I'll Take 5

A True Hero

2011-01-19T08:28:00.000-05:00

The girls with our beloved Striker

Three days ago, our dog Striker died unexpectedly. Apparently, he tangled with some animal that was poisonous and although he may have won the battle, he lost the war. He lived by the tooth, and died by the tooth.

Always a hunter, as you would expect a Pointer to be, Striker would always dash out the front door and stalk various animals, usually successfully. When he was just a puppy, there was a squirrel that used to scamper along the fence next to our bay window and chatter at him, driving him to distraction. One day in his crate, I found all that remained of that squirrel - a single leg. After that, he killed a number of animals in our yard and around the house. A two and a half foot iguana (without the tail) took out a little notch from his tongue in its losing battle with Striker. Another iguana he chased into the pool, and he also killed a possum and a water rat, and those are just the battles we witnessed.

With the family, he was loyal and loving. In the mornings, when I would cuddle with Miriam, he would crawl into bed with us and lie right on top of me, with his head on my chest, sometimes wriggling in between us to get the maximum attention. He used to follow me from room to room, no matter how comfortable he was. He would compete with the girls for lap space, always moving in to steal their spot when one of them got up from my lap. He gave each and every member of our family his complete and unconditional love each day. At the end, as dogs do, he went off by himself to spare us the pain of seeing him die.

I don't know why he had to die, at only 5 years old. I don't know why it had to be in such a painful way. But I am certain that somehow, even his end was an act of sharing. He removed some kind of judgment from us, sacrificing himself for the family he loved so much. For that, as well as for the gift of his love, I will always be grateful.

Rest in peace, noble dog, loyal friend, hero.

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them...

2010-10-24T15:05:00.002-04:00

A lofty purpose?

A few days ago, one of our community members, Yosef, had a stroke. Yosef is not just an anonymous man who comes to services, does his thing and goes home. He is like an extra grandfather to my children, and is always kind and loving, dispensing hugs and lollipops every shabbat.

We wish him a full return to health. Please meditate on him and send him healing - his name is Yosef ben Rachel.

When I told my daughters about what happened and that Yosef was in the hospital, Miriam burst into tears and sobbed in my arms for about twenty minutes. Then she, along with the others, set about making him get well cards, which we gave to his daughter-in-law on shabbat to pass along to him.

But it didn't end there. All during the Torah reading and meditations, which lasted about two and a half hours, my 8-year old and my 6-year old sat in the lobby and scanned the Zohar to send Yosef healing energy. Later, Leah, the 6-year old, patiently explained to her little sister how to scan for healing. "You scan from right to left," she told Rebecca, "and you say 'Please, please, please, Man in the Sky, make him feel better!" (Okay, so I know we need to work on terminology, but still...)

I'm not telling you all this to pat myself on the back as a great parent. Through this terrible event, I got a view into my children's heads, and I was stunned by what I found.

Most kids are self absorbed. The Zohar talks about how babies are born with their fists clenched tight, signifying their desire to receive for themselves alone. The growing up process is supposed to be us learning how to transform that into a desire to receive for the sake of sharing. As parents, we are constantly trying to instill good values in our children, and it may seem as if they just don't hear us. But they do. They hear everything you say (and a lot you don't say) and they store it away in their consciousness until they need it, and then they surprise you.

The other point I want to make is the amazing power in teaching kabbalah to children. You may think they are too young to grasp the metaphysics, and you are probably right. But there is a tremendous amount you can teach them, even at a very young age. If the spiritual seeds are planted and nurtured, they will grow, and these children will change the world. So, support programs like Success for Kids, which provides these invaluable lessons to kids from all walks of life, and all religious backgrounds. The world won't change until we change it.

Beeing Mindful: What We Can Learn From Bees

2010-08-30T12:59:00.001-04:00

Bees are fascinating creatures. When we look at them, they seem at first blush very different from humans, but if you look at little closer, you will find that they have a lot to teach us.

When you live in unity with a shared purpose, you can receive all that you need to live, plus more. – Honeybees each have their own individual roles in the hive, but they all work in unity for the good of the hive. Working together, with the queen producing the next generation and some bees gathering nectar, others building the hive and feeding the young, etc., the entire hive prospers and produces more than enough honey to feed the colony. Try to surround yourself with people who share your goals and have complementary skills, so that you can all work together. Ideally, your family and your work environment will function like a hive. If not, choose the role of queen bee and try to bring unity to the group.
Choose a leader and follow him or her. – Honeybees have one queen, and that is the one they are loyal to. Whether you are talking about a spiritual leader or a spouse, pick one person that you are committed to and then stop looking for someone else who may be a little bit better.
Nothing is impossible. – According to the laws of aerodynamics, the bees’ small wings cannot possibly support their relatively large bodies, so it should be impossible for them to fly. Yet they do it. Maybe because they don’t know the laws of aerodynamics, they don’t limit themselves (sort of like in the Roadrunner cartoons where he runs off the cliff and doesn’t fall until he looks down).
Guard your entrances. – Bees produce a substance called propolis, that they spread at the entrance to their hives. The propolis seals the cracks in the hive and protects them from incursion from ants and viruses. Similarly, we can make sure that our entrances, our eyes and ears, are protected from negativity. When people continually complain and find fault, when people speak badly of other people, we need to walk away or change the subject. We can also protect what we see by avoiding gratuitous violent or sexual images. And we can make an effort to surround ourselves with positive people with good values and avoid the other kind.
Choose your battles. – When a honeybee stings a person or animal, it dies because its stinger is closely attached to the rest of its body and the back part of its body comes off with the stinger. This makes it extra important for the bee to decide very carefully when it is worth sacrificing its life. So the next time you get mad about something, think if it is worth your life to react, because little by little, anger can lead to heart attacks and other dangerous conditions, albeit at a much slower pace than for bees.
Work hard. – We don’t say “busy as a bee” for nothing! Bees know the value of hard work, and they are willing to put the energy in to get their desired result.
Share your knowledge. – Like bees, people are not meant to be solitary creatures. When a bee finds a good source of nectar or identifies a potential threat to the hive, it communicates to the other bees through scent or by doing an elaborate dance. We don’t have to dance, but we should tell people we care about if we see an opportunity or a threat that may impact them.
Immortality is possible. - When archaeologists unearthed the ancient tombs of the pharaohs in Egypt, the found honey among the personal effects. Even after thousands of years, the honey was still good and perfectly edible! If we keep the right consciousness, we may be able to last as long and remain as sweet as that ancient honey.

They Keep Going and Going and Going...

2010-08-03T22:52:00.001-04:00

Remember when you were a kid and you couldn't wait until summer vacation? School was out and we went to camp. Well, my parents had one child, and I have five. Paying for camp for five kids is a bit out of my budget at the moment, so they are attending Camp Dublino.

The best part of Camp Dublino (for them) is that they get to sleep in. It's good for me, too, since I work from home and it gives me some quiet time in the morning to work uninterrupted. But there's a dark side - when it comes time to go to bed, they are not tired, not even one little bit. I have had to go in there yelling at midnight, one AM, and even later on occasion, because they are giggling and running around. And let's just say that when I am tired and can't go to sleep because of screaming girls, I tend to get a bit cranky. I will tell you that I am proud of myself for refraining from cursing at the little darlings (at least, so far).

These are the times when you wish they marketed a tranquilizer dart gun for children. You would just aim, fire and off to dreamland. If any of you is an inventor type, the idea is free, and I'll be your first customer.

My new strategy is forced labor. That is, if they can't go to sleep, at least they should be doing something useful with all that energy, so I make them clean their rooms. One of my spiritual teachers and fellow mother of five, Sarah Hardoon, gave me another strategy. She said when her kids wouldn't go to sleep, she made them stand in a particular place and told them they couldn't go to sleep. Eventually, the bed started to look really good and when they were exhausted, she eventually let them go to sleep.

What has your experience with getting kids (not babies) to sleep? Please share by commenting below!

My Other Life

2010-07-26T11:43:00.000-04:00

My loyal readers may know (and hopefully love) me as a mom of 5, but I have another life - my work life. I am fortunate enough to do something I love to do: marketing. I have had my own marketing company, Pro Creative Marketing Group, for 13 years, and before that, I had another marketing company, Exe.com, which was responsible for selling, installing and teaching the teachers in the country's 3rd largest school district all about this really cool new thing called the Internet. (Yes, I know I'm dating myself here).

Pro Creative specializes in helping small and micro businesses stand out in the market, develop new sales channels and execute uniquely effective marketing programs. We write blogs for them, pursue relationships with their prospects through social media platforms, create new corporate identities, and advise them on product design and packaging.

If you have a small business and are looking for ways to differentiate yourself from your competition and find and connect to prospective customers, check out my business blog, The Pro Creative Buzz, or go to the main website, http://www.procreative.com.

Hope to see you reading and commenting here and also on the business blog!

Mind Yr Manners, Plz!

2010-07-21T22:26:00.000-04:00

I know I am dating myself, but when I was a kid, we had an avocado green push button phone with a really long curly cord. You could go all the way from the kitchen to the dining room with it. When we left the house, we were unreachable unless we made a call from the phone at the place we were or used a pay phone.

Now, everyone, kids included, is tethered to their mobile phone. In one way, it gives us tremendous freedom, powerful computing abilities and multiple ways to stay in touch. On the other hand, we are now expected to be accessible to everyone, all the time.

This technology has also brought with it challenges in etiquette. Children, in particular, do not seem to know where to draw the line between staying connected to their friends and participating in real life with flesh and blood people in the same room.

Just today, my husband called our son Danny in to hang out with us for a few minutes before he went to his friend's house for a sleepover. The entire time, he sat on the couch texting. When I mentioned that he had to take the garbage out, he uncharacteristically jumped up to do it right away. Why? So when he was outside, he could continue his texting conversation without parental interference.

I found the same type of phenomenon when we went over to Tarpon Springs near Tampa to visit my brother- and sister-in-law and their children. The two teens were constantly looking down at their phones during almost all of our family dinner.

Here are my rules for phone manners, which I find myself needing to reinforce more often as my son gets older:
1. People physically present with you, even in the car, trump anyone on a phone or text.
2. Always try to engage the real people you're with in conversation. If they are otherwise occupied, it is OK to use the phone.
3. If I call or text you, respond first to me, and secondarily to any friends.
4. I don't mind some common abbreviations, but try not to sound like a total illiterate, even while texting.

This last one really irks me, because as a writer and editor, it bugs me when one of my children uses poor grammar or spelling. Last year, I read all of Jane Austen's novels. One of the things that really struck me was how beautifully the educated class wrote their letters. Back then, letters were the only way to communicate other than face to face, so how a person expressed herself in words was critical to how the world saw her. Now, I'm afraid that we have not only lost the art of lovely prose, but are in danger of losing even the fundamentals of spelling, grammar and sentence structure.

Let's try to preserve some semblance of civilization in our kids or at least common courtesy. I'll try if you will, and I think we'll all be better off for it.

Life on the Road

2010-07-09T00:47:00.000-04:00

Last night, we arrived home after a 2-day, seemingly endless road trip from the mountains of North Carolina to South Florida. In the car were 5 kids, a dog, an intermittently cranky husband and yours truly, and behind us, we were towing a U-Haul trailer filled with furniture and whatnot.

It was a good thing we had the trailer, because I don't know how we could have fit all of our stuff in the car otherwise. On the way up, we had one less kid, since my son had gone a week early with his grandparents as a way of giving us extra room and reducing friction between him and his four sisters. Now we had him, plus all of his stuff.

We have an Expedition, so there are two back seats, and we were constantly doing a shell game, trying to rearrange the children to avoid fighting and minimize car sickness, as much as possible. On several occasions, the iPhone was our savior. When the little one was in tears because someone was mean to her, she stopped crying once she was offered the phone to play with. Other arguing was avoided by keeping the kids busy playing games or listening to music on the phone (a headphone splitter also came in handy). Of course, then we had fighting about who's turn it was to have the phone, but what can you do? Overall, it was a win.

Some of the car sickness complaints were successfully dealt with by putting a couple of drops of peppermint essential oil on a napkin and giving it to the girls to smell. I've found that having some key essential oils is a big help on a trip (and at home). Lavender helps minor cuts and scrapes heal quicker and relaxes the kids for bedtime. Tea tree, eucalyptus and lemon essential oils fight viruses and infections. It worked to help get rid of a nasty flu-like virus I had and that my daughter Mia was just starting to feel the effects of too. If you use essential oils, make sure you dilute them in another oil like almond or jojoba; otherwise, they can burn the skin.

Anyway, the good news is that we made it home safely. We will be returning the trailer tomorrow, which will be fantastic because I can't use my truck with that thing on the back since I don't know how to back up with it. When we got home, our pool was a swamp-like green color, but it is getting better since we added a bunch of shock. All in all, we're settling back in to normal life, with the exception of five kids rattling around with nothing much to do for the rest of the summer.

Anyone want to rent a kid or two?

A Slice of Americana

2010-07-04T17:10:00.001-04:00

Every year, my kids look forward to the 4th of July parade in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and this year was no exception. The town held the parade a day early, and as I was listening to the live bands in the park and looking at all of the happy families dressed in red, white and blue picnicking on the lawn, I thought that this is a bit of Americana that few people get to experience in the 21st century. It is like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.

The parade features floats from local businesses, politicians and groups, dancing groups clogging their way down Main Street, fire trucks, tricked out equestrians, and a Shriner's band playing Souza tunes. There are clowns, old cars from the 1940's and '50's, dogs dressed up in patriotic ribbons, and a stiltwalker. This year, two of my daughters, Miriam and Leah, were also in the parade, tossing candy to the children along the street.

Blowing Rock is a small town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, populated by earnest, polite and hardworking mountain people. In many ways, it is a throwback to simpler times, when people would greet you in the street even if they didn't know you. Older kids can wander through the park, to the ice cream store and on to the public pool without supervision or fear. Children address adults as "sir" or "ma'am".

I sort of grew up with Blowing Rock, having visited it just about every year since I was around 8 or 9 years old. My parents have owned a home here for 30 years. When I was a kid, it was even more quaint and less commercial, with a real 1950's style soda shop named Storie's. But the main parts have remained the same, and I am grateful that my children get to experience it.

Blowing Rock is a welcome respite from the unrestrained materialism prevalent in Boca Raton. Our annual summer trip serves as a reinforcement of the values we try to instill at home: kindness, hard work, respect, sharing and good manners. Just because we live in modern times doesn't mean that we have to give up on those positive values that helped form this country. Perhaps if we all tried to tap into that old time Americana, we could pull ourselves out of our overconsumption of media and connect with each other in more meaningful ways.

A Poem for My Husband

2010-02-23T13:38:00.000-05:00

This Thursday is my husband's and my 15th wedding anniversary. Many years ago before we were even married, I had a journal that I used to write in all the time. It was part diary, and had a lot of poems in it too. Occasionally, I would read the poems out loud to my husband (then boyfriend). So, he figured that because I shared some of the content in my journal, that he was free to peruse the rest of it. Not only did he read the private parts of my journal without permission, but then he got mad about some of the things I had written in it about relationships I'd had before I even met him. So, as a result of that huge fight, I stopped writing poetry.

Now, 15+ years later, I decided start writing poetry again. This poem, to my husband, is about how love changes over time.

When we first met
I dove into you
Head over heels
Shocked and delighted
Immersed in your eyes

That was long ago

I tasted a bite of madness
So madly in love was I
With your smile and the richness
Of your laugh

Many years ago

Now the madness has receded and
Sanity has returned
I no longer vainly try to quiet butterflies
At the thought of seeing you

Now I go deeper

Every part of me resonates with your soul’s music
Our love has left the sunny meadows and hills
It’s battled dark things
And glimpsed the Light

Words fall defeated when confronted with
Describing the fruits that have budded and ripened in our orchard
Each one more wondrous than a magical journey
Half remembered from a dream

And there’s more and more of you to know
Because love is ever expansive
Limitless
It’s about Now swaddled in Forever

And I still lose myself in the curve of your face

It Makes Me Sick

2010-01-26T15:53:00.000-05:00

At the end of the year, we lost our health insurance coverage as my husband transitioned from a traditional job with an employer-paid health plan to being a consultant. The company was slow to send us our COBRA paperwork so we could have uninterrupted coverage and my daughter Miriam came down with a fever that lasted several days.

Normally, I wouldn’t have taken her to the doctor because it always seems to be the same diagnosis, a virus that you just need to wait out. But this time, she had already missed three days of school and she told me that she had a very sore throat and a stomachache, which I know can be symptoms of strep throat, so I made the appointment.

I had some doubts about whether we were still covered because the company had deducted money from my husband’s last paycheck for our portion of the health insurance premium, and I wasn’t sure if that was for the following month or the one that had just passed, and I thought I’d just have to take my chances and pay if necessary.

When I got to the pediatrician’s office, the first thing they did was check the insurance and got some nebulous status like “inactive,” rather than something definite like “cancelled.” I told the office staff the situation and they said they would try to contact the insurance company and get a clear answer as to whether we were covered or not.

They made me wait with my 8-year old sick daughter and 4-year old in the waiting room for over an hour. Finally, they called me up and asked me to sign a promise to pay, something they could have asked for when the issue first became apparent. Instead, they made us sit there, while we watched every other person go in to be called before us.

I signed the promise to pay. Then, because I knew that sometimes doctors will lower their prices to those who have no insurance, I asked if that was an option. No, I was told. Either they put in for the insurance or they reduce the cost for “self-pay” patients, but if the insurance company rejects the claim, then the patient must pay full cost, even though in effect, we would then become self-pay patients.

My daughters were getting antsy, to say the least, and Miriam in particular wanted to leave. She looked like she was feeling better, and in truth, she probably should have gone to school, but she’d milked it for all it was worth and got another day off.

I looked her in the eyes and asked her, “Do you really feel that you are sick and need to see the doctor or do you just want to go home, because it may end up costing me $100 or more.” I paused, and added, “If you are sick, we’ll stay.” As I’d expected, she elected to leave.

I’m not in the medical field, and I know that they have their own hassles to deal with, like collecting from insurance companies, processing mounds of paperwork, and, well, dealing with sick people. But I would imagine that when each of the doctors in that pediatric practice decided to pursue medicine as a career, and to specialize in pediatrics, if you would have asked them why they’d made that decision, they would have answered something along the lines of “to help people,” or “to help sick kids” and not “to make money helping sick kids whose families have health insurance.”

As I left the “Sick” section of the pediatric office that day with my two daughters, sick is just how I felt.

Christmas Cheer Only Once a Year?

2009-12-23T12:31:00.000-05:00

There are a number of phrases used to describe the period between Thanksgiving and New Years, but the one that irks me the most is “the season for giving.” Don’t get me wrong. I love the concept of giving; it’s the season part that bothers me. Why should there be a season to give? There is a season for strawberries, a season for skiing, a season for planting, but giving is (or should be) a year round activity.

Do homeless people only need food and shelter at Christmastime? What about cancer patients? Do they only suffer and die in the last two weeks of the year? How about the millions of young girls in developing nations who are kidnapped, imprisoned and forced to work in brothels every year? Are they safe and happy the other 50 weeks of the year?

Maybe it’s time to reconsider the concept of a season of giving. The Kabbalists explain that the only way we can grow spiritually is to restrict and to share constantly. They also acknowledge that it is against our nature as humans to do so. It’s not easy. But don’t we owe it to ourselves to put in the effort even when we are not being reminded by the Salvation Army bell ringing on every corner?

At Christmas, Santa Claus is everywhere, and my kids when they were little, along with every other kid, got excited about him. “When is Santa coming to our house?” they’d ask me. Patiently, I explained to them that Santa is not a real person, but rather an idea. The idea is that of selfless sharing and unconditional love. Santa never takes for himself, only gives, and the giving makes him happy. This is a beautiful idea, and a worthwhile one. Even though it’s pretty abstract, my kids got it.

The idea is not to sit and wait for Santa, but to emulate him (and I don’t mean dressing up in a big red suit trimmed with fur), not just at this time of the year, but to do it all year long. That is the only way to make a lasting difference in our lives and in the world.

Public Opinion

2009-12-17T15:40:00.000-05:00

When I go places with all my kids, I encounter all sorts of reactions. The most comment thing I hear from strangers is, “Are they all yours?” When I say that they are, I usually get some sort of blessing. I’m not knocking it; I will take all the blessings I can get. Sometimes I get other, more annoying reactions, though.

One time, we were on vacation and we went out to a restaurant. A man approached us and after giving our family a meaningful look asked us, “Don’t you have cable TV?” I am sure that he meant it as funny, but frankly, I had never considered television to be a form of birth control. That is kind of a scary concept to me, and anyway, not very reliable. We do have satellite TV, after all and (thank goodness) I consider my husband to be much more interesting than any program.

Some people look at us as if we are either really bad planners or freaks. I have actually had people ask if all of our children were planned. Yes, they were planned; none of my children is a result of a blonde moment. I am very clear on how the whole birds and the bees thing works and available ways of preventing conception, thank you very much. And no, none of my kids are twins; we didn’t get tricked by nature into having so many children. Likewise, we did not have so many kids because of religious restrictions or edicts.

The worst comment I ever heard was when I was pregnant with my youngest, Rebecca. I went to the OB/gyn for my first prenatal checkup and when I went to check out with the receptionist, she asked me if this was my first child. “No,” I told her with a smile, “it is my fifth.” The woman looked at me and replied, “I would kill myself.” With great effort, I restrained myself from giving her a piece of my mind. Suffice it to say that this person should not work at an OB’s office and is in desperate need of a filter between brain and mouth.

In the US, the average family size in 2009 is 2.05 children per woman, or basically zero population growth. However, in other times, the norm was 4, 5, and up to 8 children per family. In my family, my grandfather (born around 1910) was one of eight children, all sons. So the whole concept that having five kids is somehow undoable or bizarre is misguided.

They say that God gives you what you have the capacity handle, and I think that is true. When people marvel that I am so calm even with five kids, I reply that people who are high strung don't have five kids in the first place. I do know that I am thankful for each one of the very special people that I have been entrusted with. I am also grateful that in addition to my husband and me, they will always have each other. As an only child myself, that is important to me (and my husband, one of two children).

So the next time you see mom or dad with the courage to handle the hassles and logistics of taking a large family out in public, reserve the judgment and stick with the blessings. Specifically, you can bless us with abundant patience, peace and wealth because that is what we need.

Invisible Connections

2009-12-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

This morning, my girls were running late to the bus. We dashed out to the car so I could drive them to the bus stop. They just made the bus, and I headed home.

It was foggy. Not just the ground-hugging fog that burns off as soon as the sun rises, but a real pervasive fog which was just starting to dissipate when I got home. While walking down the walk to my front door, I noticed an incredibly detailed spider web on one of my plants.

Each strand of spider silk was beaded with tiny drops of water that had condensed from the fog, so the entire intricate pattern of the web was visible. Then I started to look closer. There were spider webs all over: in groups of leaves in a cup shape, between branches in the traditional concentric circle shape. The webs were so densely and beautifully woven that they looked like the most delicate lace imaginable, something a fairy queen might wear.

Spiders have two sides. Many people fear them and they are associated with dark, evil and fear in just about every book or movie in which they appear. Some spiders are extremely venomous, and are even deadly to humans. Yet organic farmers consider spiders to be a positive addition, since they destroy nothing, while eating bugs that kill plants and crops. Spider silk is extremely light weight, but for its weight is stronger than steel.

When I’d run out of the house to drop my kids at the bus stop, I hadn’t noticed any of these incredible works of art, even though I went right by them. How many things of beauty or significance do we breeze by without taking any notice? We get caught up in our day-to-day life, in our routines and there are moments, important moments that we miss.

Just like the spider, these missed moments have two sides. The look of hurt on a child’s face when you make what you think is a funny comment, a close call that should have made you more cautious, but was promptly forgotten or dismissed as coincidence. A toddler’s look of accomplishment at mastering a new skill, or a flash of gratitude from your teenager.

Once I noticed the webs, I started to notice that they were not just local events. Most of the webs included strands that connected one plant to another plant, a fence or other object. And it got me thinking about how everything is connected, although we rarely see it. When you are kind to a stranger, that deed is connected to something out in the world that you may never know about. Maybe it results in another mother’s cancer going into remission or a child forgetting something and not being in a place where he was destined to be a victim of a drive-by shooting. And it works the other way, too. Refusing to give to a homeless man on the street with a cardboard sign may mean that you will be the next one laid off in your company. Your angry words might send someone into the bottomless pit of meth addiction.

I will be more mindful, more careful to listen and to notice. I will be more conscious of the unseen effect that my words, thoughts and actions have in the world. At least until I’m running late for the bus again.

Middle School Culture Shock

2009-12-06T21:44:00.000-05:00

I wish someone had told me about middle school when my oldest child was still in 5th grade. It’s not that I didn’t talk to people about it; I did. But some people told me about the drugs and (unbelievably) the sexual activity going on in middle school. Another mother told me about how her son was mercilessly bullied until he was contemplating suicide. When I heard these issues being discussed about middle school, I was reasonably confident that my son was prepared and would not be affected by them, being a smart kid, who is strong and popular. But no one had prepared me for the fundamental culture shock of middle school.

I knew that the school was much larger than the elementary school and that the children changed classes, and therefore had many different teachers. However, I didn’t know that the attitude of the teachers and the administration would be so different. I want to make clear that the middle school is not far from where we live, so it draws from our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods, including everyone who went to my kids’ elementary school plus kids from other elementary schools, so it is not a regional or socio-economic difference. It’s more basic than that.

For example, in elementary school, when a kid seems to be having trouble with either grades or behavior, or sometimes for no reason at all, the teacher will contact the parent to arrange a parent-teacher conference to discuss and resolve the situation. In middle school, there is no such reaching out by the teachers. Maybe it’s because they have so many students that they see every day, but if the parent does not initiate contact, there is no contact between the parent and the teacher even if there is a need for the child to get some help.

Another major difference is in how they handle discipline. For example, the kids have to change classes and they have five minutes to get from one classroom to another. If they dawdle and are late, instead of going to the office and getting a late pass, they are sent to the Tardy Room, where they basically sit there and do nothing. Then it is the kid’s responsibility to approach the teacher and ask for the missed classwork to do as homework.

So the idea is that you take kids who are a bit challenged in the area of responsibility and rule following and you allow them to miss class, first of all. This reminds me of the Song of the South books I read as a child, where the rabbit tells the fox “Please, whatever you do, don’t throw me in that briar patch!” So the fox throws him in there, exactly where the rabbit makes his home. Oh, no! You mean I don’t have to sit in class and I get to hang out with my friends and goof off? Please don’t make me go there again!

Then you put the same responsibility-challenged kid in a position where he has to be proactive about following up with his teacher to get the assignment. Basically, it’s a recipe for failure.

The guidance counselor told me that many kids coming in to middle school for the first time get carried away with all of the relative freedom of movement that they have there in comparison to elementary school, and this causes problems for them, particularly with boys. But apparently, this is something that parents have to find out for themselves, a sort of trial by fire.

The lesson in all this, I suppose, is that parents need to be much more nosy and on top of their kids once they get to middle school, just at an age where kids’ hormones are kicking in and they are the most resistant to overbearing parenting or restrictions on their activities. Just another reason why parenting is the hardest job in the world…

Vegging Out

2009-12-02T18:19:00.001-05:00

Last week, I planted a vegetable garden. It is fairly large, about 9’ x 11’. My garden has tomatoes, Romaine lettuce, banana peppers, herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley, rosemary and French lavender), red peppers, zucchini, cucumber and broccoli, along with some flower seeds. Just today, I saw the first vegetables growing – five tiny tomatoes and a banana pepper.

You might think that I planted it for my kids to show them about where food comes from or as a fun family activity, but actually, it is just for me. It has become my little haven.

There is something so satisfying about working with plants and the earth. It has some qualities in common with parenting in that you feel like you are nurturing living things, but these beautiful growing things you see growing a little bit more every day and take pride in are quiet and still. They have simple needs; just some water and sun, protection from bugs, rabbits and dogs.

Every morning, I go out and water it and say the Ana B’koach (one of the most powerful prayers) to my plants. I feel the sun on my face and look at the growing plants and I start my day feeling great.

I’m not sure why it has this effect on me. Maybe it is the energy of the plants themselves. According to Kabbalah, plants have a positive energy associated with them. Surrounding yourself with plants including trees helps you restrict, so you have a little extra energy to say no to that piece of chocolate cake or to choose not to get angry. In fact, plants have their own holiday, Tu B’Shvat, the new year of the trees.

In any event, having the garden has helped keep me in balance. Right now, when I am surrounded by kids non-stop talking, screaming, laughing, crying and arguing, I'm longing for my garden’s sturdy growing plants with their sweet, sweet silence.

The Courage to Invite

2009-11-30T22:14:00.000-05:00

We love to entertain. We have a one-story house with an open floor plan and a huge back patio and yard and we invite people over fairly often. We have to; that’s the only way we have any kind of social life.

Many moons ago, we had a social life where people actually would invite us to parties or over for dinner. But that was before we had five kids. Apparently, something about that number is very intimidating, even to close friends.

I like to think that they want to invite us, but just as the words are about to escape their lips, visions of their house in shambles appear in their minds, with small savages wrapped in remnants of their curtains running around screaming as they smash their antique chairs to make a bonfire in the living room. Then they dismiss that crazy thought and remark on the weather.

So we have people come here, and yes, we like it. For one thing, it forces us to clean and declutter the house. And, of course, we enjoy sharing. It is relatively low stress to have people here because the kids have activities they can do and places that they can go to give us a modicum of peace and adult conversation. But I always thought it sure would be nice if someone would make the mental leap and invite us to their house.

Then someone did. It was a couple with a little girl who is friends with my 5-year old, Leah. The girls play with each other on Shabbat at the Kabblah Centre. The father, Lee, is very nice. His wife, Debbie, it turned out, went to the same middle school as I did. But they certainly did not number among our closest friends. Even so, they invited us to their home one Sunday, and we, shocked as we were, accepted.

We had a lovely time. We ate and drank together, watched some football, and the children played in the backyard. Nothing was broken. And it got me thinking: here was proof that it was possible to bring our big family over to someone else’s house and for everything to be just fine.

So, armed with this new confidence, I started to subtly grouse to my friends about how no one ever invites us anywhere. Slowly, our friends are getting the hint. For the first time ever, we were invited over for Thanksgiving.

Previously, the only invitation for Thanksgiving we ever got was to my parents’ house. However, since they moved to North Carolina for half the year and my dad started to teach at the university there, his teaching schedule has prevented us from being together for Thanksgiving.

My in-laws come down from upstate New York around Thanksgiving every year, but they always spend the holiday with my father-in-law’s son in Tennessee. Of course, it is also true that my in-laws have never invited us up to see them when they are in Florida for the season. They prefer to make the trip down to Boca one or two times during that period instead.

So, getting back to this Thanksgiving, our friends, Martina and Wolfgang, invited us over to their house, along with a wonderful group consisting of another couple with a baby, a single mom with two kids and another lady, all good friends of ours as well. I had already bought a turkey for our planned solitary holiday celebration, as well as some of the trimmings, which I brought over to share with the group. I went over early and cooked and prepared with Martina, and then went home to fetch my tribe.

Once again, we had a great time. The children played with each other and occasionally came in to grab some food as the adults ate and chatted. Only a couple of things got broken – a glass jar of gravy (not my child) and some parts of a porcelain tea set (unfortunately, my kid), which I will, of course, replace. But over all, the impact was minimal.

Martina told me that she’d had to work up the courage to invite us over, but that it was worth it. Now, another friend is trying to work up her courage as well. We may end up having a social life again, after all. Yay! Lepers no more…

Vampire Children

2009-11-22T14:00:00.001-05:00

Once kids reach adolescence, a strange phenomenon occurs: they start to resemble vampires. No, I don’t mean that they become fanged bloodsuckers (although the success of the Twilight series confirms their affinity with them). I mean that their schedules shift to staying up late and then having a tough time waking up in the morning. On the weekends, teens will often sleep until noon or later to make up for the sleep they are missing during the school week.

There are a bunch of physiological and developmental reasons why this is so, but the important thing is that it is fairly universal. As frustrating it can be to get your teen going in the morning, we can use this schedule shift to our advantage.

Parents of teenagers are familiar with the monosyllabic answers to the standard questions like, “How was your day?” or “What’s going on?” But miraculously, in the wee hours, teens tend to open up like night blooming flowers.

If you make yourself available sometime between 11:30 and 1:00 AM, you have a good chance of connecting with your teenager without the distraction of siblings, friends, or homework. Night is when your teen’s defenses are down and he or she will be more willing to talk.

Try a low-key approach with an open ended question and leave it to your child to talk, uninterrupted. Then just listen and make encouraging sounds interspersed with non-judgmental questions or comments. Restrain yourself from lecturing or giving advice because this will immediately stop the flow and shut your kid down like a hedgehog curling up into a ball at the approach of a predator.

My daughter Mia, although only nine and a half, has this sort of vampire schedule already. She falls asleep between 10:30 and midnight and then is in a deep sleep in the morning when it's time to get up. It is at this time that she is most vulnerable. When I'm not too tired, I sometimes talk with her about her day, and she is more reflective and communicative than usual.

You may miss out on some shut-eye, but it’s better than lying awake wondering what is going on with your child or being blindsided by moodiness caused by a problem that he or she had to navigate alone, and that you were unaware of.

The Teen Project

2009-11-18T17:16:00.000-05:00

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I have five kids, ages 11 and under. So why am I writing about teenagers? One of my readers with teen boys asked me if I had any tips on dealing with teenage boys. No, I realized, I have no clue how to deal with teenage boys even though I will have one of my own in two years. In some ways, I feel that I have one now, since my son acts with the same moodiness, anger and lack of communication that I associate with the teen years, even though he’s still 11. So I have decided to do a little research to prepare both myself and my readers for the dreaded teen stage.

I know it’s cliché, but it is certainly true that kids grow up much faster these days than when we were kids. Blame it on the hormones in soy products, or on video games or the Internet, but I have seen it in my children and their friends. My daughters started playing with Barbie dolls long before they had the fine motor skills to actually dress her in her tiny clothes. They grew out of Barbie and most other toys by the age of 7. Now they’re into makeup.

Danny, it seems, was a little boy for such a short time. Even though I did my best to shelter him, he has grown up even faster than the girls. The girls have each other to be silly with, but my son hangs out with friends who have been exposed to technology and grown up entertainment with few limits. By 3rd grade, most of his friends had cell phones. Most of them had Playstations and Xboxes and got to watch R rated movies, and this influenced his expectations. My husband tells me that this is what boys do now. I still fight it tooth and nail, but I also don’t want my son to be a social outcast.

There are still pockets in American where kids act more like we did at that age. Like in small towns in the North Carolina mountains, or kids who have gone to orthodox Jewish school practically their whole lives. My teacher at the Kabbalah Centre, whose 15-year old son has gone to orthodox school and has been brought up living the halacha (rules and commandments in the Torah, Talmud and other holy books), suggested that Danny could amuse himself during Shabbat with Pokemon cards like her son. Danny grew out of Pokemon cards at age 7. I didn’t know how to explain this to her, since it is clear that although they live only a couple of miles away, our sons live in different worlds.

In cities, even small ones like where we live, childhood has shrunk. It remains to be seen if this means that the struggle of dealing with teenagers will last that much longer, or if it will remain the same length, just end earlier.

So in preparation, I have been reading up about teenagers and also talking to friends who have survived the teen years with their kids. I will be passing along what I learn to you, in hopes that it will help you with your own teens or pre-teens. If you have any experience or words of wisdom to pass along, please feel free to comment on this or subsequent posts.

Here’s the first thing I have learned about teens: they have a split personality. It’s sort of a Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde thing. On one hand, they are the sullen, angry child chafing at your attempts to communicate with, teach and direct them. This is the person that you experience on a day-to-day basis. But, often, when they leave your sight, they transform into a mini-adult who is capable of being responsible, kind and respectful. Seem impossible? Think about this.

Have you ever had your pre-teen or teenager go to someone’s house without you and then gotten a report back about how wonderful he is she is? I have. Many times, as I am thanking that person for her kind words about my son, I wonder to myself if she has mixed him up with another kid. Is this the same kid who, just the day before, needed to be told ten times to do his chore, and then did it half-way? Is this the same boy who got annoyed at his sister for the smallest thing, screamed at her and then took her prize possession and threw it behind the bushes where she’ll never find it? Unbelievably, it is.

In other people’s houses, my son is an angel. He is helpful, respectful and friendly. I regularly have parents begging me to let my son come over to play with their boys, or to stay a little longer if he is already there. I have mothers who are literally planning to marry their daughters to my son. There is an older man at the Kabbalah Centre who tells me that my son is the only kid he knows who consistently goes out of his way to greet him and treats him respectfully.

Here’s my theory about why this happens. It is just like when my daughter, Miriam, was two and she went to preschool for the first time. When I dropped her off, and sometimes when I picked her up, she would have a temper tantrum, screaming and crying. Of course, I was concerned. So I talked to the teacher and the headmaster of the school. During the entire school day, Miriam was not only calm, but was laughing and having fun, participating in the activities with the other children. It was only with me that she acted out.

Apparently, it is common that kids misbehave with their parents even when they are fine with other caregivers because they feel they can let loose a little and show their real emotions in a safe place. I think this is the same idea at work with teenagers. Plus, when they look at us, their parents, we look like a big bundle of limitations, rules, micro-management and babying. That’s why they act that way with us, and it's no wonder.

Bottom line, the experts advise, is just to know that you are probably doing a better job at raising your teen than is immediately apparent. Teens, in some buried part of their brains, actually listen to you and then act on the guidance, values and advice you have given over the years. Just not in front of you.

What Your Financial Advisor Never Told You

2009-11-09T15:08:00.003-05:00

Attention, single people, engaged people, newlyweds, and expectant parents! Whether you are a major spender or a major saver, a planner or a seat-of-your-pantser when it comes to money, there is a dirty little secret that you will never hear from your financial advisor or just about anybody else. Here it is:

Pre-school is as expensive as college, and can last just as long.

If you ever went to a financial advisor, took a personal finance course or read a book about it, you have been repeatedly hit over the head with two things: save for college and save for retirement. But no one ever says “save for pre-school.”

Maybe it is because I live in Boca Raton, but my experience is that the pre-schools cost as much as tuition at a university. All this to teach toddlers their ABCs and to play nice with others. When you have multiple kids in at the same time, of course, the cost grows exponentially. Believe me, I’ve paid through the nose over the years.

My youngest three children were all born in December, which means that they missed the cut-off for kindergarten. Of course, this results in yet another year of pre-school and thousands more out of my pocket. Let me give you real numbers here.

The pre-school I have been sending my girls to for the past five years is a Montessori school right near my house. Their tuition for 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM, five days a week is $850 a month. That comes out to $7,650 for the school year (August through May) per child. Then you have to pay for summer camp, which conservatively will run you $200 a week, so an extra $2000 more or less, for a grand total of $9,650 per year per child. I thought this was expensive, so I looked into other pre-school programs in the area. They are even more expensive. One quoted me a half-day ( 9:00 AM to 1:30 PM) 5 days a week for $8,455 and full day (until 3:00 PM) 5 days for $10,330 a school year. Plus summer camp, of course.

Compare this with college. The University of Florida charges only $4,340 per year for in-state students, half of the pre-school tuition. On the other hand, private university like my alma mater, the University of Miami, is much more expensive. Its tuition is $36,188 two semesters. Yes, it is outrageously expensive. However, college students and their families have financial aid available as well as low interest student loans. On average, almost 80% of students who applied for financial aid got it, and they received over $17,000 against their tuition as a gift, bringing the total cost down to around $20,000 a year, only double the pre-school cost.

In addition, college students can work part-time to offset some of the cost. What are your toddlers going to do to pay for their pre-school tuition? Sell cups of homemade lemonade for $1,000 each?

This year, with the economy in shambles, I have elected to keep my youngest at home and keep that money in my bank. Next year, when she is 4, she will qualify for Florida’s state VPK program, which pays for 3 hours of preschool instruction a day. I think the pre-school deliberately puts the VPK hours in the middle of the day (noon to 3:00 PM) so you will be forced to pay for the “wrap-around program” for $585 a month, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the meantime, my advise to you is save now for pre-school. You will be glad you did!

In Case of Temper Tantrum, Break Glass

2009-11-05T21:35:00.000-05:00

I know I am not the only mother who has watched a toddler having an all-out temper tantrum and wondered if there is something wrong with her child. Chemical imbalances? Poltergeists? Psychological issues? Your kid just doesn’t like you? Before you go hauling your 2 or 3 year-old off to be examined by a bunch of specialists, please read this post. In 99.999% of the cases, there is a very simple explanation…Your child is a toddler.

It seems unreasonable to us that a person would turn completely red and his body thrash around because he can’t have another cookie, or would continuously scream at the top of her lungs for the entire 45 minute car ride in a vehicle filled with other people because she doesn’t like the song on the radio. However, we need to remember that reason doesn’t really factor in here.

When they are babies, they are working very hard to get control of their own bodies, sitting, walking, picking stuff up, etc.. When they are toddlers, they are working on getting control of their emotions. Keep in mind that they are in a near-constant state of frustration. They can see things they want, but can’t reach them; they can walk, but can’t go everywhere they want; they can talk, but often don’t have the vocabulary or patience to express themselves verbally.

Here are some strategies I have used successfully. The next time your kid has a temper tantrum, you should try one or more of them out. You will probably find that one or two are more effective given your personality and your child’s.

• Distract – This is one of the only times you will be happy that your toddler has the attention span of a fly. Pretend that he is not screaming his head off, totally ignore the topic of the temper tantrum and start talking in a loud, upbeat voice about something pleasant or interesting to your child. Here’s an example: “Hey, it’s almost your birthday (or Christmas, or summer vacation, or July 4th, time for dinner, etc…)! What do you want as a gift/where do you want to go/what do you want to eat?”
• Commiserate – This only works if you are being silly. Let’s say she wants something that she can’t have, like a pacifier you are trying to wean her from. You can say, “Daddy hasn’t let me have my binky for a long time either!” Then pretend to suck your thumb. Chances are, you will have an end to the temper tantrum and even get a smile or laugh out of it.
• Hold her hand – This one is really counterintuitive. Our first instinct when faced with a no-holds-barred temper tantrum is to have a bit of a temper tantrum ourselves and yell out our frustration. This always backfires, and makes the kid’s temper tantrum even worse. When your child is having a temper tantrum, try just holding her hand. You don’t even have to say anything, but this simple act reassures her that you love her and helps her calm down. I usually use this one in the car.
• Talk about choices – Even toddlers can begin to understand that when they behave a certain way, it is a choice they are making. There are good choices and bad choices. Good choices result in positive consequences and bad choices result in unpleasant consequences. See my postings How to Get Your Kids to Behave – The First Secret and How to Get Your Kids to Behave – The Second Secret. When my little ones are misbehaving, I first ask, “Is [the behavior] a good choice or a bad choice?” Don’t be surprised if you don’t get an answer. Next, explain the consequences associated with either the action or the desired behavior. Example: “Screaming because you can’t have something is a bad choice. If you keep screaming, I will have to take you outside for a timeout,” or the opposite approach “If you stop screaming and behave in the grocery store, you can have Tic Tacs when it is time to pay.”

Whatever your strategy for dealing with temper tantrums, keep your cool. Remember that your kid isn’t freaking out in order to frustrate or torture you (that’s just a side benefit). Once it is over, and the kids are asleep, take a deep breath and do something relaxing. Dealing with cranky toddlers is hard work, and you deserve it.

Balancing Act

2009-11-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

Just this past week, I have had three reasons that have got me thinking about how much a parent can and should protect her child. As soon as your child is born, your immediate desire is to protect her. You see your job as guarding her from all sorts of perils, from skinned knees and broken hearts to more sinister threats, like kidnapping, car accidents or cancer. When I was pregnant with my oldest, I had trouble sleeping because I had horrible nightmares of all the possible harms that could come to my little one in the coming years. No parent is worry-free. However, is it incumbent on us as parents to shield our children from all hurt, all disappointments?

In the first case, my 5-year old, Leah, said that she didn’t want to go to school because the teacher was mean and yelled at the kids. Her regular teacher was out for a few days, and apparently the woman they brought in to substitute was not prepared to deal with kindergarteners. In my mind, this was an unacceptable situation. Little kids should not have to feel scared to go to school because an adult who is in a position of authority can’t control herself. I called the school to complain (along with a bunch of other parents) and the substitute was substituted. Case closed.

The next situation also involved Leah, who was disappointed because I made a mistake. The elementary school has a Halloween party every year called Monster Mash. My kids have gone pretty much every year since my son was in first grade. You can buy tickets ahead of time through sending money in the kids’ backpack, or in past years, you have been able to buy tickets at the door. For this year, the tickets sold out early. The whole thing slipped my mind (it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks once in a while with five kids) and I didn’t get tickets for my kids. Leah, in particular, was very disappointed that she couldn’t go. On the night before Halloween, when the Monster Mash was taking place, she cried because she couldn’t go, and my husband was very upset about it (possibly more than she was). He told me that he never wants her to feel that way again.

Obviously, in an ideal world when I don’t have a thousand things to think about in any given moment, I would not neglect to get tickets. However, life being what it was, it was a mistake. Regrettable yes, but hardly something that will scar her for life. The next day, I told her I was sorry that she couldn’t go to the party, I took responsibility for not getting the tickets and told her I would make sure she could go next year, and she was just fine.

Did I want to make sure that she never felt this way again? Well, I certainly don’t want to be the cause of her feeling bad if it is something I can easily avoid, like in this case. However, I do think that an occasional situation where things don’t go her way builds character and resilience. Better for her to experience a little bit of hurt in the loving bosom of her family than be completely sheltered and then be exposed to difficulties in the real world without any experience or tools to deal with it.

The last situation was somewhat more serious. I found out that my middle child, Miriam, was being bullied in school. She hadn’t wanted to go to school for about a week and a half, which was unusual behavior for her. When I asked her if anything was going on at school, she told me that a boy who sits at her table in class was always mean to her. She was afraid to go school. When my husband found out about this, his first instinct was to “crush the boy into dust,” and I felt angry too. How dare some little creep bully my princess? Tony wanted to go to school with her and start a rampage of fatherly indignation, which I convinced him was a bad idea.

Instead, I took her to school. When we got to the school and parked, she didn’t want to get out of the car. She said she wanted to go home, but I told her that she had to face the situation. Running away wouldn’t help. I practically had to drag her into the school office. I told the office person the situation and we met with the guidance counselor. My protective instincts were fully engaged, but I held my peace and let the guidance counselor take the lead. Miriam didn’t want to talk about it, but I let the guidance counselor pull the information out of her. In a situation like bullying, the person being bullied needs to stand up for herself. I couldn’t be there all school day keeping an eye on things, so I had to keep myself in check and force her to confront an uncomfortable situation, with adult support from the guidance counselor and teacher. They moved her seat away from the bully and she came home much happier than I had seen her in the past couple of weeks, like her regular self. Some of her happiness, I think, came from her feeling of accomplishment in facing her fear and discomfort and overcoming them.

All in all, it has been a difficult week, but I learned something important. There are times to act like the mother lion and protect your cubs at all costs, and there are times to step back a little and let your children deal with negative situations and emotions. It’s all a delicate balancing act. But it’s well worth it when you see your kids develop the skills and the confidence to deal with challenges without falling apart.

Why I Hate Halloween

2009-10-30T11:30:00.002-04:00

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

The Value of Values

2009-10-28T10:42:00.000-04:00

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 Princess and the Pea

2009-10-21T22:33:00.000-04:00

My daughter Mia is the original princess. I mean that in the literal sense, in that she was the first daughter born, and also that she is the epitome of princessness for me. She is a beautiful girl, with big green eyes fringed with abundant eyelashes, full pouty lips, and luxuriant honey-colored curls.

Whereas my son was all boy, Mia was always all girly, with frills, and pink and princess stuff galore. Every time I was pregnant, my son Danny hoped for a brother, but alas! was always disappointed. Nevertheless, he had a rich fantasy life, so he decided that he would make his sisters into the brothers he never had by dressing them up in his clothes. He would dress them in his boxers, shorts, undershirts and t-shirts, with baseball hats on their heads and give them boy names like Tom or Charley. Mia always refused to participate in these games. Even in make-believe, she would never even consider playing a boy.

Beginning when she a toddler, and continuing to this day, Mia has always been sensitive, both physically and emotionally. On a physical level, she is bothered by the way things feel on her skin. She doesn’t like the feel of lace, even stretch lace, or anything with an appliqué, or fabric paint. She is bothered by the seams sewn inside socks and other clothing, which means that she refuses to wear anything with panels or embellishment. She only likes soft, jersey type material, and skirts, shorts and pants have to hit her in a certain spot for her to be able to tolerate them.

All of which makes shopping with her akin to getting a root canal. One August, her Grammy took her shopping for school clothes. Although she goes to public school, they have a dress code and have to wear logo shirts with a khaki or navy bottom. Grammy took her to the mall, and for some reason, Mia refused to even try anything on. Not to be deterred, Grammy bought her about half a dozen khaki and navy skirts, shorts and pants in her size and figured she would try them on at home. Mia rejected all of them. I took them back and exchanged them for another full round of bottoms. Most of those went back as well. I think we ended up keeping two items, one of which she has steadfastly refused to ever wear for some undisclosed reason.

Mia is also very sensitive on an emotional level. She gets her feelings hurt easily, especially by her brother, whom she adores. On the plus side, it makes her extremely empathetic. If someone is hurt or sick, Mia will be the one getting him tea or rubbing her head. It makes her both a great babysitter and a terrible one. Great when the little one is behaving and not so great when there is a problem, because she is too softhearted to enforce any kind of discipline.

When she was little, I worried that she was too soft and too vulnerable to future hurts, so I made sure that I read books and made up stories (I was constantly making up original stories for my children) in which the princess characters were courageous and clever. Some of them were warriors and once in a while ended up saving the prince or even the entire kingdom. Even when I read traditional stories like Cinderella or Snow White, I would add little asides that went something like this, “You know, this is just a fairy tale. In real life, girls and ladies don’t just sit around waiting to be rescued by a guy.”

Now, at nine, she has toughened up somewhat. I was actually surprised last year when I enrolled her in soccer and she was the best, most competitive player on the team. She gets upset less often when Danny is nasty to her. But no matter how strong and independent my Mia grows, she will always be my number one princess.

The Evil Mastermind

2009-10-16T22:31:00.000-04:00

“The evil mastermind” is what my son calls his youngest sister, Rebecca (age 3). You would never think it to look at her. She is just as cute as can be, with this high-pitched little voice. She has big brown eyes and dark golden curls. She is fond of running around the house (and even on occasion outside) completely naked. And yet…

As toddlers and preschoolers, my first three kids had about the average level of naughtiness. Then came Leah, my fourth child. She was so mischievous that we used to call her “Leah the Leprechaun.” As a 2 and 3 year old, she would tell me outright that she wasn’t ever going to listen to me. I remember saying to her one time when she was really misbehaving, “Don’t you want to be good?” Her answer was, “No, I want to be naughty.” It was hard for me to keep a straight face after that comeback, and of course that was part of her whole strategy to get away with it, whatever “it” was.

Rebecca makes Leah look like an angel. It’s not that she doesn’t understand the rules; she just doesn’t think they apply to her.

I’m sure it has something to do with her being “the baby” in a big family. She is so irresistibly adorable that the other kids become enablers and apologizers for her. They plot how to help her avoid whatever consequence she has drawn upon herself. They will sneak her out of her room or smuggle dessert to her, even giving up some of their own so she doesn’t have to go without. But I also think it has something to do with the immense amount of charm nature has somehow crammed into her tiny body (a trait she shares with her brother).

Like the others, I find it hard to resist her charisma, but I work hard at it. What kind of egomaniac could she turn into if she finds she can control her entire family from the age of 3? So I’m standing strong. But all I have to say is “Look out, world! Here comes Rebecca!”

It Came From Middle School

2009-10-13T09:25:00.001-04:00

Not long ago, my home was invaded by a strange creature who looks exactly like my son. But it’s not my sweet little boy who loves to cuddle and says I’m the best mom in the world. This monster even acts like my son sometimes, and then without warning and at the slightest provocation, he transforms into a snarling, violent and irrational beast.

It’s a, it’s a…(scream) preteen!!!!

Since he is my oldest, this is my first experience in dealing with the primordial hormone soup that is pre-adolescence, so it is extra scary. Even more so because I have four more behind him who will each be going through puberty eventually, and with quite a bit of overlap.

Middle school is not like elementary school. When he went to elementary school, I knew all of his friends, and their parents and dropped him off at their houses, or had his friends over here. Now, kids are given a lot more freedom to “hang out” with each other, unsupervised. Who knows who is there or what kind of kids they are. Are they disrespectful, delinquent little cretins or nice kids? Let’s face it; good judgment is not at its peak between the ages of 11 and 14.

First and foremost, I love my son, so I laid down the law.

1. I love you no matter what, even if you are spewing the equivalent of verbal vomit from your mouth.
2. If you want to hang out with your friends, no problem, as long as I have met them and have their first and last names, cell phone numbers and home numbers, Social Security numbers, addresses and a photo ID. (Just kidding about the last three.)
3. The hormones are not your fault, but you are responsible for controlling your behavior anyway.
4.Disrespect will result in unpleasant consequences.
5. I still love you.

I have friends whose children are teenage boys and young adult men, and they are still alive, so I have hope that it is possible to get through the Land of Adolescence in one piece. The thing that makes it so hard is the love. If I didn’t care so much, I could just ignore the outbursts and shift my focus on the kids who aren’t screaming at me or throwing things. But I refuse to give up and let my son spin out of control. Someday, God willing, he will grow out of this stage and become the amazing young man I know he can be.

Crazy Kid Comments 3

2009-10-06T13:49:00.002-04:00

I saw two dudes playing Hot Potato with a hot potato.

Going to the Dogs

2009-10-05T17:09:00.001-04:00

We are dog people. It is my belief, right or wrong, that there is something fundamentally wrong with people who don’t like kids and/or dogs. Early in our relationship, my husband insisted that we get a dog. Although I wanted a dog too, it was my opinion that we should wait until we had a house, since we lived in a high-rise condo in South Miami Beach (this was of course, BK, before kids) when we were still hip. Not only did he have his heart set on a dog right now, but he insisted that we get a Dalmatian, rather than a small “girly man” dog.

So after Tony used his considerable charm to convince me to abandon all common sense, we ended up getting an adorable, liver spotted Dalmation puppy, who we named Bella Mia. Her double claims to fame were that she had brown spots (only about 10% of Dalmatians are brown and white instead of black and white), and she was the granddaughter of one of the singer Gloria Estefan’s dogs.

What my husband neglected to mention in his campaign to get a dog was that he never intended to walk, feed or care for the dog in any way other than to play with her and love her. Anyone who has had a dog, especially a puppy and especially in a high-rise condo, knows is that it’s a lot of work. Back in the day BK, my entire condo was furnished in antiques. Bella gnawed through the leg of a 1920’s solid oak table; I think maybe she was a beaver in a previous life. She destroyed my white damask upholstered 1940’s sofa. She used our carpet as her own personal toilet. She shed brown hairs on you if you were wearing white, and white hairs on you if you were wearing black. She used to sleep I’m not a biologist, but my theory is that puppies are so cute as a defense mechanism. If they looked just like regular dogs but smaller, they wouldn’t survive their first year. Luckily, Bella was gifted in the cuteness department.

Unfortunately, her cuteness did not give her immunity from our condo board. As in many such associations, there are a lot of people who had nothing better to do than to give other residents a hard time. They sued us, along with a half dozen other people because our dog was over the weight limit. We spent over $5,000 in attorney’s fees trying to defend our precious Bella. Eventually, we sold our condo and moved to a house since I was at that time pregnant with our oldest, and we wanted a more family-oriented environment to raise him, so they dropped the suit against us.

Just before Danny was born, Tony suggested that we get rid of the dog. He was afraid that Bella would be jealous of the baby and might bite him. But I told him in no uncertain terms that we were not getting rid of the dog. You just don’t do that; when you adopt an animal, as long as it isn’t a danger to anyone, it is part of your family and you can’t just jettison it when it gets inconvenient. When I brought Danny home from the hospital, I gave Bella one of his baby blankets to smell. That night, she went outside and barked and barked, announcing the arrival of the baby. Then she lay right down next to his bassinet and became his protector from then on.

For years afterward, as we had child after child, Bella transformed into a deer when Danny was playing Indian, and into a princess and playmate for the girls. If animals could be canonized, then Bella would have been a saint. She was always gentle and loving.

As she got older, Bella lost her eyesight, and then most of her hearing. She developed bumps and lumps that came and went, all over her body, then she became incontinent. When she started ailing, we got her a dog. I had read that if you have an older dog that isn’t doing well, sometimes it helps perk them up to have a younger dog in the house. So Danny and I went to the Humane Society and picked out a pointer puppy that we named Striker. He did help keep her on her toes, and I think she loved him, but they waged an ongoing turf war. She was about three times his size, but not as spry or aggressive. Once, they got into a big fight and he bit her tail so badly that we had to have it cut off at the vet.

In the sunset of her life, when she was 14 years old, we had a flood in our house and we had to move out for three months while the repairs were being done. She was really not doing well since she was in a new environment and couldn’t see very well. She even somehow lost her sense of smell. Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to put her down. I was afraid that she was just going to die and the kids would find her and be devastated. But in true keeping with her nature, she didn’t let that happen. One day, she just disappeared without a trace. We looked for her and asked if anyone had seen her, but she was gone.

We still have Striker, and he is following in Bella’s pawprints. He has recently gotten over his obnoxious puppy stage and is shaping up into a really good dog. He is a hunting dog and has killed five animals that I know of, some of which he has eaten. But he has never hurt our kids and he even lets Rebecca take his front paws and dance around with him. And just like Bella, he sheds white hairs on dark clothes and black hairs on light clothes.

Apron Strings

2009-10-01T14:14:00.003-04:00

When my husband, Tony was a child, his mother was an obsessive cleaner. His house was always immaculate and hyper-organized. When he woke up in the morning, everything was sparkling clean and the table was set for breakfast. In short, everything was clean and neat and ordered for him with no effort required on his part.

To this day, when my mother-in-law comes to my house, the first thing she does is start cleaning. She’ll clean my kitchen, hand-washing each dish in scalding hot water. Then she sweeps and picks up. If I have laundry to fold, she starts to fold it. When we first got married and she visited, I would get insulted. Did she think I wasn’t a good housekeeper? Was she disgusted with the mess and dirt she saw? Did she think I wasn’t good enough for her son? Over time, I have come to accept it. This is just the way she is. Cleaning my house is actually her way of sharing, so now, I just relax and let her do it.

When we got married, Tony expected that I would act the same as his mom. “Maybe,” he might have reasoned to himself, “the reason she has never been a super cleaner before is that she wasn’t married yet. Now that we’re married, she will change.” In addition to tidying and scrubbing, he also expected me to make his doctor appointments for him, cook and serve him food even if he didn’t ask or said he wasn’t hungry, bake multiple pies and dozens of cookies to serve to friends or give as gifts at Christmas and send out Christmas cards to everyone he ever came in contact with, just like his mom used to do. Let me point out at this point that I am Jewish. I never did anything around Christmas time except light the menorah and eat potato latkes.

But forgetting for a moment the cultural and religious issues, the idea that I should be more like my mother-in-law has been the cause of lots of fights over the last 14 years of our marriage. Don’t get me wrong – we have a good marriage and we don’t fight that often. But when we do get into it, the problem usually centers on a variant of the same thing, which is “I’m not, nor will I ever be your mother.” The arguments have gotten less the longer we’ve been married. I have gotten better at cleaning, and he has gotten better at not complaining. Every once in a while, though, that little boy still comes out and reaches for his mother’s apron strings and finds that mama has left the building.

Good Morning, Sunshine!

2009-09-30T21:21:00.001-04:00

Let me preface this post by saying that I am not a morning person by nature. People who are full of energy and perkiness first thing in the morning annoy me. In the dim recesses of memory from BK (before kids), I remember sleeping in until noon on a Sunday, and reading the New York Times in bed with my coffee and bagel until I felt like getting up. It all seems like a lovely dream now...

However, for the last 10 years or so, I have had to get up early to get my kids to school. Now, my body, like an old trail horse that’s done the same thing a million times, gets up no later than 6:30 AM, regardless of whether it is a school day or a weekend or a holiday or summer vacation. My children, though, have not had the same conditioning and mornings can require practically superhuman patience, energy and creativity to get them up and out on time.

My waking-kids-up-for-school strategy has morphed over time. With Danny, my oldest, I had admittedly unrealistic expectations. I thought that since he knew he had to be at preschool at a certain time and it was half an hour drive, he would naturally make sure to get up when he was supposed to. Ha! From the time he could talk, my husband and I called Danny The Negotiator. He milked the morning time for all it was worth, trading cuddle time, original improptu fictional stories, and promises of future treats for his cooperation. Once he had sealed the deal, he got up, no problem.

My next child, Mia, was a whole different story. A thermonuclear device could go off next to her head and she would snore, roll over and continue sleeping. When she was little, she would not wake up, no matter what I did. Frustrated, I would pick out her outfit and get her completely dressed while she remained blissfully, sound asleep. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, once I had her dressed, with socks and shoes and everything, she would wake up just enough to tear off everything that I had just put on her because she didn’t want to wear that today. I yelled a lot in those days, but it was with great restraint that I refrained from introducing my angelic toddler to some of the more colorful phrases in the English language.

Miriam, number three, followed in her brother’s footsteps. Although she usually had no trouble waking up, she used the situation to get maximum cuddle time. However, on those mornings after late night marathon gigglefests with Mia, with whom she shares a room, Miriam’s whines and screaming have been known to shatter glass and shake paintings off the walls several houses over. Once you have experienced this you will go to great lengths to ensure that you never have to endure a repeat performance.

That is when I became a stand up comedian. No, I have never performed my comedy act for any bigger audience than my two oldest daughters. But each morning, my show consists of improv comedy including making up songs with silly lyrics, joking, tickling, sarcasm, and various animal noises (don’t ask). Each girl has been at various times a princess (Mia is always Sleeping Beauty for obvious reasons), a kitten, a superhero, a dog, a meerkat, or a bear (Mia again because she hibernates. “It’s spring, little bear!” I shout at her and sometimes she wakes up enough to smile.). I walk my fingers all over Miriam as she is sleeping and they become the character of Little Man, whom she will usually wake up to interact with. When she doesn’t wake up right away, Little Man gets peeved and uses his little foot to kick her in the nose.

Mia still will sleep until she only has ten minutes left before she has to leave, but so far, they have made the bus every time this school year except once (in the interest of full disclosure, I have had to drive them to the bus stop several times to make sure they didn’t miss it).

Sometimes my morning routine stretches my powers of creativity and sometimes it stretches the limits of my patience, but overall, I find that it is much better to start the day with love and silliness than with frustration and yelling. In fact, most days, I actually look forward to getting up and doing my thing. So, good morning, my little rays of sunshine! You are as good a reason as any to get up in the morning.

The Hotel Mentality

2009-09-29T22:40:00.001-04:00

My husband, Tony travels. A lot. In a typical month, he spends about 2 and a half weeks out of town, much of which spans over weekends since he travels internationally and coming home for weekends just isn’t an option. All this traveling means that he spends a lot of time in hotels. When he is not traveling, he works from home since his company’s office is in Maryland and we live in Florida (which also means he needs to fly up there whenever he needs to meet face to face with anyone in the company).

Despite the fact that he misses me and the kids and calls often, there is one ray of sunshine in the traveling life for him. It’s the hotels. Hotels are always clean, with daily maid service. No one else’s stuff has been left around, so he can arrange his stuff as he likes. There are no little curious hands to snatch his IPhone and leave it on the floor near the bed or to spray his shaving cream on the bathroom mirror. There is no refrigerator that can be left open or cartons of orange juice that are spilled on the ground and left to dry to a tacky mess. There are no little scientists trying to grow penicillin in dishes of neglected food smuggled into their rooms. There is also a certain silence, one without earsplitting screams of “So and so hurt me!” or a sullen, “Why do I have to do it?”

Here’s the problem. Tony comes home from his travels and brings the hotel mentality with him. He starts out eager to see us and hugs and kisses everyone. Once the excitement wears off, he looks around and oftentimes, that is when the hotel mentality kicks in. Total bewilderment at the backpacks carelessly tossed by the front door. Consternation at the sloppily done chores. Disbelief at the baskets of clean laundry waiting to be folded and put away. Shock at the decibel level of kids playing or fighting. “Where is my ordered, quiet world, where some invisible angel turns down my sheet and leaves a small chocolate?” he must wonder.

After a long trip, it takes him about two or three days to adjust to the real reality. Life is messy. Kids are loud. We don’t have a full time maid (or any maid, for that matter). And it’s all OK.

"Now, for heaven's sake," I tell him, "take some vacation time and take me to a hotel!"

Crazy Kid Comments 2

2009-09-29T21:58:00.001-04:00

Me to kid: Don’t walk around with a blanket over your face. Remember the last time you did that, you bumped into the garbage can and hurt your nose.

Crazy Kid Comments 1

2009-09-29T21:56:00.001-04:00

One of the little mentioned reasons to have kids is for comic relief. For years, my mom has been hearing me say bizarre things to my kids, things my younger, pre-kid self could never imagine saying to another human being. After she catches her breath after laughing her head off, she has always said, "You've got to write that down!" So this little snippet is the result. Each of these "Crazy Kid Comments" are actual things that either I have said to my kids or I've heard my kids say to each other. There are probably hundreds I have forgotten, from before I started actually writing them down, so these are all fairly recent. Keep an eye out for more gems...

Kid: Where are we going?
Me: We’re going to Miami.
Kid: I want to go to Your-ami!

When to Give In to Your Kids

2009-09-24T17:47:00.001-04:00

Have you ever kept track of how many times a day you say "no" to your kids? With five kids (yes, you read that right), my daily no tally routinely climbs into triple digits. No, you can't have a second dessert, no you can't stay up a little longer, no, you can't tell your sister you hate her, no you can't do a back flip off the couch...You get the idea. But once in a while, it is a good idea to say yes to your kids even if it is something out of the ordinary. In addition to surprising and delighting your kids, it will keep them guessing.

My kids have me pegged as practical, responsible, and busy, in short, as a Mom. But every so often, I let them do something totally crazy, like taking a shower outside with the hose or riding an old bicycle into the pool. Now they have tons of fun (I get a quintuple whammy because what is fun for one kid can also be a great spectator sport for the other four) and they don't know what to think of the unexpected maternal blessing to the activity. It's like pulling the lever on a slot machine a bunch of times and then bam! jackpot! These are the things that make indelible memories and can help define a childhood. So give yourself (and your kids) permission to throw caution to the winds (as long as you're not throwing away all vestige of common sense) once in a while and live a little!

Being a Better Parent

2009-09-17T10:53:00.001-04:00

There are hundreds of books and magazine articles trying to guide parents, and educate them on child development, safety, education, products, and so forth. Some, like this blog, offer advice on how to be a better parent. But if you are honest with yourself, you already know how you should improve. It’s just the execution of it that is difficult.

For example, I know I that tend to be weak on follow through. I sometimes threaten a consequence and then forget about it or give in. I also am not particularly organized, and this quality shows up in my kids. I tend to forget about (or avoid) things until they reach a crisis point, just like my son tends to leave his science fair project until the weekend before it is due.

Now is a time for introspection, a time for soul searching. Take some time, after the kids are in bed to think about yourself in relation to your children. Where could you improve? Do you need to control your temper? Pay more attention to their needs? Be more consistent? Give them more independence or less?

At this time of year, just before Rosh Hashana, you have the opportunity to make a lasting change that will impact you and your children for the rest of your lives. But the only way to do it is to be totally, brutally honest with yourself, be sorry that you acted that way in the past and make a conscious decision that the new you will be someone who does not act in that negative way anymore.

Good luck, and shana tova!

The Quest for Quiet

2009-09-15T22:36:00.003-04:00

My favorite part of the movie Click is when the dad points the clicker at his kids and hits the mute button and suddenly there is silence. What parent doesn’t secretly wish his kids could be quieted so easily? With five kids running around, silence is golden mainly because it is just as rare. So I decided to do an experiment – a day of silence from kids. Well, relative silence, anyway. I did not forbid the kids to talk, because that would be setting them and the whole experiment up for failure. As an incentive, I told them that if they were quiet all day, at the end of the day, they would each get $10 to spend at a mall store of their choice.

Here are the rules: No yelling or screaming, whether in happiness or otherwise. No making noise with objects (banging on things, skateboarding in the house, etc.). It is a game but not a contest, so they are not allowed to do something to make another person yell or make noise. This will not help the instigator. No fighting or hurting each other. They can make noise outside as long as it is out of earshot from adults, but they can’t just leave the house all day and still get the prize at the end because that’s cheating.

6:45 AM – I go in to wake the girls up for school and they barely move. This is a little too silent! It takes a while to get them even to wake up enough for them to move over and make room for me to cuddle (our morning ritual). After a great deal of my prodding and singing silly songs, they finally haul their groggy bodies out of bed and quietly get dressed. Miriam is extremely cranky, but manages to whine quietly. I help her find her clothes. The girls make it out the door in time to catch the bus, although Miriam’s hair looks like a bird’s nest. Danny gets up late, so avoids a fight over the bathroom with his sisters. He is so late I have to give him a ride to school (he usually walks), but he is quiet and calm during the short ride. So far, so good.

9:45 AM – Four kids are off for school, and I only have Rebecca at home. As I am trying to work, Rebecca decides she wants to color. I get her crayons and paper and suggest that she makes a belated birthday card for her Nana, whose birthday was last month. She is confused. Why didn’t we go to Nana’s birthday? I explain that she didn’t have a party. Apparently this is incomprehensible to a 3-year old. Then she switches gears. “Is it still your birthday?” she asks me. I explain that no, my birthday was a couple of days ago. More confusion. In her mind, birthdays are major events that necessitate week-long celebrations. I tell her she can still celebrate my birthday if she likes, just quietly. She gets the hint and goes back to coloring.

2:25 PM – The girls get home from school and come in without screaming and yelling. A first! As usual, it takes several reminders to get them to do their homework and chores, but they do so without fussing too loudly. Then they go into the library and allow their brains to be slowly (but quietly) sucked into the television.

4:15 – Danny gets home from middle school and causes no problems initially, mostly by going directly into the library to watch TV. Miriam comes out and starts yelling that Danny is controlling the clicker. She catches herself after I remind her about the Quiet game. I use this opportunity to point out to Danny that he has not done his chores, so he comes out to clean the kitchen. Within five minutes, he yells because he hit his hand on the cabinet, bangs a cabinet door closed, and drops a metal bowl on the floor. So much for quiet. Then he picks a fight with his sister and tells her that he will beat her quietly so she will scream and get out of the game. I remind him of the rules and make it clear that that sort of behavior is not allowed. Danny opens a cabinet door and the lid of a pot falls out and clatters on the floor.

6:30 PM – We decide that since we are planning to go to the mall for the prizes, we may as well eat dinner there too, so we pile into the car. Whatever self-control Danny, Rebecca and Miriam had completely crumbles and they are as noisy as ever. The other two continue being quiet. Once we get to the mall, I tell the loud kids that they didn’t win the prize. However, because they tried, they each get $5 worth of stuff. Let’s face it – even though they weren’t completely quiet, they were a whole lot quieter than normal, so I feel like I got some benefit.

So, what did I learn from my little experiment? First, it is possible to tone down the noise as long as you’re willing to pay. Towards the end of the day, it would be helpful if the kids did something that will keep them busy and out of earshot like going outside because their self control is shot. And finally, don’t expect quiet until the last one moves out of the house.

The Chore of Chores

2009-09-15T13:11:00.001-04:00

Chores are a constant point of friction in my house. It should be relatively simple. Each kid has chores he or she knows about since they are the same every day, and they are expected to do them when they get home from school, after homework and before anything else. But it never seems to work out quite as planned.

My kids are pretty good about doing their homework right away (that took some work several years ago, but is now ingrained as a habit). But shortly thereafter, they will try to sneak off into the library (an extra room made out of our former garage) to watch TV. Every day I open the door and remind them that there is no TV until their homework is done and checked and their chores are done and checked. Reluctantly, and as slowly as humanly possible, they drag themselves up, tear their eyes away from the television and disperse to do their chores.

My four older ones have chores, and the older they are, the more challenging their chores. Danny, my eldest, has to clean his room, clean the kitchen and take out the garbage and recycling including bringing it to the curb. Mia, next in line, has to clean the room she shares with Miriam and put away all the laundry (a huge job in our house). Miriam has to keep the bathroom clean, set the table, feed the dog and help with preparing dinner. Leah has to clean the room she shares with Rebecca and tidy the library. On Friday afternoons after school, everyone helps clean and cook to get ready for Shabbat.

Danny’s method of dealing with chores is to try to find someone to help him. Many times, when he has brought a friend over right after school, he has been able to get his friend to help him do his chores. It is a testament to his charisma and leadership abilities that he is able to get these kids, many of whom have little or no chores to do at home, to bring in garbage cans, unload my dishwasher and clean his room.

Problems arise, however, when no friend is available. Then his attention naturally turns to his sisters, with whom he is considerably less charming. His tactics range from bribery (usually with candy) to strong-arming, to outright hiring them for cash. These usually end badly, and he will normally end up having to do it himself, in the quickest and least thorough way possible. Because of his propensity to sub-contract his chores, I have had to put rules in place to prevent conflicts. Just like a general contractor, he needs to check to make sure the job is done right, or he is held responsible.

I am constantly after him to do a better and more complete job. I have even been known to wake him up and make him go back and do a better job cleaning the kitchen after dinner. Even after multiple times, the job is rarely perfect, but it is at least acceptable. I am hoping that with repetition, eventually he will see that it is easier to do it right the first time.

My firm belief is that my daughter Mia was a princess in a former life. Since she was a baby, she has shown the same unconcern about picking up after herself as someone who is certain she is being followed discretely by an army of servants. She also has exhibited the same disbelief and shock when confronted with the idea of doing chores as someone well accustomed to be treated royally. Until fairly recently, when told that she needs to clean her room or put away the laundry, the stress of impending chores would cause her to burst into tears. When forced to put the clothes away, she would take piles of clean clothes that needed to be hung in the closet and stash them in cabinets and on the floor in the back corner of the closet so she wouldn’t have to hang them.

Surprisingly, however, she has recently made a change. She no longer cries when told to do her chores. She still begs me not to do laundry and seems relatively unconcerned about the consequences of ignoring the growing piles of dirty clothes (wear dirty, smelly clothes or go naked). But now, when I tell her to do her chores, she actually does them. She gets distracted and it takes her a long time to do it, but eventually it gets done, more or less. Her room doesn’t ever get completely clean, but at least it is no longer an ideal habitat for various creatures. Baby steps.

Miriam is the best at chores, since she is naturally a hard worker. Although she has a lot of chores, many of them do not require much work, like feeding the dog. Because she is the least lazy and resentful when it comes to chores, I often ask her to do extra things to help me. I feel faintly guilty when I do this because it doesn’t seem fair to “punish” the best one with more work, but I have to be practical, and things need to get done, one way or the other.

Leah will happily do her chores as long as I sit there with her and tell her exactly what to do. She and Rebecca love to clean, especially if it involves spraying something. On Fridays, I let them dust the furniture. I start out with a full can of Pledge and when they’re done, there is hardly any left, but the furniture is extra shiny, so I let it go.

Most days, I feel that it would be a lot less work to just do the chores myself. But I truly believe that chores are a good way to teach responsibility and the value of contributing to the family’s success, so I continue to nag, check, cajole and yell when necessary for my kids’ sake. That is the chore I like the least…

Teaching Self-Sufficiency

2009-09-10T15:40:00.001-04:00

Having five kids is a lot of work. In a typical week, I work part-time, do ten or more loads of laundry, and go to the grocery store four or five times. I stay on top of four sets of schoolwork, play, cuddle and read with my kids, intervene when needed in fights (see post on Conflict Resolution for Kids), cook, clean and sometimes manage to snatch a few moments alone with my husband, who travels often for work. People who meet me for the first time and find out that I have so many children often ask, “How do you do it?”, or sometimes just say, “God bless!” and shake their heads in wonder. Some imply that I am crazy, and one total stranger suggested that I get cable TV installed in my bedroom.

How do I do it? Part of the answer lies in teaching my kids to be (relatively) self-sufficient. As soon as it is developmentally appropriate, I start to teach and encourage the kids to do as much for themselves as possible.

It all begins with the diaper. Once kids discover that by pulling the tabs on the disposable diaper, it comes off, they love to do it. (Of course, if they’re still pooping in the diaper, you want to avoid this as much as possible by dressing them in overalls or other cumbersome clothing.) When your little one reaches this stage, you can praise her for doing it all by herself, or thank her for helping you. Then give her a wipe and let her do the next step herself too, after which you can take over.

The next logical step is getting dressed. Be prepared for some pretty hilarious outfit combinations (tights with bathing suits, feather boas with shorts, all kinds of crazy color and pattern combos). Sometimes they will get it wrong, putting clothes on backwards or inside out, putting shoes on the wrong feet or mismatched shoes, but that can all be corrected (or ignored, as you see fit). If you are going somewhere that it important that the child looks nice such as a wedding or a sitting for a photographer, you can limit the amount of choice available (“Would you prefer this outfit or this one?” “Skirt or dress?” “Blue or red?”).

Kids get a sense of accomplishment by doing things themselves, even if it’s not done perfectly, and you as a parent can notice, praise and celebrate their growing independence. As your child grows, entrust him with making progressively more important choices and assuming more responsibility. For example, a middle school child can be responsible for putting completed homework in his backpack, making sure he is on time for school, and cleaning his own room.

The next level of teaching self-sufficiency is giving children responsibility for caring for others. This works really well when you have multiple children, since it is a natural fit for an older child to help with a younger one. In my family, at the point that each child was consistently able to buckle his or her own seatbelt, that child also was given the job of buckling the baby into her car seat. I have had my older kids help with the younger ones by reading to them, putting them to bed, carrying them to bed, getting them a snack, getting them dressed, helping them brush their teeth and even cooking for the entire family (with supervision). This participation in the hard work of running the household and childcare helps lighten the load for the ever-busy mom. Combined with a chore schedule, it might even give you time to relax for 5 minutes or even take a shower.

Conflict Resolution for Kids

2009-09-09T23:54:00.002-04:00

The thing I like least about being a mom is when my kids fight. As you can imagine, with five very different personalities each roughly two years apart, getting along can sometimes be a challenge. Sometimes the fighting is relatively benign, like when they are struggling for territory (the territory being sitting on my lap), and other (thankfully, less frequent) times, it can get nasty and violent.

I believe that kids should be given the tools and support to solve problems, and one of those problems is how to get along with their siblings. Here are some of the tools and strategies I teach my kids about how to live in peace with each other.

1. Know who you are dealing with in any given situation. For example, my daughter Mia is very bright and capable, but is easily frustrated and shy. So if her brother and sisters know that about her, they won’t get upset when she doesn’t want to try new things, especially in public. My daughter Miriam is outgoing and social, but is also insecure. Her siblings need to express criticism of her in softer terms so she won’t feel unloved and go into an emotional tailspin.

2. You are together in this family to learn to love one another. Kabbalah teaches that at conception, each soul chooses the family to be born into based on what lessons it still needs to learn. The people closest to you are people you have had conflicts with in past lives, and you are in a family with them now to work out your difficulties. In my family, my two oldest kids are the ones who fight the most. My son, Danny tends to be assertive and insensitive to the needs of others. My oldest daughter, Mia, is shy and overly sensitive. Clearly, each needs to learn from the other.

3. You are responsible for your own behavior. No one can be blamed for “making you” act a certain way. One of my rules is that kids are not allowed to hurt each other for any reason, including if the other person hurt you first. Each thing you do or say is a choice. Focus on making the right choice.

4. It’s just not worth it. Everything that kids fight about is meaningless compared to the love and lifelong bond between them as siblings.

5. Learn to negotiate. Sometimes you can get exactly what you want and keep the other person happy by negotiating. My son is the master negotiator among the children. He will frequently offer his sisters something they value to defuse a conflict. Usually it’s candy, but sometimes he offers something of his like a t-shirt he’s outgrown or a piggyback ride.

As with every lesson we teach our children, these require seemingly endless repetition. However, if you hang in there, keep your cool and continually repeat the lessons, your kids will learn to get along, not only with each other, but with others as well.

How to Get Your Kids to Behave – The Second Secret

2009-09-09T22:14:00.001-04:00

In a previous post, I discussed the first secret of getting your children to behave: don’t get emotionally involved. Now, we are going to talk about the second secret of getting your kids to behave.

The second secret is: Teach your children about cause and effect.

It is a law of the universe that there is no effect without a cause. Kabbalah teaches that everything that happens to you, whether positive or negative, is an effect of something you did before. Sometimes it is something you did in a previous life, but even so, what happens to you is a result of something that you caused at some point. There are two aspects of this universal law.

1. You must take responsibility for your actions. You can’t point your finger at anyone else or any external situation or circumstance for your troubles. Ultimately, you need to accept that you are the one who is to blame.
2. Accepting responsibility is incredibly freeing. Once you realize that you are the cause of the things that happen to you, you have the power to act in a way that assures that you will experience good things in the future.

The law of cause and effect applies to everyone, regardless of age. Here are some examples from the adult world:

Cause	Effect
If you have a job but you are lazy and don’t do your work	Then you will get fired
If you break a law	Then you will be arrested
If you badmouth your friend	Then you will lose your friendship
If you cheat on your spouse	Then your marriage will suffer and may end

You need to teach this law of cause and effect to your children. This is good for your children in several ways.

First of all, shows them that there is a direct link between their behavior and either enjoyable or unpleasant outcomes. If they behave in a way that is calm, rational, sharing, nice, responsible, etc. then the consequence is that they get a hug from you, praise, a treat, to stay up later than normal, a toy, etc.. On the other hand, if they act in a way that is mean, selfish, violent, irresponsible, or lazy, then the effect is that they get a time out, lose out on getting something they want, have to do additional chores, have privileges taken away, etc..

Secondly, it teaches them responsibility. Even toddlers can grasp this concept in a rudimentary way. If they did not get what they wanted, it is because of something they did, not because Mom or Dad is “punishing” them. If they want something, they now know that they need to behave in a certain way to earn it. This approach also takes the power struggle out of the picture. Children grow to understand that they don’t experience negative consequences because their parents are in a position of power. They become the makers (on a small scale) of their own destiny.

Lastly, it provides an incentive for kids to think about the possible consequences of their behavior before they do it. This heads off many types of bad behavior before they occur. A good idea, especially for younger children, is to set the consequence before a possibly difficult situation. For example, if I am taking my kids to the grocery store, I might say, “The rule is no running or whining, and you need to stay with me. Children who behave will get a treat in the checkout line.” Setting expectations gives kids a goal to shoot for and clearly outlines what is expected. I also find it useful to make sure that the kids heard and understand the rules by asking them if they understand and then asking them to repeat the rules back to me. That way, there are no excuses of “I didn’t hear you” or “I didn’t know.”

That concludes the second secret of getting your kids to behave. Stay tuned for the third and final secret, coming soon!

Are You a Helicopter Parent?

2009-09-09T10:30:00.001-04:00

I live in Boca Raton, Florida, where the lawns are manicured and the sunlight glimmers off all the recently manicured fingernails. Our city is a caricature of the easy life. Most people here live comfortably, and many live is posh luxury. Parents are educated and sophisticated. Many mothers, and some fathers do not have to work. My children’s elementary school PTA has 100% membership. One year, I forgot to sign up for the PTA during the open house, and I was hunted down and harassed like the mafia hounds someone who welches on a gambling debt.

Last year, my daughter Mia became friendly with a girl in her class. She played with her at recess, but wanted to see her after school too. I talked to her mother to set up a playdate, but the other girl’s mom was unable to schedule a time for the girls to get together because her daughter didn’t have any unscheduled time. She had so many extracurricular activities, that she had no time left over to play with friends.

Another time, Mia went over to a different friend’s house to play. From the moment she got there, the mother had everything planned. She sat with the girls and did a series of crafts with them, interrupted only by a carefully prepared lunch. The girls were with the mother the whole time, as they were directed from one activity to another.

In some article I read somewhere, I heard this sort of parental behavior referred to as “helicopter parenting” because the parent (usually the mom, but sometime joined by the dad) is always hovering nearby, ready to jump in to resolve a problem, plan a source of entertainment, or whisk the child to yet another lesson or activity.

Maybe it is because I have five kids, or because I work from home and am constantly interrupted by my kids once they get home from school, but I don’t subscribe to the helicopter mentality. I am constantly saying things to my kids like, “I’m not your social director. Go find something to do,” or “You’re a kid. Go play. That’s what kids do,” or my all time favorite, “If you’re bored, I can find plenty of chores you can do.” That last one always results in their hightailing it out of range of my voice and usually ends up with their having lots of fun and leaving me in peace for a while.

“I’m bored” is one of the things that my kids say that drive me absolutely crazy (along with anything said in a whiny voice). I think this desire to be constantly amused stems from our technology-driven youth culture, where kids have mindless TV programming broadcast 24/7 and expect instant replies to their questions, comments and concerns via email, text and Twitter. But regardless of the cause, it is something that we have to deal with as parents.

How are children ever to learn to problem solve and use their imaginations if their parents do everything for them? Kids need to be responsible for amusing themselves because, let’s face it – they don’t have that much choice in most other areas. (I am talking here about younger kids, preteen and below, not teenagers who have much more of a choice about amusements and often choose poorly.)

Another area that is a good one for kids to start taking responsibility in is problem solving and conflict resolution. This is a little trickier and I think deserves its own post, so look for that one coming up soon.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not advocating a free-for-all or parental neglect as a strategy. Of course, children need care, routine and structure to help them order their lives and create healthy boundaries to their behavior. But let’s be aware of when we’ve crossed the line between structured and smothered.

Miracle Child

2009-09-08T21:54:00.001-04:00

There are many stories about miracle children: children who were conceived against all odds. I don’t have one of those stories. I’ve never had trouble conceiving, although I feel deeply for those women who do. I have a story about how a miracle saved my child’s life.

In the Hebrew month of Av (which usually falls around August), our spiritual teacher, Eliyahu Jian, called my husband in to meet with him. This was unusual since meetings were almost always initiated by the student. When my husband, Tony, went to meet with him, Eliyahu told him that we had to give charity.

In most places, people ask nicely for charitable contributions and make a big deal of those who give, but not in the Kabbalah Centre. Spiritually, charity is something that is not just nice to do; it can actually remove a judgment of death, so when you give it, you are doing it for yourself and not as a favor for anyone else. After discussing it, we wrote an uncomfortably large check for charity.

Several days later, on the 14th day of Av, our family was out by our pool. Since we live in south Florida where it is sweltering and sticky well into October, we spend most weekends by the pool. Tony was working on refinishing a table. I was in the pool, playing with my older kids and Rebecca, the baby, was toddling around the patio. She was 20 months old and the only one who couldn’t yet swim, so we made sure she was safe by putting her in a one-piece bathing suit with built-in Styrofoam pads for floatation.

It was a beautiful day and everyone was having fun. Suddenly, Danny yelled out, “Rebecca!” I turned around, and there, floating face down in the water, was my baby. Somehow, the safety bathing suit had held her front in the water and she was too little to lift her head up from that position.

I grabbed her as fast as I could. She was unconscious, and her lips were blue. I didn’t know CPR, and neither did my husband. I had her upright in my arms and her little head was flopped to one side.

My five-year old daughter, Miriam, ran inside and got a volume of the Zohar and pressed the book against the baby’s body, (http://www.kabbalah.com/11.php), as did my nine-year-old son. My husband was praying hard. I was frantic, but a part of me seemed to know what to do. As I look back, it seems that someone else took over during those critical minutes because I hadn’t a clue about what to do and very little of my rational brain was functioning. I shifted her body up until her belly was on my shoulder and I squeezed her tightly to me. When I did that, a huge amount of water gushed forth from her mouth and she started to regain consciousness just a little. It seemed impossible that so much water could even be contained in her little body, but I squeezed her again, and almost the same amount came out as before. She started to cry.

Meanwhile, Tony was on the phone with 911, and the ambulance arrived quickly. Sirens blaring, the paramedics raced us to a nearby emergency room, where Tony met us later once he got a neighbor to watch the other kids. He brought a volume from the Zohar for healing, called Pinchas. I opened it up to look at the Hebrew letters (a visual connection is all that is necessary to bring blessings into a person’s life) and it opened to a section talking about removing the judgment from water. It specifically mentioned flood and drowning. As I looked at the letters, I had the sense that I could go inside Rebecca’s tiny body at high speed, and then I felt certain that everything would be alright.

In the emergency room, the doctors scanned Rebecca’s lungs to see if there was any water still in there. There was only a tiny bit, which they said her body could easily absorb. Their next step was to keep her overnight to make sure that she had no brain damage as a result of being deprived of oxygen. Remarkably, she had absolutely no lasting effects from the near-drowning.

Shortly after she got back home, she went in the pool again (with a different safety device on as well as multiple pairs of hyper-watchful eyes). She never even had any fear of water or swimming, and today, at 3 ½ she can swim about two-thirds the length of the pool under water without coming up for air. It was as if the whole thing had never happened.

It has changed my life, though. For one thing, I know with absolute certainty that the kabbalistic tools (charity, the Zohar) work. I am supremely grateful that I have access to them, thanks to Rav and Karen Berg. I appreciate Rebecca and all my children with a new intensity because I know how easily everything we take for granted can be taken away. And lastly, I know that we always have to keep growing and keep working spiritually because it’s the only way we can truly affect the way our future will be played out.

How to Get Your Kids to Behave – The First Secret

2009-09-03T11:58:00.003-04:00

One of the things people learn about me right away is that I have five children, ages 11, 9, 7, 5 and 3. Yet, I am not certifiably insane, haven’t torn out all my hair and I don’t have chronic laryngitis from screaming all the time. Want to know my secret?

There are actually three secrets. I will talk about the first one in this article; the other secrets will be discussed in detail in subsequent articles.

The first secret is: Don’t get emotionally involved.

Nothing effects a parent’s emotions more than their children. After all, we have the enormous responsibility of providing for their physical needs, making them feel loved, teaching them good values, instructing them in academic matters, showing them strategies for dealing with difficult people and situations, and much more. They are your flesh and blood. So what do I mean by “don’t get emotionally involved”?

According to the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah, everyone around us, especially people close to us, is there to help us overcome our less than perfect qualities and behaviors. They can accomplish this in one of three ways. They can be supportive of our spiritual growth by helping us identify and fix negative behaviors, they can push our buttons by acting the exact opposite way that we act, or they can push our buttons by acting the exact same way we act. If you are lucky, your spouse, parents, and friends fall into the first category; your children never will. Children are always here to push our buttons so that we have an opportunity to see where we act negatively and fix it.

For example, maybe you tend to cut corners. When you do need to do something, you may tend to do it sloppily or maybe forget about it altogether. You may therefore have a child who is also lazy. She might rush through her homework or forget to study for tests. Because you care for your child and don’t want her to get bad grades, you need to teach her to be responsible and thorough, and to take pride in her work. This is the same lesson that you need to learn for yourself.

On the opposite side, you might be a stickler for rules and be very strict. You might have a child who cares nothing for rules and always tends to rebel. This behavior is there to show you that you, too, are acting in an extreme way and both you and your child need to move towards the center, having respect for rules, but not being too rigid.

So, when a child misbehaves, there is always a lesson for the parent and the child. Many times, the lesson is about a combination of caring and control. Your child needs to learn to control his behavior. You need to learn to control your anger or frustration. You need to behave in your child’s best interest because you care for him. Your child needs to feel on a deep level that the reason you are scolding, lecturing or “punishing” (more on that word later) him is because you care for him.

Children intuitively know their parents’ consciousness. So if you are angry and trying not to show it, your child will still tune into the fact that you are angry and will react to it (by being afraid, defiant or dishonest, according to his age and disposition).

Imagine this scenario. You are grocery shopping with your toddler at the end of the day. She has been whining and misbehaving the whole time and now you are in line. She demands that you buy her candy. What do you do?

Step 1 - You need to think about what is best for your daughter. Is it better to give in and avoid a scene or to say no, and risk a screaming fit? Giving in teaches her that whining works and that there is no relation between behavior and consequence. Saying no teaches the opposite, which is a lifelong lesson and is better for her in the long run.

OK, so you say no. Now, she starts screaming and everyone is looking at you. You are embarrassed. You can give in now (see above), or hang tough. You stick to your guns and refuse to buy the candy and the screaming ratchets up another few decibels. Now you have another choice.

Step 2 - You can get angry and start yelling at her or you can remember that she is programmed by the universe to push your buttons. It isn’t personal, so you can’t judge her for acting that way. By acting like this, she is giving you an opportunity to resist being angry. When you then deal with her without anger, she will know it, and will be more receptive to what you say.

Step 3 – You calmly explain to her that you are not going to get her the candy because she made a bad choice by whining and misbehaving in the store. You explain to her that when she makes good choices, then good things happen, but when she makes bad choices, then there is a consequence that she will not like very much. By framing it as a bad choice she made rather than saying she is a bad girl, she understands that although you do not like her behavior, you still like and love her as a person.

Step 4 – Repeat whenever necessary. Your child may not respond by instantly becoming a model child, but with consistent repetition, it will make a major difference in her behavior.

This method works on any age child, only the consequences change (from time outs for younger kids to taking away the car for teenagers) but the earlier you start, the better. Check back for the next article discussing the second secret of getting your kids to behave.

Labor of Love: Adventures in Birthing

2009-09-03T11:57:00.003-04:00

One of the things people learn about me right away is that I have five children. No, that’s not a typo – I have 5 beautiful, infuriating, loving, whiny, fun, disobedient, smart, smart-mouthed, wonderful kids. None of them are twins or adopted or stepchildren, so I have had five full term pregnancies, for a total of about ten years of continuously being either pregnant or nursing (or both).

If you are pregnant for the first time, or have had miscarriages or stillbirths (as a very dear friend of mine did), you are probably nervous about your pregnancy and especially about labor and delivery. Your ob may have told you that your mood and stress level effects the baby, and that is true, but just saying that will not ease your mind and relax you. So I thought maybe a little humor would help. (Although funny, these are true stories.)

My eldest, Danny, is now eleven years old. Since he was my first, I really didn’t know what to expect. Somehow, I thought that the more people who loved me were there, the more I would feel supported. Bad idea (at least for me, everyone’s different)! Both of my parents and a good friend were there, and of course my husband, who was so nervous he was vomiting in the bathroom almost the entire time. My dad brought his video camera and taped the entire birth, which after the excitement had died down, became completely humiliating for me. I have since confiscated the tape and it has never been shown, nor will it ever. Let’s just say that it isn’t my best side and leave it at that.

My second child, Mia, was nine days early. In the mysterious mind of an expectant father, that somehow meant that every child would come early. So when I was pregnant with my third child, Miriam, my husband was so confident that she would come early that he took all of his vacation time a full two weeks before my due date. When his vacation was almost over and I was still pregnant, he panicked. Since his job involved travel and he had no more vacation time left, he pressured me to be induced so that he could be there for the birth. So on New Year’s Eve, I went into the hospital to be induced.

If you are ever faced with a non-medical decision to induce, think very carefully because it is very painful! Even though I had an epidural, it didn’t take quite right and I had the combination of my legs being so numb I couldn’t feel them at all, with excruciating pain on my right side. Because it was New Year’s Eve, the hospital was short staffed. There were very few labor/delivery nurses there. The two experienced nurses they had initially given me had to leave to deal with emergency C-sections, and I was left with a nurse who, it appeared, had never done this before. She lost the heartbeat on the fetal monitor and spent around ten minutes trying to adjust the monitor. You can imagine how incredibly scary it was for us when she couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat and we kept insisting that she call the doctor.

Finally, the doctor came in, lifted the sheet, and there was the baby on the table, already born! Because of the funky way the epidural worked, I hadn’t even felt it at all. No wonder the nurse couldn’t find the heartbeat; the baby was already born! As soon as he saw her, the doctor scooped her up, cut the cord and she was just fine, thank goodness.

With my fourth child, Leah, I had decided to have this baby au natural, since I had such a bad experience with the previous epidural, so I hired a doula to help me through the labor process without drugs. A doula is someone who helps a laboring woman through the contractions, eases her pain through massage and helps keep her calm and focused. My doula, Pam, was extremely experienced, both professionally and personally (she had seven children of her own). Most hospitals in the US (unlike in other parts of the world) are not supportive of expectant mothers wanting to give birth naturally, so I was determined to do the bulk of my labor at home where I could do what I wanted, rather than being forced to lie down (the worst position for labor), attached to a bunch of machines.

I went into labor in the morning and asked my husband to drive the kids to school. I didn’t know how it would go without drugs and I didn’t want them in the house listening to me scream. Since my labor with Miriam lasted 18 hours, when I was pregnant with Leah, my husband naturally thought that he had plenty of time for this labor, so on the way back from dropping the kids at school, he stopped at Starbucks to have some coffee. Meanwhile, this baby was in a bit more of a hurry.

Labor progressed quickly and a few minutes after the doula asked me “You don’t feel like pushing, do you?” she ended up delivering the baby right in my bedroom. When my husband called from Starbucks to ask if I wanted him to get me a coffee, he was told that the baby was born (and anyway, what woman in the middle of labor has the presence of mind to drink a hot beverage?).

My mother, who was in the house (but not in the room this time), called 911 because we really didn’t know what to do now. When my husband arrived with his coffee in his hand, there was a fire truck out front and half a dozen firemen in my bedroom where I was lying all naked and exhausted. He was just in time to cut the cord. For years afterwards, every Christmas, I sent Pam a gift card to Starbucks, which gave her a good laugh.

My youngest child, Rebecca, was born without drugs on Christmas Eve, and the doctor who delivered her (yes, we made it to the hospital this time) was named Dr. Rudolf.

So, I have certainly had some adventures in the delivery room, but they all came out fine and healthy, thank goodness. There are some crazy things that can happen, but for the most part, a woman’s body knows what to do and it all ends up with you holding a beautiful baby that you will love for the rest of your life and who will challenge you to become the best that you can be.

The Meaning of Life

2009-09-03T11:56:00.001-04:00

Everyone has heard the expression, “nobody’s perfect,” but did you ever wonder why that is? In fact, have you ever wondered what is the meaning of life? Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world if God is all-powerful and all good? Most religions talk about how the world was created, but do any of them say why it was created in the first place?

There is one spiritual discipline that does answer these questions and many more. It is an ancient wisdom called Kabbalah. This wisdom has been handed down from teacher to student throughout the generations, beginning with Abraham the Patriarch. Numerous great thinkers, including Plato, Jung, Edison, Newton and Einstein studied it, and it has shaped the world we live in, albeit behind the scenes.

According to the sages, each soul comes to this world to perfect itself. Of course, each soul is distinct and has to deal with different issues that it needs to correct. Although it is possible for a soul to correct itself in one lifetime, it is so difficult that it usually it takes multiple, sometimes hundreds of lifetimes to get it right. Why should it be so hard?

The idea is that at one time, before the creation of the physical universe, all of the souls had a relationship with God where God gave us all possible fulfillment. However, it is a law of the universe that when you get something that you didn’t earn and don’t deserve, you feel ashamed. The physical universe was created to give us a chance to earn everlasting fulfillment by struggling against our own negativity. If the task of overcoming our challenges were easy, then we would not be able to earn the Light of the Creator.

So how do you go about correcting your soul so you can earn complete fulfillment for all eternity? Stay tuned for my upcoming article where I discuss The Soul’s Correction, or go to www.kabbalah.com.