FORGING A DEEP CONNECTION WITH YOUR CHILDREN

If you do not enter the child’s world, you don’t get to know him. And then you don’t know what edifices he is building with his power of imagination… He can develop a theory that his parents hate him and do not seek his welfare. * Another chapter in “Educate a child according to his way” in the teachings of Chabad Chassidus, by R’ Nachman Twersky.

THE “QUARTER HOUR” RULE

In earlier chapters we discussed at length about instilling in children a sweetness for Jewish things by utilizing opportunities like Shabbos meals, etc. For just as a happy atmosphere at home implants a joi de vivre in children, so too, the only meal which the family has together, Friday night, when done with investment and thought into the seemingly minor details, impacts the children deeply and remains etched in their hearts forever.

The Rebbe spoke in praise of the family Shabbos meal, saying that even if divrei Torah are not spoken, but the family just sits and talks about this and that, is also something that does wonders for a child.

However, first and foremost, in order to be successful in chinuch there needs to be a positive relationship between the parents themselves and between the parents and the children. If you want your child to grow up in a calm, happy atmosphere, then the home has to be the most secure place for him.

The importance of a good relationship between the parents comes to the fore in one of the familiar shalom bayis problems:

After a busy day, the husband comes home exhausted and he doesn’t think about how his wife was also busy all day. Something annoys him and he decides to tell her everything on his mind. At this point, when the husband starts in with his criticism, without taking the time to think about what is going on at home and what his wife’s day was like, he destroys his entire world. Flames of fire threaten to destroy the house.

Why doesn’t the husband see things properly? Because the husband, by nature, is the foreign minister and the wife is the interior minister, or minister of home affairs. The wife, even if she works out of the house and sends her child to a daycare center or babysitter, is constantly thinking about the running of the home. The husband is always thinking outward, even when he is home. So when he comes home, it takes at least a quarter of an hour for him to take cognizance of what is going on around him.

What is the solution? Someone once gave a good idea – the “quarter hour” rule. This rule states that the husband needs to be quiet for fifteen minutes from the time he walks in the door, because he is still “not home” and can cause damage. Only after fifteen minutes, when he has relaxed and digested what is going on at home, can he open his mouth.

Someone once came over to me to tell me he is unhappy because he does not get the proper respect at home and there are harsh words spoken between him and his wife. I suggested he try the “quarter hour” rule. “When you walk in the door, don’t say anything unless you want to compliment someone. After fifteen minutes you can start asking how the day was.” Wonder of wonders, peace returned to their home.

DON’T INTERROGATE YOUR CHILD

This takes on even greater importance with parent-child relationships. When a child comes home, even though that day the principal may have called about the commotion he made at school, or for any other reason, we parents have to welcome him, both with what we say and how we think about him. A child can sense what his parents think of him and knows whether they think well or poorly of him.

So the first thing is, we need to ask the child how he is and how school was. Sometimes you need to ask detailed questions like, who did you play with, was it interesting. You need to ask the things that interest him, not what interests you. Remember, your child is not under a police interrogation.

Someone once told me that his father is from the previous generation and as a child he was very scared of Shabbos. Shabbos was the day his father tested him on what he learned and even before he would start reviewing the Gemara, his father would slap him. “I know already that you won’t know it, so this is a slap on account.” Shabbos became the child’s biggest nightmare.

We are not police interrogators and G-d forbid that we should turn a child’s life into a nightmare. In general, don’t constantly give your children orders: take out the garbage, clear off the table, etc. That’s not called talking; it’s ordering. Speak to the child in his language, and to do that you need to enter his world. It’s not easy. Just like you need to invest time and energy to understand a complicated sugya in learning, so too, you must invest thought and energy into understanding a child’s heart and way of thinking.

If you don’t enter the child’s world, you won’t know him. Then you won’t know what edifices he is constructing with his power of imagination. He can develop a theory that his parents hate him and don’t seek his welfare.

UNDERSTANDING A CHILD AND SPEAKING HIS LANGUAGE

There was a boy who excelled in learning, conduct and t’filla. One day, he stopped learning, behaving, and davening properly. The parents tried to find out what happened, but he remained silent. “Everything’s fine,” he would say. His parents were shaken up and spoke to his teacher who also did not know why things had changed so drastically.

The father spoke with a well-known educator who asked him, “Do you speak to your son?” The father said, “Of course! I ask him what’s doing, etc.”

The educator said, “It is possible that your son needs deeper conversations. Get on a bus together and go on some nature walks, to a place he’ll enjoy, and tell him about yourself, about hard times you went through as a child and how you overcame them. Not in a way of criticism and rebuke but as a story.”

The father listened to the educator’s advice and went on a trip with his son. He shared with his son the difficulties he had as a child, in academics and socially. The child felt his father was telling him the truth and was speaking openly with him. Identifying with his father, the child began to cry.

A child needs to feel he is not alone, his parents are with him, emotionally connected, and then he is strong and self-confident. Even if he trips up here and there, he won’t fall completely. For when a child has a healthy, open relationship with his parents, he is connected on high and he cannot fall.

The child told his father there were some boys in his class who were teasing him for being short and really making his life miserable. He was so broken by this that he felt things could never be better. His inner pain caused him to stop all the good things he had been doing.

By the father sharing events in his life with his son, the feelings and troubles he had gone through himself in his childhood, the child saw that his own father too had dealt with challenges and this caused him to open up.

In the end, the father took his son to a child psychologist who completely allayed the child’s worries and said that at his age he could definitely still grow. After this reassuring talk, the boy went back to being an outstanding student.

Sometimes a child thinks his father never has to deal with any challenges and is strong as iron. When a father opens up to a child and shows him that he, like everyone else, deals with hardships, the child sees he is not alone and that his father is someone he can talk to. This helps the child deal with his own challenges.

From this we learn how much we need to invest in understanding a child and mainly, in speaking his language.

THE ENORMOUS INFLUENCE PARENTS HAVE ON CHILDREN

There was a girl who took an interest in Judaism and went to Beis Chana in Minnesota. A while later she became addicted to drugs. The school’s staff was able to rescue her, but before long she relapsed and became even more entrenched. Her condition deteriorated to the point that she was hospitalized. The hanhala wrote to the Rebbe asking for a bracha for her.

The Rebbe’s response surprised and puzzled them. The Rebbe did not give a bracha or advice but wrote: this pertains to her parents. So the hanhala contacted her parents who lived in California and told them to come see their daughter who was in critical condition.

The parents came and sat down to talk with their daughter next to her bed. They found out that her deterioration had to do with something that happened when she was fifteen. As a young girl in a secular milieu, she once went out for the evening with her friends. One of these so-called friends brought along drugs and that was the first time she tried it. When the party was over, at two in the morning, she went home.

Aware of the severity of what she had done, she wanted her parents to know she needed help, so she turned the first floor of their home topsy-turvy to get their attention. She wanted her parents to come downstairs and ask, “What happened to you?” But her parents, who heard the noise, thought a thief had broken in. They went downstairs and found their daughter lying on the floor with all the furniture in disarray. Since it was only their daughter and not a burglar, they went back upstairs to get some sleep.

She translated this reaction on their part as their not caring about her. This is what propelled her to descend further into drug use. Although Lubavitchers were mekarev her, since what drove her was her feeling that her parents did not care about her, she wasn’t able to extricate herself.

Now, they all understood the Rebbe’s astonishing answer. It was only because her parents came especially to see her and sat with her, proving they cared about her, that she was appeased and told them her history. In the end, this was the only thing that enabled her to get out of drug use, that she saw that her parents felt her pain.

If you show genuine care, then the child won’t fall to begin with …

As the holy R’ Meir of Premishlan said, “If you are connected up above, then you don’t fall down below.” When a person feels uplifted from his positive connection to Hashem, “and his heart was elevated in the ways of Hashem,” then he does not fall. So too, a child needs to feel he is not alone, his parents are with him, emotionally connected, and then he is strong and self-confident.

In many cases, a child has friends who have a negative influence on his delicate soul, but if he comes from home with a storehouse of strength and security, then ultimately he will not be able to go against the spirit of his home. Even if he trips up here and there, he won’t fall completely. For when a child has a healthy, open relationship with his parents, he is connected on high and he cannot fall.

GENUINE CARING IS SOMETHING ONLY A PARENT HAS

There is a sicha from the Rebbe about Chana, mother of Shmuel HaNavi, from whom the Rebbe learns many principles of chinuch. After she finally gave birth to Shmuel, her husband Elkana made aliya l’regel without her. Why didn’t Chana go?

The Rebbe learns from this how a mother ought to protect that which is most precious to her, her child. After all, she could have taken a babysitter and gone, but Chana did not want to do that, because nobody can watch a child like a mother can, with all her heart. Says the Rebbe, only a mother who gives life to her child can give him the best of care.

This is like someone who has to go somewhere and he has a million dollars in cash. With whom will he leave this huge amount of money? With a babysitter? No way! He will put the money in the bank or someplace equally safe. Aren’t our children worth infinitely more than a million? In the event that something, G-d forbid, happens to a child, don’t parents go all out for him? So why abandon the child?

A child needs to be watched over with superior care, both physically and spiritually. We see how the Rebbe told pregnant women to be exceedingly careful about not seeing and hearing that which isn’t holy and pure, and the Rebbe wants all these efforts to be invested even before a child is born.

WHAT IS THE AGE FOR CHINUCH TO HISKASHRUS

I was once at a certain Chassidic court and the son of the Admur asked me, as a Chabad Chassid, from what age do we teach hiskashrus to the Rebbe.

I told him, “Twenty years before the child is born we are already training him to hiskashrus. Even before the mother is born, she was already permeated with hiskashrus to the Rebbe. By us, a child imbibes hiskashrus with his mother’s milk.”

R’ Eliezer Silver a”h, who was president of the Agudas HaRabbanim of the Unites States and Canada, was not a Chassid but he had a relationship with the Rebbe Rayatz. They were both interested in strengthening Orthodox Judaism in the US against the Reform and in aiding the Jews behind the Iron Curtain.

R’ Silver related that he wondered about the statement of Chazal, “Darkness refers to Yavan who darkened the eyes of the Jewish people with their decrees, for they would tell them to write on the horn of an ox, we don’t have a portion in the G-d of Israel.” He asked, why do Chazal make a big deal about an ox in the barn that has something written on its horn?

This question bothered him for a long time until one day, he was invited, as the rav of Cincinnati, to cut the ribbon at the opening of a new museum. After the ceremony, he was taken on a tour by a museum guide who presented all kinds of interesting items. At some point, he showed various horns of an ox.

The guide said that in earlier times, the horn of an ox was used as a baby bottle. They closed the horn at both ends and filled it with milk.

R’ Silver said that now he understands what Chazal meant. The Yevanim said to write this on the baby’s bottle and this is how they tried to instill heresy.

KNOWING HOW TO SAY NO

In our generation, we saw how the Rebbe insisted that little children be taught the principles of Judaism with the 12 P’sukim, Shma, singing the alef-beis before they go to sleep, etc. We need to instill the foundations of emuna and bitachon in Hashem in our children.

If we don’t do it, it won’t happen on its own. Although every Jewish child has a G-dly soul, we need to make sure that it doesn’t say “we have no share in the G-d of Israel” on the baby bottle. It might be written in other words and in many forms. We need to be vigilant about what comes into the home.

Today there is much more nonsense than there used to be. For example, now we have religious newspapers. Why are there so many frum newspapers and magazines today? It seems reasonable to say that it’s very necessary because in the secular world there are so many newspapers and interesting things and if we did not have the frum publications, it would be a problem. Even if it causes bittul Torah, at least there is a substitute for what’s “out there.”

(Obviously, magazines and newspapers that contain Torah prohibitions, like “do not go after your eyes,” or matters of heresy, should not be brought into the home.)

So too, when children are taken on a trip, you need to know where they are going. There is no such thing as “it will be all right.” The spiritual damage a child can sustain from inappropriate places, affects them for the rest of their lives. We have a responsibility for our children’s neshamos!

But this too must be done in the right way, not to tell a child, “We don’t go there, it’s no good,” because that doesn’t work. For example, it’s in those frum homes where certain things are never to be found that there is a greater yetzer ha’ra. There are modern homes that don’t fight against anything, where there is no yetzer ha’ra for these things. Those who are used to saying, “asur, asur,” sometimes bring on the opposite result. So it has to be done right and children have to know it’s for their own good.

This can only be done if there is a good relationship, as mentioned before, and the parents are really close with the child. Then you don’t have problems, because every child understands he needs to do what his parents say even if he doesn’t understand.

The truth is that in many cases a child knows best what is and isn’t good for him. There was a child who wanted to see a certain thing, so I asked him whether he would want his own child to see it too. He unhesitatingly and honestly said, no! That means that the child himself knows it isn’t good for him.

WHAT CHILDREN ABSORB AT A YOUNG AGE

Today, boruch Hashem, there is a beautiful Chabad community in Monsey, but thirty years ago, the shliach in Monsey, R’ Simcha Werner, was the only Lubavitcher Chassid there. He told me that back then, he started a shiur for women in the laws of family purity which was given by Rebbetzin Soloveitchik. Her husband was a grandson of R’ Chaim Brisker and she herself was a genius and a learned woman with expertise in teaching the laws of family purity to irreligious women.

Now they all understood the Rebbe’s astonishing answer. It was only because her parents came especially to see her and sat with her, proving they cared about her, that she was appeased and told them her history. In the end, this was the only thing that enabled her to get out of drug use, that she saw that her parents felt her pain.

In Monsey, Spring Valley, it was hard to find a babysitter and many women did not attend the shiur because they had nobody to watch their children. R’ Simcha Werner came up with the idea that they should come with their children. So fifteen women would come with their children and during the shiur the children played. The shiur went on for several months but the children played and disturbed.

R’ Werner decided to pay someone to come and occupy the children in the basement so it would be quiet during the shiur.

Every month, he would write a report to the Rebbe. That month, he wrote that he was able to arrange for someone to watch over and occupy the children in the basement so the shiur would not be disturbed. The Rebbe’s response was to stop with the babysitter immediately for “how do you know who the shiur is influencing – the mothers or the children?”

This story happened in the 70’s. Recently, R’ Simcha told me that he knows all the children who were at the shiur and they are all religious, all built Jewish homes, even though the mothers were from weak backgrounds. The children heard shiurim from the rebbetzin and it wasn’t even Chassidus. They heard Torah just by being in the room and it entered their neshamos.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TORAH STUDY

As mentioned, beyond spiritual protectiveness one should also have a positive spiritual influence on children. When the father comes home, he should open a Torah book, whatever he wants (it need not be heavy), because the child needs to see and hear his father learning Torah. When the child is a bit older, his father should take him to shul to hear the sound of Torah. It provides the child with chayus and a learning atmosphere for the long term.

There is a very interesting story to illustrate this. In the time of the Tzemach Tzedek, Chabad Chassidus numbered 600,000 Chassidim! 600,000 people were battul to the Tzemach Tzedek and davened Nusach Ari.

During the first ten years of his nesius, he would make trips to distant places where no Chassid had ever come from. On these trips, he would spend each Shabbos in a different locale, and all the Jews in these places would become Chassidim. After ten years, he stopped traveling and sent his older son to these towns instead of him.

The Tzemach Tzedek did not go to the towns near Lubavitch because the townspeople came to Lubavitch on their own. But on one of his trips to distant places, accompanied by his older sons, they passed Dubrovna and the Tzemach Tzedek told the wagon driver to stop and enter Dubrovna. This was seen as odd – why was he going there?

Upon arriving there, the Tzemach Tzedek went to the home of R’ Nechemia of Dubrovna (with whom he had learned by the Alter Rebbe and when the time came, he became an ardent Chassid of the Tzemach Tzedek), but R’ Nechemia’s son said his father was learning in the shul.

The Tzemach Tzedek and his sons went to the shul and knocked on the door, but R’ Nechemia did not hear anything as he was immersed in learning, until his son came and saw the Rebbe and everyone standing outside and unable to enter and he broke down the door and they all went inside.

The Tzemach Tzedek went to where R’ Nechemia stood with his lectern and learned. He watched how he learned and then went away with his sons. R’ Nechemia did not notice anything at all.

R’ Nechemia’s son asked: Rebbe, do you want me to interrupt my father so he speaks to you?

The Tzemach Tzedek said: I came to show my children what Torah study is, so they see what it means for a Jew to be totally immersed in Torah. That is why I came here, the sole purpose of my visit.

***

At the funeral of his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, the Tzemach Tzedek said: When you arrive up above, tell how much Torah went forth from your stomach, i.e. their children who were all g’dolei Torah. And yet, he had to show his children what Torah study is.

The Rebbe would mention many times that the mother of R’ Yehoshua ben Chananya would take him to shul when he was a baby and it was because of this that they said about him, “fortunate is the one who gave birth to him,” for the moment we instill the sweetness of Torah into our children, it has a lifelong impact.