Five Things My Young Kids Have Taught Me

By Stephanie Kanowitz for Kveller

I always assumed that being a parent meant teaching my children the basic skills–and with luck, perhaps a few extras they’d need to become productive members of society. As it turns out, I’m learning just as much about life from them. Remember that book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? I think the lessons start much earlier. Here are some that I’ve learned:

Lesson 1. Be yourself. Somewhere along the way, we–or at least I–got caught up in worrying about how others see us. We put on our best face and maybe if we’re starting to wear our hearts on our sleeve, we throw on a cardigan. I’m not advocating for throwing public temper tantrums or sob fests, but I’ve noticed that if my kids are tired or otherwise having a cranky day, they don’t hide their feelings and most people cut them slack. As adults, we’re quick to dismiss others as rude or snobby when they might simply be having a bad day.

Perhaps one of the worst places for a kid to lose it is on a typical commercial airliner when 100-plus people are stuck riding out the tantrum. When I flew alone with both my kids (ages 3 and 1), from Virginia to Florida, I felt prepared for anything. Except for what I got: My daughter, Ellie, decided to flip out at the end of the flight.

I spent the descent trying–mostly unsuccessfully–to catch my daughter’s vomit in a barf bag. If anyone made negative comments while Screampuke Fest 2013 was happening, I didn’t hear them. I couldn’t have because Ellie’s hysteria set her brother off, too–although he kept his cookies in. When the plane landed, it would have been easy, understandable even, for everyone on that full flight to bolt past us fleeing the screaming and the smell. But a man clad in a business suit stopped and offered to take one of my carry-ons off for me. He didn’t take my daughter’s behavior personally, and he didn’t judge me for not getting her under control. He just smiled and took my bag to the jet bridge.

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When Your Toddlers Start to Act Like Teens

By Alina Adams for Kveller

There is a saying that the way your kids were as toddlers is how they’ll be as teens. (Only bigger and louder and, in some places, with the legal right to drive.)

If that’s true, then we’re really in for some fun times over at my house.

When my oldest was a toddler, he didn’t talk much. But–Bad Mommy confession–we really didn’t notice until our pediatrician got a concerned look on her face and started asking questions while taking notes and measuring the size of his head (boy had a really big head. Literally off the charts big. He still does). I think the reason we didn’t notice his lack of verbiage (and no, not only because as our friends suggested, between my husband and I, the poor kid never had a chance to get a word in edgewise, ahem) was primarily because he never got frustrated at not being able to make himself understood. Whatever he wanted, he went ahead and got. He’d climb up on chairs or head-dive into his playpen to reach a toy. He’d open the refrigerator and retrieve a sippy cup of milk. When a television production job took me out of town for extended periods of time, he expressed his displeasure at my career choices by simply ignoring me on my days home. “Mommy? Who is this Mommy person of which you speak? I don’t see any Mommy.”

So, to extrapolate:

Independence = Good. Silent treatment = Less Good. Daredevil lack of need to ask for permission before embarking on less than wise courses of action? Something to be on the lookout for.

My middle son was a completely different child. (As I described in the blog on my kids’ names, we might as well have named him, “Not Adam,” as that was inevitably people’s response to him.) My middle son was chattering away in understandable sentences by the age of 1. Which meant he was ready, willing and able to argue. Anything. And if he found he couldn’t outtalk his foes (in the end, he was still 1 year old; we were a couple of decades ahead of him), he’d throw tantrums, complete with plates of food being flung on the floor, books and toys flying off shelves, and sheets ripped off the beds to be piled in a heap in the center of his room. (Ironically, experts will tell you that tantrums are for non-verbal children irritated at not being heard. Those experts do not live at my house.)

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Modeling An Attitude of Gratitude for Our Kids

By Shari Churwin for ThanksgivukkahBoston
There’s something particularly Jewish about Thanksgiving and quintessentially American at the same time. Thanksgiving brings us together. This year, the Jewish/American connection is even stronger as we light the second candle of Hanukkah on Thanksgiving. Football, turkey and latkes…oh my!

I know you’re not going to believe this, but the Hebrew word for “turkey” and “to thank” are the same: hodu. Also, the original pilgrim Thanksgiving Day was modeled on the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot, which we celebrated just last month. Even as you look at the English word, “thanksgiving,” you can see two essentially Jewish elements: thanks and giving. The very American holiday of Thanksgiving even fits into the general summary of virtually all Jewish holidays: They tried to kill us (in this case “they” was the harsh winter), we survived, let’s eat! Yes, Thanksgiving is a very Jewish holiday indeed.

At this time of year, giving thanks comes in many different forms. I am reminded that, as Jews, we are supposed to live each day with what Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel called “an attitude of gratitude.” Our task as parents is to find our own unique ways to teach this to our children and to find the 100 blessings in each and every day.

We each have personal reasons that we are thankful. We need to model this attitude for our children by counting our blessings out loud for all to appreciate. My children—twins ages 7 and daughter age 10—sometimes (well, let’s be honest, often!) need reminders that not everyone can put a bountiful turkey dinner on their table. Both Thanksgiving and Hanukkah give us a real opportunity to show our children how to give back to the community. Why not use canned goods as Thanksgiving table decorations and then donate them to your favorite food bank or women’s shelter? I’m sure you can find your own unique ways to give back with your children, family and friends.

As my family and I sit down to a delicious Hanukkah dinner on Thanksgiving afternoon, we will each share our blessings and remind one another how truly lucky we are.

Shari Churwin is the education director at Temple Ohabei Shalom in Brookline. Shari is dedicated to exploring ways in which Jewish values can be integrated into our daily lives and creating a learning environment in which each individual child, and his or her family, can grow to their fullest potential. Shari and her husband, Mike, live in Brookline with their three beautiful daughters.

The Jewish Prayer That’s Never Let Me Down

By Rebecca Schorr for Raising Kvell

Parenting has been compared to many things. I like to compare it to playing darts while wearing a blindfold. Because so often, it really does feel as though it’s just a stab in the dark.

Except when it works.

Some theory you have or some tactic you use works. And then, for one moment, you feel like a freakin’ parenting expert.

Which is exactly how I felt when I overheard the following conversation between my kids Lilly, age 10, and Jacob, age 6.

Jacob: I’ve never gotten hot lunch before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. So I am going to stand in line with [my friend] Luke. He’s got a lot of experience.

Lilly: Oh, I remember that. Everyone’s scared the first time. After I got my lunch the first time, I said that prayer to myself. Remember, Jacob? The Shehechiyanu?

Oh. My. God. It worked. It really, really worked.

***

As a brand-new mother, I was at a loss when I nursed my son for the first time. I had read (and heard) about how difficult it was and was truly blown away at how my little baby knew what to do. [Flashforward: it turns out that it didn’t come so naturally to either one of us and we would make many trips to the lactation support group for help. But I was completely ignorant of that in the first (hormonal) blush of motherhood.] I felt like God’s creative partner as I birthed and then nourished my son and yearned to express my awe and wonder. I reached back into our tradition and recited these words:

Barukh Atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melekh haolam shehecheyanu v’kiy’manu v’higianu laz’man hazeh.

Blessed are You, O Eternal our God, for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this amazing time.

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Israel, 'Reproductive Superpower'

By: Mazal Mualem for Al-Monitor Israel Pulse

The chat I was having with the German journalist sitting next to me at dinner naturally got round to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s victory in the elections a week earlier [Sept. 23]. We were a group of Israelis that arrived in Berlin for the annual meeting with our German counterparts over the last days of Sukkot, on a program that began in 2000 to promote Israeli-German leadership.

Once we had said just about everything there was to say about Merkel, my colleague told me about his wife, who was, like him, in her forties. He told me that she has a challenging job, so I asked instinctively, “Who watches your children when you’re both at work?”

“We don’t have any children,” he answered. I was stunned by his response for a moment — not least, in retrospect, because of my tactlessness. I was quick to apologize, but I immediately realized that he wasn’t embarrassed in the least. He and his wife had made a conscious decision not to bring any children into the world.

''We are not the only ones in the family with such an approach,'' he told me, adding that his brother, who is two years older, also decided not to have children. In fact, almost all of his close friends, every one of them well-educated with successful careers, made the same choice. They don’t miss the interaction with children, and his mother has long since given up on him and his brother. She realized that she will never persuade them to make her a grandmother. He and his wife have no regrets or second thoughts about their choice. They have a full, challenging life.

Even the program initiated by Merkel to raise the birthrate, which includes a long paid leave for mothers or fathers and tax rebates for each child, did not cause him to doubt his decision. He has absolutely no qualms about his contribution to the dire prognoses which predict that should this trend continue, the German population would shrink by a third within thirty years, wreaking havoc on the economy.

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Nosh, Schlep, Schluff: Babyiddish

Learning—and using—Yiddish is fun for the whole family, from the youngest mamaleh to the oldest bubbe and zaideh. Introduced to America as the mother tongue of millions of Jewish immigrants, Yiddish has made its way into everyday English. The sprightly, rhyming text follows a toddler through a busy day and is peppered from beginning to end with Yiddish words. Oy!—will everybody kvell when they hear their little ones spouting words from this most expressive of languages. Here are just a few that are included in this sturdy board book: bissel—little bit; ess—eat; kibitz—joke around, chat; klutz—clumsy one; kvell—burst with pride, gush; kvetchy—dissatisfied, whiny.

Crafting Jewish Tradition for Young Children: Morning Rituals

Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

When we think of rituals, we think of mothers or grandmothers waving their hands over the Shabbat candles, of an endless Passover seder led each year by the patriarch of the family, or of a bar or bat mitzvah. We rarely think of the everyday rituals that we engage in: the kiss goodnight, watching a special TV show together each Thursday night, or taking turns at dinner each night, talking about our days. Yet each of these are rituals also. They are acts we engage in, at a regular time, that have meaning for us. We look forward to these events and are disappointed when they do not occur. They are not just a physical priority, but an emotional priority in our lives.

Ritual turns the everyday into the sacred. Our tradition speaks of praising God with 100 blessings a day. Really, few of us actually stop 100 times a day to thank God; yet each time we do stop to sanctify time and space by remembering how blessed we are, we are enriched spiritually and emotionally. Praising God connects us to our families, to Judaism, and to the larger world. Our rituals, our sanctifying acts, are idiosyncratic, yet their roots are in the traditions of Judaism. When we share rituals from our childhood or create new rituals for our families, we raise strong children. Research has shown that families who engage in rituals have children who are more resilient as adults. The rituals that we choose to share promote a shared language among members of our household. They tie our children to generations past and generations to come through shared behaviors. Most importantly, rituals enable us to communicate the values we cherish to our children.

Mornings are hectic times in any household, but especially so with children. Families who are successful in getting children out the door in the morning know the importance of routine— doing the same thing, in the same order, each day. Routines work, but they do not address the spiritual and emotional needs we have at all times of the day. Just as you feed your child’s body with breakfast, you must feed your child’s soul with wonder, awe, and blessing. These suggestions are intended to give you a starting place for making your mornings more spiritually fulfilling, more meaningful, and more connected to Judaism.

Upon Waking

Modeh Ani is the traditional prayer to be said by children. Hold your child in a chair or sit on the bed with them, and share a special moment of closeness before the morning rush begins. Recite Modeh Ani together. For young children, sing or recite the blessing in English and in Hebrew. As they get older, encourage them to join you for the English and then later for the Hebrew.

Modeh ani l’fanecha, melech chai v’kayam, shehechezarta bi nishmati b’chemlah; rabah emunatecha.
I give thanks to You, O God, eternal and living Ruler, Who in mercy has returned my soul to me; great is Your faithfulness.

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