, so not getting it the first time means they can assess and try again, learning each time. (They might learn they don’t want to do that thing as much as they thought they did.) If they see they’re not skilled in a certain area, it doesn’t mean that *they* are failures; they can choose to learn about that, or ask for help, or outsource, or all of those.

Most always-radically unschooled kids or long-time radical unschoolers are comfortable with the process of learning, which often involves failure.
It’s like a lot of video games. You move your character through obstacles, and if you fail, there’s another life right there for you to take what you learned (“Whoa, a Goomba comes at me there”) and make different choices (“I’ll kick this Koopa shell first, then go”). There’s no real-life failure or death, and there are infinite opportunities for you to start over (or from a save point) and take another go at it.

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.   

unschooling summer 2017

It's been a while since I posted.  I guess unschooling is doing its deep work.  (That's code word for I can't think of anything we've been doing that resembles classic schoolwork.)  Chana introduced Elazar (and therefore Jack) to Animal Crossing, which is an amazing game with a small town.  You build a house, you make money, you speak to the villagers.  Their talk sounds like mumbling and you have to read everything, and you write letters and respond to them, so they are using literacy.  I am still asked to help with spelling numerous times a day and Chana asks me lots of history questions and philosophy and literature and vocabulary and science.  (Oh, yeah.  I'm supposed to look up the causes of and the end of the great depression.  I already sent her an article explaining how scientists discovered that electrons behave differently when they are being observed vs. not being observed.)

Aharon (age 6) is in camp and enjoying parsha and davening.  He wants me to daven with him, but then I don't do it exactly like he does in camp and he screams.  He came home from camp with kriah sheets that are Hebrew letters saying English sentences, which is a cute idea.  I'm torn about it.  On one hand, it helps the children with reading comprehension and is fun to figure out.  On the other hand, I'm a purist and feel like it's better to read Hebrew words in Hebrew and get a sense of the language that way.  (I'm such a homeschooler--I have an opinion on the minutiae of education even when I don't even use either of those approaches with my own children.)  I put the sheets on the fridge with a magnet in case any of the boys wants to play with them.

Chana and I have made no progress in the expensive chemistry set I bought her.  I did go so far as to send her a list of experiments, of which she chose one, and then I read the lab on it.  Since we haven't opened the box, I don't know what the items or, what they look like, how to use them, etc.  If you know me, you know I hate science experiments and I finally had to embrace that part of my homeschooling personality and admit science experiments are not my bag.  And having an expensive chemistry set is like upping my game at admitting I hate doing science experiments.

We are reading Pride & Prejudice together.  She reads it out loud to me in a British accent and her Mr. Collins has me convulsing with laughter.  It's everything I dreamed about High School Literature: actually reading the book, discussing it as we go: character, plot, themes, turns of phrase, foreshadowing, symbolism.  And enjoying the book.

And we take long walks on the beach together.  I'm really focusing on not having any agenda for our time together.  The teenage years are extraordinarily tricky.  I feel like in a lot of ways I spent ages 12-15 putting out fires and worrying excessively about "issues" and wanting her to "understand" things and desperately hoping to impart my wisdom to her.  I'm carefully refraining from that now.  I just want us to enjoy spending time together.  I read Parent/Teen Breakthrough: the Relationship Approach last year and it said that things are really extremely simple: In each interaction, ask myself if my behavior/reaction will improve my relationship with my teenager or deteriorate my relationship with my teenager.

And in all the things I worry about her being able to handle and manage?  If it affects me, bring it up (in a way that will not deteriorate our relationship, of course).  And if it doesn't affect me, it's none of my business.  The entire rest of the book was to explain how to do this, because honestly, some of it sounded like a foreign language to me.  Sof kol sof, it is the most useful and wisest book on raising teenagers I've read so far.

I've mostly given up trying to convince Chana to learn Bio with me.  It's like every unschooling move I've made over the years.  Why do I keep going more and more towards unschooling?  Because Chana told me, over and over, in all sorts of different ways, that she doesn't like to learn that way.  She told me that she doesn't like to sit down and read from a textbook.  She does LOVE when something catches her attention and then she hunts down information about it and videos that show and explain it.  And then talking about it and explaining to to people, and then researching their questions and finding answers, and talking to more people about it.  That is a dynamic and organic and interactive and social way of learning.  And it feels completely different and more exciting and more relevant than learning from a text.

In the same way, she learned to read by wrestling with texts she was interested in reading.  Or learned bits of math because they caught her attention (probably her most favorite homeschooling lesson ever was when her father taught her binary one Friday night ad hoc during family snuggle.  And one of the oddest math things she ever did was teach herself how to divide polynomials at 3am to help some stranger online with math homework).  And how she delves deeply into philosophy and Social Studies because of conversations she has with people. I now have to trust that when different things in Science catch her attention, she will pursue them.

All that was supposed to be a short introduction to what I came here to write today!  I got distracted talking about unschooling high school.

what came first the chicken or the egg

Are the kids cranky because Mommy is cranky or is Mommy cranky because the kids are cranky?

Jack woke up too early yesterday and he fought up and down many times and with me many times.  I was feeling overwhelmed with things.  Pesach is coming and I'm feeling like my skin is too sensitive and I feel everything extra.  The noise, the arguments, the crying, the tantrums.  The mess.  The things to do.

I put Jack to bed early last night, and he woke up early again.  All three piled into my bed, waking me in the middle of REM, and started fighting over who gets to snuggle my belly (they all love that jiggly belly.  Big fights start over it).  Screaming, fighting, arguing, pushing, crying.  The day hasn't even started.  Did they need more love from yesterday and I wasn't present because of Things I Need To Do?  Or are they always like that and I'm usually able to respond with mindfulness and love, and things settle down?

I feel like ninety nine times a day I respond in a way that is beneficial for their development.  Maybe more.  I pat myself on the back so many times.  I could have screwed this one up, but I didn't.  I did well.  My whole day is responding to needs.  But lately, those responses are becoming more peppered with impatience, sharper tone, critical attitude, negativity.

I walk out of the house and see the paper ripped up and the dirt and the spoons they didn't put away, instead of the good time they had.  I tell them they can't leave a mess, instead of framing it in the positive of after they play to make sure to clean up.

The microwave timer makes me cringe.  Or maybe it's that it's in addition to the screaming.  And the phone keeps ringing.  I don't answer the phone because I can't even tend to my own needs, let alone my children's needs, let alone to whoever is calling me.

I've wiped the chocolate off the walls and the fridge (oh, yeah, that's why I only bought vanilla ice cream until chocolate was requested), and I have to replace the toilet paper (I don't know why there is chocolate ice cream on the toilet paper; yes, i'm 99.9% sure it's chocolate; probably whoever smeared it all over the place cleaned a lot of it up with toilet paper; it was probably my 3yo).

And it's erev Shabbos.  We've been invited out for dinner and lunch is cholent.  I have over 5 hours to just be with the children (well, I also have Things To Do like return the due books to the library, put away laundry, maybe put things back on the shelves in the basement, and clean up the main living space for Shabbos, and the clutter that is slowly encroaching because I've been ignoring it for months).  None of those are important (except the library.  I will get to the library and bake the challah).  Chana and I have already done Chumash and Math.  It is actually a perfect time for me to try to calm down, regroup, and break the cycle by simply being with the children and focusing on the positive.  Do a little playful parenting.

I'm going to the library.  And then I'm going to roll around on the floor and wrestle with the children.  And the floor is filthy.  And I'm not vacuuming it.  Until right before Shabbos.  

hear me roar

It's 1:30pm.  I have 10-12 hours left to the day.

I went to work.  I came home.  I changed back into my pjs.  I cleaned up (and cajoled whoever was around to help me) the paper plates that were cut up and left by their beds.  I straightened my bedroom, which somehow got in disarray.  I talked to my 3yo about things he is angry about (the color of the booster seat he sat in today, the neighbors putting him in jail first ["not real jail, mommy"], me not giving him the commercial he wanted to see).  I negotiated a fragile peace between 7yo and 5yo after 5yo threw kid scissors at 7yo after he attempted verbal communication and it didn't work.  It was a complex issue and still is, having to do with turns, alerting or not alerting during turns, changing the order and the cons associated with that, and a criticism on my parenting how I give consequences without warnings ("But that is a house rule and you know it, so it doesn't get a warning--hey, we're talking about the game, not about about those rules right now").  I talked to 5yo about options other than scissor throwing.  I had him put away the scissors.  I made myself a salad (with nuts and avocados!).  I did not feed the boys lunch.  I spoke to 13yo briefly.  I played with 3yo.  I requested that everyone put one or two things away.  I vacuumed.  I did not put away the vacuum cleaner.

I. am. superwoman.

So are you.

Dvar Torah: You can't do it all

I was learning with my Aunt this week and she read a pasuk in Parshas Yisro that really resonated with me:

18:17 And Moshe's father in law said to him: "It is not good this thing that you are doing.
You will surely wilt-- you and this nation with you.  Because the thing is too heavy for you.  You cannot do it alone."

What had Moshe been doing?  His father in law had observed that "you are sitting by yourself, and the whole nation is standing on you from morning to night."

Moshe explained the many tasks he was involved in.

I deduced from this that Moshe was the ideal person to do these activities.

But there was a problem.  If Moshe continued to do all these things, even if he was the ideal person to do them, he was going to wear himself out.  That's no good for Moshe and no good for the nation is he caring for.

Substitute "Mommy" and "children" and I've been thinking about this a lot.  Moshe was the best person to judge the nation.  He had the most knowledge and could consult Hashem.  Anyone else delegated to this task would not have those qualifications.

And yet.  If you try to do everything, you end up withered.  You and the people you are trying to care for.

I read this a while ago:

And if you are a homeschooler, throw in "educate your children."  And you still only get two!

יז  וַיֹּאמֶר חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה אֵלָיו:  לֹא-טוֹב הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עֹשֶׂה.
יח  נָבֹל תִּבֹּל--גַּם-אַתָּה, גַּם-הָעָם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר עִמָּךְ:  כִּי-כָבֵד מִמְּךָ הַדָּבָר לֹא-תוּכַל עֲשֹׂהוּ לְבַדֶּךָ.

On saying "Yes" instead of "No"

I wrote this post about why I began practicing saying "Yes" to children's ideas instead of saying "No."

People often lament that kids these days only want to be involved in multimedia and nobody is creative.  I think if we would pay more attention to the grandiose ideas that children have and get out of their way when they attempt them, then we would have a generation of creative people who have ideas and follow through on them.

Here are some issues that I encounter when trying to say "Yes" instead of "Are you nuts?!" "No":

cleaning up mess

• I have to be careful with this one.  Sometimes an idea is going to make a mess and I'm too emotionally fragile to have that much mess.  So then I try to give a specific time when they can.  And I try to follow through on that.  But sometimes the answer is just "I'm not up for it."
• I try to train them to clean up after themselves as much as possible.  I want to imbue them with the idea that part of the activity is the cleanup. e.g. "clean as you go" when cooking, or you're not finished with the easy bake oven until all of the batter is cleaned off the table and the pans are rinsed.  Painting means water is spilled out, brushes are rinsed, and the cloth is folded up.  Using duct tape or the stapler means it is put back.  
• When they are young, I clean up with them and give directions as they clean up.  When they are older, I expect the majority of cleanup to be done without me (though they always have a right to request my help cleaning up).  I use "Love and Logic" techniques if things are not cleaned up.  If the paint is left on the porch or I have to gather children and supervise a cleanup, then that affects how I feel the next time they ask.  
• I read up and implement techniques to make cleanup more manageable for myself. If I'm not overwhelmed and if I know how to give clear guidelines and expectations for their clean ups, then we can do more things.  Decluttering, organizing, and learning to clean up an area in 20 minutes are valuable skills that make me more able to say "yes" when they want to do something.

destruction of property
I like to say yes, but I want to teach them to respect other people's property and to respect the concept of not breaking things that other people might find useful.  Using Love and Logic techniques, when they break something serious or beloved, they have to save up and pay for it.
That aside, when I discovered that the DS was eventually broken and they asked if they could smash it and take it apart, I said yes.  They spent a half hour doing so (with a hammer), investigated the inside, used the parts to try to build other things, and, of course, cleaned up all the pieces when they were finished.
When they asked to take apart a broken bike so that they could build a rocketship, I thought it was unlikely that they would be able to make a working rocketship, but I said yes.  As of this writing, they have not made a working rocketship.

appropriate public social behavior

• This was probably something I struggled with the most in the beginning.  It helps if you can access the rebellious part of your personality that might actually enjoy going against society.  But mostly it's pretty uncomfortable.  
• It's a strong value in our home to be respectful of other people's property and, to some degree, people's sensitivities.  I am absolutely firm that they must have appropriate boundaries regarding other people's property.  The question of other people's discomfort is a more complex issue.  ("Can I eat what I picked out of my nose?" "Um..It's not poison but some people will probably feel uncomfortable if you do." "So that's a yes?" "Um, I guess so." "Hey, Jack, did you know you can eat your booger?")
• A lot of requests trigger my own discomfort. To work on this, I went through a process: 
• If I want to say no, then I ask myself why.  
• Then I ask what about it makes me feel uncomfortable.  
• Then I try to evaluate whether that feeling is reason enough to prevent this exploration of the world or this experience 

• I found that I frequently preferred to get over my discomfort and give them this opportunity.  Thinking about the long term benefits of being able to explore things or being able to follow through on ideas compared to what message I am teaching them by saying No gave me perspective.

What they want to do is impossible
I already discussed that.  So what if it's impossible?  What if it is actually possible and you are imposing your warped and restricted view of the word onto them?  If they won't destroy anything and they will (mostly) clean up after themselves why oh why are you sucking the fun out of everything and delivering the message that they should stop being creative and stop looking for interesting ways to interact with the world.  (I hope that wasn't too harsh.  That's just what I say to myself ;)

On shifting from saying "No" to saying "I can't see why not"

Something I've been practicing since Sarah was a toddler was biting back my natural inclination to say No to everything.  Children naturally have lots of ideas.  Lots of impractical, annoying, messy, impossible ideas.  And my gut reaction is almost always, "No."

When I first became a parent and I was youthful and idealistic, I wondered why parents were always discouraging their children.  Children are so enthusiastic.  They want to do so many things.  And the adults in their lives are always telling them no.  Sometimes because it's an inconvenience to the adult.  But about half the time it's not a tremendous inconvenience; the adult just feels that it's not something "done" or it's not "appropriate" or it just seems extremely impractical.

I began to experiment.  I would only say No if I could think of a good reason to say No.  I began to question whether or not my reasons for refusing were "good" reasons.  I found, upon investigation, that the majority of my refusals were because of social discomfort, or because I was choosing laziness over my child's exploration of the world.

I began to try: "I guess so."  Or perhaps a more enthusiastic, "Go for it."  Or, if I was really reluctant: "How do you plan to do that?"  or "Here's what my concern is.  What is your plan for that?"

I also tried to get into the habit of saying, "Sounds great" when they said anything that seemed fantastical to me.

I was thinking yesterday about the time they captured a bird.  If you would have asked me if a 2nd grader could capture a bird, I would have said, "How absurd! Capture a bird!?"  But since I have mainly broken myself of the habit of being negative about their ideas, back when he was in kindergarten and he asked for a piece of bread or a bag of popcorn so he could set a trap for a bird, I pointed to the closet and asked him why he wanted to capture a bird.  It turns out he had plans to eat it, so we discussed shechita and kosher birds.  Three years later, he came running into the house that they had caught a bird.  It was incredibly exciting.  I was incredibly excited.  They put a box over it.  I wondered if it was sick or injured (since everyone knows you can't capture a bird, darn it!) and discussed the diseases and transfer of diseases.  I think the boys made plans to call animal control or a vet.  But the bird somehow escaped and flew away.  And that was the adventure of the time the idea of capturing a bird came to fruition, with three years of perseverance.

Imagine if I had not practiced saying yes.

Another time I came upon the boys.  They had a huge pile of papers.  And lots of tape.  And scissors.  And a big mess.  I walked in.  They looked up and smiled.  I had a flash of a thought that what I was unconsciously expecting from them was to freeze in fear and wait for me to yell at them.  I asked them what they were doing, they happily shared, and I asked them if they would clean up when they were done and to please call me if they needed help cleaning it up.  I have no recollection of whether they cleaned it themselves or if I helped, but the lack of freezing in fear remains with me.

Imagine if I had not practiced saying yes.

In my next post I will go through some categories of reasons I want to say no but why I (mostly try to) ultimately say yes.

staylistening

About a year and a half ago I had an extremely difficult time with my 2 1/2 year old.  He had been such an easy two-year-old, so mellow, so easy-going, so biddable.  And then he changed.  At first it wasn't so noticeable; once in a while he would get a little insistent, but it was so unusual it didn't seem to be a problem to give in to him, since it didn't "teach" him to behave that way, since his behavior was mostly perfect.  Gradually, though, he began having tantrums.  Huge tantrums, insane tantrums, 2 to 3 to 5 hour tantrums.  I didn't know what to do.  I usually could hang in okay for the first two hours.  After that, I began to have trouble.  I got mean.  I yelled.  I hit.  I screamed.  The most difficult part was when I was trying to remove myself to get some space, and he would follow me around, pulling on my clothes and shrieking, or, if I would go lock myself in the bathroom or away from him, he'd bang on the door and kick it, screaming.  I didn't know what to do.  

I discussed it with an occupational therapist and a speech therapist.  They suggested maybe, since he was so mellow, he didn't have the tools to calm himself, which other children, who used to get more upset, had learned earlier in their lives.  I tried teaching him techniques like deep breathing.  I tried deep pressure activities, sensory integration activities.  I tried discussing it with him afterwards (by this point, over 6 months had passed and he was three and able to converse and brainstorm and communicate) and we both agreed we didn't like when I got so angry like that and if I needed to walk away and calm down, he would let me, so I could come back and hug him, instead of screaming at him or hitting him.  I enlisted my husband's help and the help of my older kids, who agreed that when I felt I needed to walk away, that they would take over and make sure he didn't chase after me and bang the door down.  All of these things helped me handle the situation better, but didn't really help the situation.  

Last year's seder, he started crying at the beginning of Magid and cried all the way through Pesach-Matza-Maror.  Hours.  

At this point, I was fortunate that from one of my yahoogroups, somebody emailed me offlist about a technique from hand-in-hand parenting called "staylistening."  She gave me some links and offered advice as I stumbled through it, and it has become one of my primary tools for handling temper tantrums.  

The idea is to "invite the tantrum."  Meaning, for example, you let your child know that the answer is No. And then you do not give in.  Obviously, not giving in is going to get him* upset and he is going to try to get you to change your mind.  (tactics: screaming, tantrumming, throwing things, hitting parents, etc.)

The amazing insight to me about staylistening is that you "invite" this tantrum.  Once you make a parental decision, you mentally prepare yourself for the tantrum, and you don't try to stop it.  (For me, that was a huge attitude adjustment but also SUCH a relief.)  Then you let them "cry to futility."  You are empathetic and reflect back their feelings as they talk, but you don't try to change the reality of the situation.  ("Yeah, you are angry because you wanted to listen to the song again...yeah, you're mad at me.. yeah, you want it and i'm not listening to you.. yeah, you want it and i said 'no.'.. etc.)  And you have to block the hits (punches, scratches, bites).  But the amazing thing about it is that they cry, but that's ok, he's having strong feelings about not getting his way.  And he cries "to futility" meaning until he accepts that he doesn't get his way.  I think it's one of the most compassionate and most effective ways of addressing the concerning situation of "spoiling" a child.  And when you see them take that deep breath and sigh, it's amazing.  (At that point I usually "invite the tantrum" again, meaning I say, "You're angry I wouldn't let you have the song again?" and that sets off the tears again, and gives them the opportunity to give that last bit of fury and frustration and upset-ness and disappointment expression.).  At that point, they find it within themselves to move forward and accept the reality.  It's magical to see.

It takes some time to do.  When they get used to it, they can "cry to futility" in about 5-10 minutes, but sometimes it's as long as 1/2 hr or I've had 3 hr sessions**, when I first started this approach, because they had never cried "to futility" while I was compassionately listening and not trying to stop it before.  

_____________

*I'll use "him" because I learned this with my sons.

**It's true I had 3-5 hour crying sessions with Jack before this technique, but the difference was that I was stressed because I felt I should be stopping the crying and I couldn't, whereas with this technique, I'm just giving him the gift of experiencing the full gamut of his rage, fury, sadness, etc.

Emotional Phases

I've had this on my mind for a while.  Kids go through phases.  Some of the phases are really pleasant.  I try to notice them and enjoy them.  The child is happy, friendly, in a good mood, gets along with you the parent and siblings, asks for what s/he needs or wants, is understanding and tolerant.  I try to take note when a child is going through a phase like that.  Human nature is to assume that is how things are supposed to be, and to only notice when things are not smooth.  When I was a teenager, I went through a phase being fascinated with Murphy's Law ("Anything that can go wrong, will, and at the worst possible moment"), until I realized that the times things go right are actually more frequent than the times things go wrong, except that we are not programmed to notice them.  So I try to notice them.

Obviously, the times when things are not smooth are naturally more noticeable.  The child is grouchy, moody, prone to anger and fury and fighting and unhappiness.  It's not me, but I do things that exacerbate it.  I often spend a lot of time during a difficult phase looking at my parenting and trying to troubleshoot.  Although this might improve my parenting (it probably does) and it might or might not help the child cope better with the phase (it probably makes no difference, but at least does not make it worse), I've come to the conclusion that it's not me, it's them.  I tend to perhaps overthink my parenting, and this was brought home to me very clearly when Sarah was a teenager and I was rethinking all of my parental decisions and considering sending her to therapy, when she got her period and morphed out of a banshee and back to a normal human being.  Since then, I try to keep myself as even-keeled as possible (difficult when they are shrieking at you) and to try to just accept that some phases are fraught with emotion and anger and anxiety, and the best I can do is be loving and stable and look forward to the phase ending.

During a difficult phase, I try to look on the bright side and remember how many great months the last phase was.  And I notice all the children who aren't having a difficult phase at the moment, and experience gratitude that they aren't tag-teaming.  At the moment.  One day I was getting out of the house and my six-year-old, my four-year-old, and my two-year-old were all hollering, sobbing, and shrieking.  And my twelve-year-old, who was often the moodiest of all, was walking along pleasantly, smiling, in a sunny mood.  And I was grateful.  I still remember that walk with fondness.  It ended up being kind of funny, and I'm glad I got to notice my preteen in such a good mood.

All this is an introduction to my six-year-old, Elazar.  He is in a fantastic phase now.  He was a difficult infant, an extremely difficult toddler, and his twos and threes were extremely challenging.  He started calming down at ages 3 through 4 (as my mother-in-law promised me), and by six, he's just in a really good phase.  Independent, amiable, mostly stable moods, infrequent temper tantrums, mostly feeds himself, gets along with others, doesn't run away when we are out.  A dream come true.  One of my easiest kids at the moment.

I just keep thinking about how if he were in school, I'd be getting calls from the teachers and the administration.  He isn't sitting in class.  He can't focus.  He can't pay attention.  He talks.  He wiggles.  He won't do his work.  He is disruptive.  Then he'd come home and he'd chew his shirt.  He would have eczema that he scratches from stress.  We'd argue about his homework.  I would yell.  I would speak harshly.  He would feel bad about himself.  He would act out.  I would worry about him.  I would spend a great deal of my day trying to figure out how to deal with him, how to get him to behave, how to handle him.

But because we've chosen to unschool him, he is a delight.

Unschooling does not make every phase a delight.  I don't think it's possible to avoid the growing pains of growing up, not from the child's end and not from the parents' end.  But this particular phase would look very different if he was in a different situation.  And this is not something that his bechira (free will) has control over.  I see that a lot.  The child is "good" or "bad" but it's not actually the child--it's the situation.

Different discipline possibilities

Jack, my 3yo, spilled out Elazar's crate of clothes.  (Yes, his clothing is in crates.  That's probably a different blog post but I'll just say that from ages 3-7 I've often found that my kids use a "dive in and toss out all clothes until I find what I want" method and it's been easier to just keep everything in crates and toss them back in afterwards.)  Why did Jack spill it out?  It's irrelevant (he wanted to climb onto something so he used it as a step stool).  And that wasn't high enough.  So he dumped out the laundry hamper.  And now I want him to clean up.  And before he cleans up the hamper, he should clean up the crate.

I've learned a few disciplinary tactics over the years.  One of them is:
Children should clean up their own messes.  Once a child has to clean up a big mess all by himself, he doesn't make that mess again.

Whether or not that is actually 100% true, it does make good sense to me.  If the child makes the mess and is physically capable of cleaning it, then he should do so.  I do him no favors by allowing him to make messes that I clean up.  He spills (let's say on purpose) and I say, "Hey, don't do that!" and then I wipe it up.  What am I teaching him?  I'm teaching him that he spills, I don't like it, and I clean up.  If he spills and I hand him something and he cleans up, he may not learn not to do it in the future, but at least I'm not teaching him that there are no consequences.

So I told Jack to clean up the clothing and put it back into the crate.  He began to cry, "Help me, help me."

Ordinarily, in the past, I would have been kind but firm.  You made the mess, you clean it.  I will stand here and you will clean it up.  This seems to me to make good sense and teaches the child to be responsible.

A tactic I didn't even think of this morning, but am only thinking of now, as I write this, is Playful Parenting.
Make a playful way for the child to clean it up, such as a race, a game..something that elicits giggles and gets the child enthused about it.

People are often reluctant to do this because they feel that the child has to learn.  And the child will not be responsible if you make things fun.

(This is actually a fallacy and there are plenty of opportunities to teach responsibility and we don't have to worry about making chores fun causing a long term problem.  In fact, this gives them a valuable technique for doing things they are reluctant to do in life.)

This morning, I was about to stand there and firmly insist that Jack put the clothes away himself, when I realized that I had been parenting differently for the last few years.  I read this article about unschooling chores and housework a while back and it really had a profound impact on my attitude.

It's more of a shift in the parent's attitude than the kids at first. If a person appears grumpy about cleaning, the kids will pick up on that and immediately assume that cleaning is a real bummer. If you hear yourself complaining about something needing cleaned, everyone else hears the complaining too. If YOU obviously don't want to do it, there's a good chance that your kids won't be overly excited about it either. Complaining leaves a bad vibe in the air—not a good selling point.

and

he is now much more likely to help out and to do things spontaneously because he sees us helping each other, doing things that need doing simply because they need doing, not because it's "my turn" or "my job"— we don't have assigned jobs, whoever is able and available does what needs doing. 

I've really gotten into the mode of doing things this way.  When I am cleaning up and it feels overwhelming, I will ask my family for help.  They've become used to cleaning up messes that they didn't make, and it's been very pleasant to be able to ask for help and get help.

When Jack said, "Help me, help me," I suddenly realized that our home atmosphere has been that we ask for help cleaning when we need it.  Which then contradicted the method of having him do it himself because it is his responsibility because he spilled it.

Hormones

Tonight was one of those nights that people are talking about when they say, "I could never homeschool my kids!"

My daughter is preteen.  It's been building up for a few days, the bad mood, the surliness, the crying at the drop of a hat, the fury at anything and everything, most especially her mother.  Tonight, some of the things she said had me mentally filing them to share with my sister and another friend with a preteen daughter, for example: "Don't say 'Good'!  I can't stand it when you say that!!" and "Don't tell me to reread it!  I was going to reread it" after she deliberately mumbled a phrase and she hadn't reread the last phrase she deliberately mumbled last time without prodding.  etc etc.

The line from the Princess Bride kept going through my mind:  Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!  Hahahahahahaha.. until he keels over.
But I substituted: Never do Chumash with a preteen daughter when she is hormonal! Hahahahahahaha.. and then I keel over.

Last week I felt we were speaking too sharply to each other.  This mostly comes up during Chumash because we (thankfully) aren't in much conflict at other times during the day.  I told her on Shabbos that I felt like I wanted to try to react better.  Most of our conflicts last week ended up like this:
Me: Stop screaming.
Her: I should stop screaming?! You're the one screaming!
Me: I'm only screaming because you screamed at me first!
Her: I didn't scream first! You're the one who screamed first!

I figured that since we always end up arguing over who started screaming first, maybe I should just try to control my powerful negative reaction when I *perceive* that I'm being screamed at, and maybe if I'm nicer, we won't explode.  I shared that with her on Shabbos, and she appreciated it.

This evening, every time her tone got obnoxious, I reminded myself inside my head that I was going to be pleasant when she was obnoxious.  I think I did this 6 or 7 times.  (At one point, I said to her, "You are screaming at me."  And she said, "I'm not screaming.  I think you think screaming is louder than I think it is."  And I was thinking at the exact moment she then said: "Actually, you think my screaming is louder than I think it is, and I think your screaming is louder than you think it is.  So we actually both think screaming is exactly equal, but reversed."  Yes!!! A moment of rare accord.)

Also, I decided to do a rashi tonight.  She asked why she has to do rashi.  I asked her to tell me.  Seeing as we have this conversation every time I ask her to do rashi.  She shrieked said, "I don't know! That's why I asked the question! Why would I ask a question unless I want you to answer it!"  Then I said I want her to learn to read and understand rashi.  And she shrieked said she already knows how to read rashi.  And I said she needs to learn how to understand rashi.  (Never mind that she didn't know the samech from the mem sofis and when I mentioned that, she shrieked said, "I forgot! I'm allowed to forget!" Yes, you are allowed to forget, but not if you insist that you don't need practice because you are already great at it.)  Then she pitched a fit objected that I was asking her to translate too much.

I think she did a pretty decent job translating.  I'm still a little disturbed that we are using rashi with nekudos and I don't know how she would be at rashi without nekudos, which is really what I'd like her to be able to read.  But hopefully with more familiarity will come fluency.

I was pretty irritated by the end and, while I did manage to hold onto my Zen (mostly), I think this whole thing was a valuable experience for us.

While it's not delightful to interact with each other when she is in a bad mood, this gives us a lot of practice working on our self control and conflict resolution.  It's an opportunity for me to model kindness in the face of provocation.  It's an opportunity for her to restrain herself to snarling instead of a full-blown freak out.  We are trying to be respectful of each other while we are both extremely irritated.  It is during the crucible of these moments that I find my better self (after sometimes also finding my most hideous self) and refine my patience and my character.  It is these moments that will be some of my daughter's most valuable lessons.

It is not pleasant to homeschool through these times.  But when you ask me, how do I homeschool and teach and discipline when my children are obnoxious and difficult and horrid?  The answer is, I'm glad I do.

Luckily, I also get a lot of "do-overs" when I don't handle things as well as I'd like to.  Tomorrow will be another night.

Oh, wait.  We still have math.

i choose to die on this mountain

Sometimes, I pick a battle and I take a stand.  Yesterday it was an orange.  Elazar likes me to cut gently into the orange to make it easier for him to peel.  However, if he peels and breaks through the membrane, it's "juicy" and it's dead to him.  We've had this discussion about bananas and ice cream sandwiches before.  I will take off the wrapper or the peel, but sometimes it breaks or cracks a little and he may not have another one.  That is wasting.

Well, we didn't have that conversation before the orange.  (He is 5 now.  I would think this is a 2 or 3 yo problem, by the way.)  I accidentally over-enthusiastically cut the grooves, and they sliced into the membrane, making nearly the entire orange "juicy."  He lost it.  He behaved obnoxiously and disrespectfully.  I think he first threw a tantrum, which I respect, because life isn't going his way and it's infuriating.  I often use these tantrums as an opportunity to let them ride the full wave of fury and frustration, and reality doesn't change.  I try to maintain a solid and loving presence while they do this.  I feel like in that jumbled way that children confuse parents and God, it gives the psyche the experience that there is a loving presence while reality goes against their will.  And eventually they pick themselves up and move forward.  Which I think is an important life lesson.

But not Elazar.  He escalated.  He tried to hit me.  He threw the orange at me.  I maintained my loving, calm presence for a while.  But soon I began to feel, like in that jumbled way that children confuse parents and God, that Elazar might be soon about to experience a capricious, vengeful and wrathful idolatrous god.  So I decided to clarify that I was taking a stand.  I crouched down, looked him in the eye, and stated very firmly: "I will NOT do another orange.  I don't like the way you screamed at me and are screaming at me."

This escalated things further, and sometimes when he shrieks like that I begin to wonder if I was wrong to take this stand.  But instead of my usual second guessing, I just felt irritated and justified.  I do not want to be treated like this.  I will not tolerate being treated like that.  The only way to put a stop to it is to make it clear that he cannot speak to me and treat me like that.  I will die on this mountain if I have to.  You will not cross this line.

This occurred in the middle of the day.  At various points over the next hour and a half, he cried about it and screamed about it.  When he finally spoke to me calmly about it, I said I am still upset at the way he treated me, and maybe if he asks me in half an hour I will do it.  He did ask me in half an hour.

I thought a lot about how much of our day this orange incident took up.  This is definitely one of the things I like about homeschooling.  In the early elementary age years, there are so many strong emotions and so many interactions that are intense for the child.*  And in homeschool, we really do have the time and the chance to walk them through these incidents when they occur.  In school, he'd probably suck up his feelings, which would be age appropriate for 1st grade and not necessarily a bad skill to master (or he would cry a lot, and hopefully have a compassionate teacher).  But he'd be coming home at 4pm and we have to do homework and dinner and bedtime, and there just isn't the same leisure to devote to these turbulent emotions.

_________
* (During puberty, there are also so many strong emotions and interactions that are intense for the teenager.  During life, there are so many strong emotions and interactions that are intense.)

how i feel some days

This has nothing to do with Chumash but does have to do with homeschooling.  Well, not even really homeschooling.  Just being home with the kids all day.  ("How do you do it?  Being home with your kids all day?")  Usually I love it.  Usually, it's like a nice relaxing long weekend, only all week long.  (With me as the janitor.)  Usually, we play and laugh and enjoy.

But some days....

I said to Ari, I can't stand my employers.  Nothing makes them happy.  They are irrational, scream at me frequently, nothing I can do satisfies them, and their demands are neverending, impossible to keep up with.. and even the things I do manage to do, I don't do how they want and they are not nice about how they tell me so.  Sometimes it even degenerates into them physically abusing me, pulling on me or trying to hit me while they are screaming at me.  And the whole time, there is more to be done and more that they are demanding.  Also, I have more than one employer that i'm responsible to, and their demands and needs overlap and are often more than one urgent at the same time.  I'm trying to meet one employer's needs and the other one or more begin shouting about how their demands are urgent.  It's a working environment with constant demands and screaming and little ability to accomplish the demands of the job.  No lunch break or coffee break.
 
I don't want a different job, but sometimes I would like a little vacation!  And remember, a "family trip" is NOT a vacation! :)

bullies2buddies experimentation

Last post I described an intriguing theory to manage sibling rivalry and my concerns about it. 

A few months ago, Jack was sitting on Aharon and beating him up, and Aharon was screaming (Jack 2, Aharon crawling).  My usual policy when that happened was to merely lift Jack off of Aharon.  Don't blame, don't expect self control, do separate.

Testing the theory that the boys love each other, and although Jack is clearly under the grip of aggressive desire, he doesn't truly want to hurt Aharon and will respond to his distress, I let the cries get worse and didn't move him.

Jack watched me, puzzled, sitting on Aharon, not getting off of him, and clearly wondering why I wasn't stopping him.  Aharon cried.

I waited more.  Jack didn't get off.  Aharon cried louder.  I couldn't take it and I moved Jack.

***

This week, Jack (2.5) started bothering Aharon (14mo).  Jack pushed Aharon.  Aharon cried.  Jack kind of glanced at me, waiting for me to show some sort of disagreement with that decision or to comfort Aharon, which is what I would often do.  I looked away (feeling kind of sick).  Then Aharon went over and pushed Jack!  Hoo, boy, I thought.  Bad idea.  Then Jack started crying.  Then Jack pushed Aharon.  And Aharon smacked Jack.  And they were fighting and crying.  I was pretty uncomfortable.  The yelling was getting pretty loud.  Then it hit a pretty intense point, and they both backed away from each other, crying pretty badly.  I was profoundly uncomfortable.  Then they stopped crying and started playing with each other.  I blinked.

****

Elazar was on the beach, drawing a big circle with Xs in it for buried treasure.  Jack kept on deliberately stepping into the circle and on the Xs.  Elazar said, "Jack, stop."  "Jack, stop."  "Jack, stop!"  "Jack, STOP!!"  Jack was doing it on purpose to provoke him.  My wont was to step in and move Jack away.  Don't blame, don't expect self control, do separate.

This time I let it continue.  Finally, Elazar, exasperated, gave Jack a *thunk* on the chest.  "Jack, STOP!"  Jack stopped immediately.

****

Aharon was playing duplo.  Elazar started building a tower taller than himself.  Ordinarily, my policy is that the child who is building builds in a location that is blocked off from the destroyer, so the destroyer has no access.  Don't blame, don't expect self control, do separate.  However, the destroyer was playing first, so it wouldn't be fair to pull him out of the room.  Even with some legos, he'd still feel upset.  Naturally, he went over and knocked down Elazar's tower.  Elazar was upset.  "Aharon knocked down my tower!  I'm so angry at him!  Aharon, I'm angry at you!  I'm so angry!"  Even all of this verbalization was not sufficient to cool his anger, and although I could see him striving to control himself, it burst out and he thumped Aharon on the chest: "Aharon!" *thunk* "Do NOT break my tower!"  As soon as he hit him, justice was restored in his mind, and the anger drained out of him and he went to rebuild.  Aharon began crying hard and came over to me, muttering and he hit me.  (Either he was passing on the aggression or he was telling me what happened.)  He muttered more and hit me again.

I was in a lot of conflict about this.  Clearly Elazar tries verbal communication first.  Clearly, Elazar feels better once he's hurt the person who has hurt him--but is that something I want to teach my children?  The animalistic law of the jungle?  If someone hurts you, then hurt him back?  Then you'll feel better?  I sat there, holding a crying Aharon, feeling conflicted.

Elazar looked up.  He said, "Aharon!" and he did a silly jump and flip so that Aharon would laugh, which he did.  He coaxed Aharon over and gave him a hug, and patted him, and said, "Don't break my tower, ok?" and Aharon said, "Ya."

***

So I think I will try to continue observing with this and see what happens.  I'll keep you posted!

***
PS.  As I was walking today, Jack and Aharon were in the umbrella stroller (Aharon sits and Jack stands behind him), and Jack started rat-a-tat-ing on Aharon's head, and Aharon started mildly complaining.  According to the theory, am I supposed to just leave that alone?  See if it gets bad, if Jack will back off?  I opted for my usual: "Gentle, Jack, gentle."  Jack started rubbing him gently, and I praised him.  I don't know if I would have left it alone, if they would have ended up fine.  But I also don't know how they would learn to be gentle if it isn't taught.  Would it come naturally?  

bullies2buddies and sibling rivalry

For the first 11 years that I was a parent, I had two children 5.5 years apart.  It wasn't no effort to raise them, but I did not deal with the classic "sibling rivalry."  People talked about their kids fighting, and I had no experience.  Periodically they argued or fought or annoyed each other, but it was basically nothing.  Then I was blessed with 3 children in under 4 years.  I still haven't had that much sibling rivalry to deal with until now.  Part of it may have to do with the fact that the older two did tandem nursing, which people say helps cut down the sibling rivalry.  A huge piece of it is the personality of my middle son, who by nature is peaceful and obliging.

So I read Siblings Without Rivalry by Faber and Mazlish.  And I've been using Playful Parenting techniques by Larry Cohen, which I am sorry I didn't know about when the girls were little.  When I see aggression brewing, I sweep the aggressor into wrestling or some type of fighting play, and it works miracles.

But as far as an ideology regarding sibling rivalry, I've been thinking for a while about bullies2buddies principles.  I read about it a couple of years ago, before I had 3 children close in age, so it was still pretty theoretical.  Some of the concepts (from my faulty memory) include:

• Hitting that doesn't draw blood or leave a mark is not really "hurting" between two people of about equal power.  It is actually a pretty effective way for them to navigate conflicts.
• Children don't usually want to badly hurt each other, and if left to their own devices, the majority of the time they will respond fairly quickly to a cry of true distress and back off immediately.  On the contrary, when adults get involved, it leads to children ignoring each other's signals and focusing more on the authority's cues and getting parental attention.
• It is useful to distinguish between bothering and annoying and hurting. 

Overall, he urges a policy of general non-involvement, on the theory that the great majority of what is going on is not true hurting that leaves marks or does damage, and on the theory that siblings generally love each other and will be responsive to a true cry of distress and will back off, and on the theory that they will thunk each other a few times and that is an acceptable way for them to work out their conflict.

I find this extremely logical.  There are a few points that cause me great discomfort:

1. What if it isn't quite so benign and one sibling is torturing the other.  Shouldn't that be stopped?  Isn't that damaging to the psyche of the one being tortured?  
2. Is encouraging/not stopping hitting and other mild forms of aggression something we want to teach our children?  Isn't growing up a lot about being able to control impulses, especially aggressive impulses?  Is this counter chinuch?  Do I really want to imply by my non-involvement that it's OK to hit?

Despite these hesitations, I am very intrigued by the theory and I have been eager to test it out.  The trouble with testing it out is that if i sometimes get involved and sometimes don't get involved, I am not sure if I am exacerbating the situation.

My next post will describe some situations where I tried it out.

what kind of person is chinuch trying to produce?

This article came to my attention, discussing certain problems with the current day school yeshiva education and calling for overhaul. 

If you are homeschooling or thinking about homeschooling, it's likely you already have taken the matter into your own hands to some degree.  I cite this article because I really like how R' Dov Lipman expresses the goals and ideals of a Jewish education. 

He writes (my bold):

My friend related how just that morning during Shacharit he was thinking about how “off target” we are as he watched rabbis barking at children to stand during “vayevareich Dovid” and the “vihu rachum,” part of Tachanun at a youth minyan. He was not suggesting we shouldn’t find ways to encourage our children to stand when our custom dictates standing during prayers. But the degree to which the kids were being scolded for not standing struck a chord that led him to reflect upon what we teach as important and what is not important.

I have seen in both myself and in others a way of criticizing students that reflects an unconscious set of values that we might not want to be teaching our children.  Frequently it is by facial expression, tone, or the degree of negativity for a minor issue.  This gives me a lot to think about.

He also writes (and I realized that I hope that, if I take my child's education into my own hands, that maybe I can work more towards some of these answers being "Yes"):

Let’s take a step back and see where the average yeshiva high school boy stands upon graduation from high school. Is he fluent in Hebrew? No. Can he prepare a Gemara on his own? No. Does he enjoy studying Gemara? No. Does he know Tanach? No. Does he enjoy davening? No. Does he understand basic Jewish philosophy about God, the purpose of creation, and why we do the things we do? No. Does he stand head and shoulders above the rest of society in terms of his dedication to acts of loving-kindness and basic human decency? No.

I may or may not have these goals for my own children.  But it gives me a good place to start, a good checklist to think about.  You are educating your child for roughly a decade; what do you want to do with that time?

He also writes (and again, I'm turning it around to look at the positive embodiments of these qualities):

our average students are not steeped in Torah knowledge, not skilled in reading classic texts and prayers, not excited about Judaism, and not prepared to be morally and ethically superior to the low common denominator of surrounding society 

 He expresses his ideal graduates:

ultimately producing young men who are comfortable reading our texts and prayers, inspired to want to study and pray, enthused regarding their Judaism, prepared to enter the world as the most moral, ethical, respectful, and upstanding members of society

Having a sense of what my priorities and goals are as a homeschooler helps me with the larger decisions of curriculum development, where I put my educational energy, what I choose to emphasize, and what we learn.  But it also helps in the millions of small reactions and decisions I make every day.  When my child doesn't remember a word.  When my child wants to tell me her dream before we start Chumash.

When I'm crabby and irritated and have more things happening than I have attention for, how I react to my children teaches them more about Torah and about my true values than anything else.  Maybe the more clarity I have about my goals, the easier these split-second and largely unconscious reactions/decisions will become.

navi

so chana's been in camp for 2 days now (comments from all her fellow campers, practically universally: "wow, you're homeschooled?  that's so awesome! (pause)  do you have friends?").  i've actually missed doing chumash with her.  which got me started on thinking about the parts i dread vs the parts i miss.  why do i (sometimes) dread it and what do i miss about it?

i miss spending an hour+ with her, giving her my concentrated attention.  i miss hearing about all the little things she's thinking about.  i miss her perspective on a rashi that i think is pshat and she asks a penetrating question that makes me realize although rashi may superficially seem like pshat, it isn't quite.  i miss watching her zip through translation and see how far she's come in her skills.  i miss learning torah with my daughter.

i don't miss her frustration and her anger when she is having trouble translating it and i feel like she can do it and she yells at me that she CANT find the shoresh and then, oh, it's amad.
on the other hand, navigating these conflicts makes me a more patient person (i have seen tremendous progress in myself how i handle this with chana from all the practice i got with sarah ;) and it's great practice for both of us to engage in the art of de-escalating conflict.  looking back, in addition to the usual pre-teen conflicts, i can point to chumash as a solid block of time that went on for months where we both got frustrated and had to learn to back off and regroup and re-attempt to communicate and both have things to work on and compromise and change behaviors and still have frustration and do it all over again.

(which does make me think about unschooling and the tantalizing promise that there won't be so much conflict around learning torah, and isn't torah supposed to be pleasant?  or maybe skills are drudgery and this is the way it goes? **cue jessie whining about how she's not sure about unschooling benefits vs skilldrilling benefits**)

anyway, i'm going to try to do chumash in the car with chana on the way up to my parents today.

but about my navi project.  as is frequent in homeschooling, i had an idea and it took on a fantasy life of its own about how we'd do navi every night and she'd love it.  ok, stop laughing.  true unschooling would be where she'd be interested and i would facilitate her learning.  but there is also an element of unschooling where "v'dibarta bam b'shivtecha b'veisecha," torah is constantly on my mind and we talk about it.  i then go back to the pesach seder and i hear many of my rebbeim echoing in my head: a pesach seder doesn't just happen without the parent thinking a great deal about where the child is at and what type of learning they'd find interesting.  from the kids' perspective, interesting things are happening and then they ask questions and then learning naturally emerges.  but from the parents' end, you need to think about what sort of things will trigger the questions and what approach you want to take to answer those questions.

so back to Summer of Navi.  i'd like it to be that when chana remembers doing navi, it was Really Interesting.  (hehe, jane austen capitalization for emphasis.)

tip #1
ask a child if s/he wants to learn when it's past his or her bedtime.

chana babysat for us last night when we went out to dinner (yay summer date nights! i look forward to that all year).  part of the charm of babysitting is that she can stay awake until we get home.  so around 10:30, just when i was thinking of telling her to go to bed, i asked her if she wanted to do navi.  i figured it was late and she wouldn't want to.  but she said yes.

we chilled on the couch and did the story of ehud.  i gave her the background of shoftim (the cycle of sinning, enemy, calling out to hashem, shofet) and she immediately said that many of us are not keeping torah now but we don't have an enemy.  i said we are in galus and she countered by saying we have israel.  (i did not bring up the midrash "revach tasimu ben eder l'eder" as she's only 11.)
anyway, she enjoyed it and next up is yericho.

i think in unschooling, one of the things that is nervewracking is that the classical way of doing things is very regular.  you do it every day or every week or a few times a week.  you drill and drill.  you plug away, day in and day out, year after year.
and in unschooling, things happen more in bursts.  or there is a lot of fallow time and productive waves.  there is a sudden burst of interest and it's very exciting.  then nothing for days or weeks.  and then it's exciting again.  everything you pursue is fueled by your interest.  your motivation carries you into it and through it.

so perhaps i should not be surprised that navi is not happening regularly, and focus on it's enjoyability factor plus that there is genuine learning going on.