Halloween is right around the corner. My kids have been talking about costumes and candy for at least a month and a half, when our local supermarket decided to put up their Halloween display (thanks, Publix!).
Halloween is my least favorite holiday. Actually it is more than that. I can’t stand Halloween. As an adult, there is nothing but hassle, expense and sacrifice and nothing positive. The kids don’t learn anything positive and there is nothing of benefit that comes out of Halloween.
Let’s start with the whole concept of “trick or treat.” This wonderful holiday teaches my kids that if total strangers don’t give them something they don’t deserve and have no right to expect (free candy), it is perfectly OK to “trick” them by vandalizing their homes.
Now, let’s discuss the candy. I buy candy for my kids very rarely, as a special treat. I used to be a little more liberal with the candy (they’re only kids once, after all), but then I took my kids to the dentist. Out of four kids (Rebecca was too young at that time to go), I ended up with six cavities, costing me hundreds of dollars, even with dental insurance, and repeat visits to fix. Tomorrow, my kids, each of whom at their last checkup had zero cavities, are going to come home with a huge bag or bucket of candy. Oh, joy. Now I have to figure out how to subtly disappear it so it doesn’t set off waves of temper tantrums and sulk sessions.
This year, just like the previous years, my kids insisted on getting new costumes. Never mind that we have a huge dress up box full of princess and fairy costumes, clown and cheerleader outfits, disco diva and flapper get-ups, complete with boa. No, those are not what they want to be this year. So we had to pay ridiculous prices for a costume that each of them will wear one night before tossing it in the dress up tub.
Not only that, but the costumes are made so cheaply that they frequently break even before Halloween. Last year, Miriam was a 70’s girl and I bought her a shiny vinyl lime green top and pants and silver platform shoes. The pants ripped two days before Halloween right in the front by the crotch and could not be repaired. The entire platform sole on both shoes came away from the upper. This year already, her witch hat’s elastic band broke and I will need to sew it back on today.
And finally, there is the whole idea of Halloween itself. On Halloween supposedly, all the evil and dead things come out; the vampires and zombies, the monsters and murderers, witches and devils and ,even the Grim Reaper himself. How lovely! What a perfect night to send out innocent children out in the dark to knock on strangers’ doors! And I just love going to someone’s house and seeing their manicured lawn decorated with people rising from their graves and spiderwebs and disembodied heads that talk and flash their eyes at me and my young children.
About the only good thing about Halloween is seeing the little kids in their fireman, pricess and puppy dog outfits and taking pictures of my own adorable little trick-or-treaters. In my opinion, Halloween is only cute if you are 6 or under. If it was up to me, I would dress my kids up, take a picture, give them a cupcake and juice box, put them in their pajamas and send them to bed.
Nevertheless, you can look for me tomorrow, going door to door with a passel full of children, begging for candy from my neighbors.
Happy Halloween! :P
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Value of Values
I don’t know about you, but during the George W. Bush administrations, I got sick and tired of hearing the old saw about “family values.” In my opinion, many of these so-called values had more to do with intolerance and closemindedness than anything positive. But this isn’t a political blog.
The point I want to make is that the politicians’ overuse of the phrase has made a lot of us jaded regarding one of the most important things we need to do as parents – instill good values in our children.
Here are some of my thoughts on good values:
Sharing
Once a child reaches the age of two, this is one of the first things we try to teach. There is nothing more mortifying than getting together with a girlfriend who has a kid the same age as yours and watching your child yank her toy away from the other kid yelling “Mine!” at the top of her lungs as your friend tries to comfort her screaming toddler.
I remember going to Shabbat services at the Kabbalah Centre and sitting next to a woman I know, her young son and his little friend. The kid’s friend wanted to play with the boy’s toy airplane and he boy told his mom, “I don’t want to share.” The mom smiled wryly and said, “I don’t want to either.” The irony of this, for those of you who do not study Kabbalah, is that we are told over and over that in order for us to grow spiritually, we must share. But most of the time we don’t want to. It’s too inconvenient or expensive or time consuming. But when we don’t want to is exactly the time we need to do it the most.
With my kids, I teach them that although I understand that they might be cranky if they are hungry or tired or not feeling well or had a bad day at school, they are still required to behave. It may not seem like sharing to maintain good behavior in this situation, but if you think about it, the kid is forced to think about other people before his own desires, and that is sharing at its core. It is that kind of going above and beyond when you don’t feel like it that makes the difference.
Empathy
The other day, my daughter Leah was upset over something. I can’t remember exactly what it was because she has a tendency to get upset over small things when she is tired and it was one of those times. The thing that struck me this time was as soon as she started crying, her big sister Mia came over and hugged her. She put her face next to Leah’s face and murmured comforting things in her ear. Then she put her arm around her and brought her into her room to read a book with her. These are moments as a parent that make everything worthwhile.
I don’t snowboard or do skateboard tricks or bungee jump, but occasionally I get my thrills through extreme parenting. What I mean by this is that I attempt to teach the concept of empathy (frequently unsuccessfully) while my kids are fighting. Here’s my thought process. Fights erupt because one or both kids are judging each other (you took my candy, you’re being annoying, you’re a jerk, you’re a liar, etc.). If I can stop them from judging and open them up to where the other person is coming from, then not only will it diffuse the current fight, but it just might prevent future conflicts.
This is a long-term strategy, so I’ll let you know how it works as time goes on.
Taking Responsibility
When I was a kid, I used to love the Sunday comics (a concept which is totally foreign to my own kids who think that multiple television channels with 24/7 children’s programming is the norm). There was a cartoon called Family Circus, which you might remember, and the little boy had an invisible twin named Not Me. Whenever something broke, it was always Not Me who did it.
In our house, we needed more room, so we enclosed our garage and made it into my husband’s home office and a library, where we have our second TV. This is where the kids watch TV a lot of the time and the room would always get trashed from all the food, wrappers and plates that would accumulate in there. So we imposed a rule that there was no eating in the library. Now, if there are kids in the library and I catch one of them with food, the TV goes off for everyone. They all need to take responsibility for making sure that no one breaks the rule. If they don’t, everyone suffers. This has worked out pretty well for me. They still mess up the library, but nothing like before.
There are, of course, other values that we want to see in our kids: honesty, courage, humility, kindness, and self-confidence. It’s my opinion, however, that these spring out of the other three: sharing, empathy and responsibility. If you have any stories or experiences teaching values to your kids, please comment below.
The point I want to make is that the politicians’ overuse of the phrase has made a lot of us jaded regarding one of the most important things we need to do as parents – instill good values in our children.
Here are some of my thoughts on good values:
Sharing
Once a child reaches the age of two, this is one of the first things we try to teach. There is nothing more mortifying than getting together with a girlfriend who has a kid the same age as yours and watching your child yank her toy away from the other kid yelling “Mine!” at the top of her lungs as your friend tries to comfort her screaming toddler.
I remember going to Shabbat services at the Kabbalah Centre and sitting next to a woman I know, her young son and his little friend. The kid’s friend wanted to play with the boy’s toy airplane and he boy told his mom, “I don’t want to share.” The mom smiled wryly and said, “I don’t want to either.” The irony of this, for those of you who do not study Kabbalah, is that we are told over and over that in order for us to grow spiritually, we must share. But most of the time we don’t want to. It’s too inconvenient or expensive or time consuming. But when we don’t want to is exactly the time we need to do it the most.
With my kids, I teach them that although I understand that they might be cranky if they are hungry or tired or not feeling well or had a bad day at school, they are still required to behave. It may not seem like sharing to maintain good behavior in this situation, but if you think about it, the kid is forced to think about other people before his own desires, and that is sharing at its core. It is that kind of going above and beyond when you don’t feel like it that makes the difference.
Empathy
The other day, my daughter Leah was upset over something. I can’t remember exactly what it was because she has a tendency to get upset over small things when she is tired and it was one of those times. The thing that struck me this time was as soon as she started crying, her big sister Mia came over and hugged her. She put her face next to Leah’s face and murmured comforting things in her ear. Then she put her arm around her and brought her into her room to read a book with her. These are moments as a parent that make everything worthwhile.
I don’t snowboard or do skateboard tricks or bungee jump, but occasionally I get my thrills through extreme parenting. What I mean by this is that I attempt to teach the concept of empathy (frequently unsuccessfully) while my kids are fighting. Here’s my thought process. Fights erupt because one or both kids are judging each other (you took my candy, you’re being annoying, you’re a jerk, you’re a liar, etc.). If I can stop them from judging and open them up to where the other person is coming from, then not only will it diffuse the current fight, but it just might prevent future conflicts.
This is a long-term strategy, so I’ll let you know how it works as time goes on.
Taking Responsibility
When I was a kid, I used to love the Sunday comics (a concept which is totally foreign to my own kids who think that multiple television channels with 24/7 children’s programming is the norm). There was a cartoon called Family Circus, which you might remember, and the little boy had an invisible twin named Not Me. Whenever something broke, it was always Not Me who did it.
In our house, we needed more room, so we enclosed our garage and made it into my husband’s home office and a library, where we have our second TV. This is where the kids watch TV a lot of the time and the room would always get trashed from all the food, wrappers and plates that would accumulate in there. So we imposed a rule that there was no eating in the library. Now, if there are kids in the library and I catch one of them with food, the TV goes off for everyone. They all need to take responsibility for making sure that no one breaks the rule. If they don’t, everyone suffers. This has worked out pretty well for me. They still mess up the library, but nothing like before.
There are, of course, other values that we want to see in our kids: honesty, courage, humility, kindness, and self-confidence. It’s my opinion, however, that these spring out of the other three: sharing, empathy and responsibility. If you have any stories or experiences teaching values to your kids, please comment below.
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