Imagine you went outside. Grabbed your keys from your pocket, unlocked the front door to your car, got in, turned on the car and rolled down the windows; we're using our imaginations here. Pull out of the driveway, get onto the street and start driving. Now imagine that as you are driving there are no stop signs, no traffic lights, no lines on the road and hundreds of other cars on the same road you're on.

Now realize, this is the life of a toddler.

In their world, everything is new and exciting but at the same time there is so much to filter into their little minds. There is so much knowledge, action and experiences flying at their face at any given moment. I mean how would you feel? These little guys can't even control their own volume for heaven's sake! They don't know quiet from loud or slow from fast. They are bound to, actually they regularly bump into furniture, walls and even people. They often fall off their chairs, get hurt while playing without fail, and always find ways to hurt others even if unintentional.

You basically need to stay far away from them when they are awake if you don't want to get dirty, bruised or bloody.

Now when you put a child into an environment that is gated, safe and fun, you can be sure these little angels are the cutest little guys around. You could just eat them up!

Give them toys, books, activities, snacks or friends and they are so happy.

I spend most of my time with my toddler just guiding his actions in order to help him share, give, be nice, gentle, slowly, quiet, hold my hand, okay you get the picture right?

It seems that with the correct boundaries up in place for him, he's very happy, and lack of structure is destructive.

Life lesson:
Well it's pretty obvious that we can learn from our own children that what we may think we want (a life with no one telling me what to do, go and do as i please whenever i want wherever i want with whomever i want) is not at all what we actually want, won't make us ultimately happy and eventually will be destructive.

What we do want, and we may not even know it, is to have the structure in place, to have the boundaries up and then live happily within those boundaries.

It seems pretty simple and yes behold the most simple, obvious things in life, once again, are the most important ones to reevaluate constantly and the ones most often missed.

What we're really saying here is that ultimately it's the boundaries themselves that make us really happy, that really set us 'free'.

I've been very involved in sleep training my kids (without letting them cry - the baby whisperer in case you want to know) and I have been very adamant about their sleep. With my first child I decided to just feed and sleep him on demand and I quickly realized, without the proper structure, he and I were a mess! As soon as I put him on a routine schedule of sleep my life changed. It may seem pretty lame but I learned so much from this seemingly mundane or insignificant event in our lives. The moment I put him on it my husband said to me, "He's a happier baby now."

Everywhere I went people asked me, "What do you do, how do you do it?"

I had women tell me that they haven't slept in years because their children sleep whenever they want and are sleep deprived and are cranky in the day because of it.

And I realized through this that only through boundaries are we really free!

I was always a 'slave' for lack of better term, to my baby when he slept and ate and played sporadically throughout the day. Now that I know when my kids need to sleep I am able to plan around it and know exactly when I can do the things I need to do.

Someone once told me a parable that stuck with me for life and I'll share it with you to illustrate the point clearly:

Imagine you put a bunch of boys at the top of a mountain and threw them a ball. What would they do? They'd probably hang on to each other for dear life.

Now imagine you put a fence around the entire mountain so no one could fall off. What would you have? A game of soccer.


It seems, only through structure and boundaries, are we truly free.

On a very deep level this is really the meaning of Shabbat. One day where we are not a 'slave' to our phones, computers, television, shopping, errands, or even our blackberries. Just one day where we can just be really free. Shabbat is a day with many boundaries set in place (no cooking, no writing etc.) and at first glance we might think of it as a day only filled with restrictions. Why would anyone want that?

Because intrinsically we all know that the life we may think we want, with no one telling us what to do, is not what will make us happy, momentary satisfaction aside. We may think like toddlers sometimes but we all know that we'd rather have someone hold our hand to walk across the street than run 'freely' into a busy intersection.

The only thing we have to figure out as adults is who sets the boundaries now. Who knows best and wants to walk us across the street, holding our hand. Who cares so much about us that we should trust that they want only what's best for us?

It's the lack of boundaries that leads us to destructive behavior. It leads us to bump into things, get hurt and even hurt others. And I'm not talking about the toddlers.

SWITCH

Today I developed carpel tunnel syndrome, and it wasn't from my children.

I spent a considerable amount of time today driving around the city from one meeting to the next, all the while flipping through the radio stations trying to find some decent music to keep me company on my various journeys.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons today, besides from the fact that the radio stations are nearly devoid of any worthwhile content.

Now, occasionally you may land on a station with some quirky french music that is somewhat soothing. Perhaps a good classical piece or great beach tune like Bob Marley's 'Everything is going to be alright" that somehow transports you from the slushy, snow covered roads to the beaches of a remote, secluded Island. You're even more lucky if you stumble upon a station playing something like 'The Name Game Song' by Shirley Ellis and then you've miraculously figured out how to do the twist and other intricate moves that would be more appropriate in a pleated, poodle skirt rather than in the confines of your seat belt with winter coat on.

And this is where I developed carpel tunnel. For the entire drive, every time a good song came on I immediately and somewhat instinctively switched the station in hopes of finding something better. My finger was practically glued to the button. Ouch. I did this for the duration of the drive, switching again and again.

"Oh, an oldy and a goody, but maybe there's better."

SWITCH

"Classical! Yes this is the kind of driving music I need, but what if there's some good Jazz on?"

SWITCH

"Okay I found it, a French song, great I have no idea what he's saying and the rhythm is great, but what if there's something else?"

SWITCH

And that was it. I arrived at my destination only to realize that the entire ride there, instead of enjoying the music, I was in search of something better and ended up with nothing to show for it.

Isn't that how things look in our lives sometimes?

We get so caught up in the obsession to find the best, the perfect, the flawless that we sometimes don't allow ourselves to enjoy the present. We are on a relentless pursuit of perfection sometimes that we don't stop to appreciate the fine details in the imperfect now that we're living in. And of course, only in those imperfections do we find true perfection.

So on the way home, I decided to put on a CD so as to limit the decision process and ease my carpel tunnel.

The next dilemma, was which CD to choose out of the 10 CD Disk Changer.

SWITCH!

They won't do what we say, they'll do what we do

Why is it okay for us to act one way in front of our children at home, and then act in a completely different way in front of our children in public?

Well, according to Judaism, it's not.

Rabbi Twerski writes in his book, 'Positive Parenting', that our children are more likely to do what we do, rather than what we say.

It seems so obvious, yet the most obvious things in life are the ones that need the most attention.

We can tell our children how to act and correct them when they are wrong, but the best form of education for a child is apparently in our own character traits. If I am patient, chances are, my child will learn that from me. If I am tempered, most likely, he will learn that from me too.

Just because a child does as you say does not mean that in essence the child understands the concepts. It just means we've basically created a robot. If the child grows to really understand and appreciate the value of patience, because it's real, rooted and consistent in the parent, chances are the child will want to emulate the parent because they will internally value the trait on their own. Children are observers, more than we think, and they are learning from our every move.

We may choose to parent our children from the point of correction or manipulation, but that just deflects the issue, and puts it on hold. The basis of our parenting should come from the rooted beginnings of constant personal growth. Then the child will grow and learn to do as we do.

I was sitting with some women recently and one spoke up and asked the other, "Are you English?"
The woman answered, "No, why?"
"Because you said 'pardon' and that's so English" the woman answered.
A third woman piped in and asked, "Why is that English, what do you teach your children to say besides pardon?"
The woman replied with a message that spoke a thousand words. She said, "I don't teach my children how to speak, they speak. And I don't correct them when they say 'what' instead of 'pardon'."

This woman's wisdom had really struck a chord in me. Our children don't really need to be taught how to speak. They hear us speak, and then they speak. If we say 'pardon', they will learn to say 'pardon'. If we say 'huh', chances are, they'll say 'huh'?

And that's just in speech. If we believe in trust, honesty, and growth, chances are they will believe in that too.

Adam and Eve were just babies

What are we teaching our children?

We all know that everything we do, or don't do for that matter, affects these little people. We have to think carefully.

I was in a very large supermarket with my kids. Seriously, when I say large, I mean gigantic. Of course everything is relative, except for this. Thirty meter long aisles stacked with mile high mounds of food is most likely Webster's definition of the word 'mammoth', or at least 'spoiled rotten'.

I'm not saying we shouldn't appreciate these things for what they are and be grateful for the plentiful generation we are privileged to live in. After all, how else would we find the low sodium, fat free, sugar free, calorie free, wheat free, nut free, pretzels we were looking for amongst all the other healthy, organic snacks?

But let's try not to get lost in the organic, new age, green generation.

I am saddened in many ways when I take my kids to the store. These days, there is so much selection, so much choice, I fear what message is being passed along. Do my children really need to know that there are 264 different types of cereals to choose from? I can bank that their taste buds couldn't even dream up a flavor that is not already sitting on the shelf. It's a message that says that whatever they want, they can have. And that scares me.

Not only that message but worse of all, in my humble opinion, is that of choice. What are we using our free will to choose? Which type of toothpaste we should use among the 46 different varieties?

Free will is an interesting topic, not one I will get into at length here. But on the most basic level, the Torah teaches us that we are only really free to the extent that we are making moral decisions.

So what's a moral decision?

Well it certainly isn't which flavor of yogurt I decide to buy this week.

A moral decision is one that's based on much deeper realities than that. It's based on a deep consciousness of self, who am I, what am I doing here, where am I going and how am I getting there? It is exactly these moral decisions that ultimately gets us to our goal.

Of course my children will eventually know how much choice is out there in the world, be it with toothpaste or with relationships, but when they're so young they just don't have the tools to know how to use their free will properly. They need to be guided.

In the Garden of Eden, we learn that Adam and Eve were told they could 'have it all'. They needed only to abide by one rule, which was not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why? Why on earth, no pun intended, were they instructed not to eat from the tree of Knowledge? After all, wouldn't you think God would want them to KNOW? He wanted a relationship with them, he wanted them to connect to Him, so what's better than knowing?

One of the many understandings of why they were told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge is that they were simply too young. They didn't have the tools to KNOW what they would have known as adults had they just waited a bit longer.

Our children don't know. They don't know how to use this incredible gift of free will yet and our job is to slowly guide them through the process of 'growing up' and 'growing into' this free will thinker that will use his free will on choosing loving, lasting relationships and meaningful endeavors, and leave the 'apple picking' for someone else.

Positive Parenting or Ego Parenting?

I've started reading Positive Parenting by Rabbi Abraham Twerski.
The first section of the book:

1. What is the goal
2. Where to begin
3. Who is this little person

I'm blogging about number 1, WHAT IS THE GOAL.

In a nutshell the Rabbi writes about how each of us is driven by our ego, and naturally so. When we speak about 'having' a baby we use the word 'have' which implies that this child is mine. To clarify, because yes indeed this child is mine, I'm the one who changes him and stays up with him at night when he can't sleep after all, I'll illustrate the point just by using the simple translation in Hebrew.

In Hebrew when we say I have a baby we say, "Yesh Li Tinok". The words, 'Yesh Li' actually do not translate to I have, rather, they translate literally to mean "there is unto me". This is a fantastically different understanding of what we 'have' in the physical world than what the English translation teaches us. In reality we don't 'have' any of it, one day it will all be gone. Rather we should think of it as, 'there is unto me', meaning that right now God has given me these gifts to use and they are entrusted 'to me' right now to use to the fullest.

So too our children!

They are entrusted on to us. We have only the time allotted to us in this world to give them what they need to develop their potential in this world.

And so back to the Ego.

There are two ways to look at parenting your 'little person'.
1. To raise the best child you can
2. To raise the best 'Noam' possible (insert your child's name here)

Some parents will look into a school, for example, and wonder what the best reputation they will get or what others will think, others will wonder what school will be best suited for THEIR child. Of course these are not easy decisions, nor am I trying to oversimplify something very big here.

We need to stop trying to fulfill our ego and start fulfilling the needs of the child.

Rabbi Twerski gives a wonderful tool to assess how much ego you're using in your parenting. He says, when the child does something that is not what you want him to be doing, assess how much 'hurt' you feel about it.

To the degree that you are hurt, is the degree that you are ego parenting.

In other words, if the child's misbehavior upsets you to the point where you are mad, upset, fuming, yelling, huffing and puffing, anything outside of being calm, then you are feeling that this is a blow to you. Whatever he is doing, he is doing it to you and you can't stand it. If we switch our lens we will realize that when the child is misbehaving, the role of the parent is to find out what that child needs and to help bring him to that point. It really shouldn't upset us because after all, these are little children who don't know better, and if you claim they do, then they're just trying to push buttons to see what their boundaries are, and who's there to give them those boundaries if not you?

So the goal in our new lenses, is to see the situation for what it is, recognize what the child needs, and help him get to where he's trying to go. We don't really need to 'work' on being calm when we have that in place, because naturally we will just remove ourselves from the equation and just deal with the child in a positive and guided manner!

For me this is news and I wanted to share.

Now onto the section 'where to begin'.

Yesterday, Noam had a tantrum.

Okay, he's 2 years old, it's aloud right? Well I guess everyone has their ideas of what's the best method for dealing with tantrums. Here's what happened.

"Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine."

I warned him that if he would continue screaming and not sharing we would go home. He would then play nicely and quickly resume his wild behavior.

I realized this was not fair to him. He could not control himself, for whatever reason, and his heart was beating very quickly. I could tell this was the beginning of a melt down.

The next time I heard the word "MINE" I quickly whisked him up and said, "That's it, we're going."

Now this is the part where a very creative writer will go on about the details of what it looked like, sounded like, felt like to get out of the house with Noam screaming and baby Adina looking at me bewildered. Suffice it to say, we got out, less one ear drum perhaps, but we got out the door.

Noam then screamed the entire (3 minutes) home. But this is really not typical for Noam. Usually when he's removed from the situation he just calms down. I couldn't understand what was happening.

The entire (3 minutes that felt like 3 hours) walk home I searched deep within my mind's filing cabinet of techniques and tips I've been given on how to deal with a toddler. I thought of how I would punish him so he would learn from his mistakes. Most of all I felt angry.

I could feel the anger in my chest like a big fireball contained in a tight outer layer that would explode at any moment.

We got home, I had still not said one word, he was screaming. Shut the door, picked up baby Adina and put her to nap in her crib. Walked back, whisked off Noam's jacket, he was still hysterical, threw off his shoes, walked him over to the couch, threw myself down, put him on my lap, put his pacifier in his mouth, smothered his blanky on his face, his head collapsed on my chest, and held him tighter than I probably ever have.

That was it.

He stopped crying. I rocked him gently and held him tightly. He was panting and nestling his face into my neck for extra comfort. But that was it.

He looked up at me with his big, brown, swollen eyes filled with tears and said, "Ima, sing Numi Numi."

Numi Numi is our lullabye, in Hebrew.

Life lesson number 2 right here. Listen with sensitive ears mommy or you might miss it!
I usually would have wanted to yell, scream, punish, get mad at this behavior. Obviously this is not the way to act but these small babies act this way only because they NEED something. They have needs and sometimes we are not patient with them to find out what it is. In this case, Noam was not thriving in the environment he was in. Noam really needs structure, I am assuming most kids do. I wasn't paying attention to that. But the main point really is that I wanted to attack him because I felt his behavior was a direct hit to me! He was doing this to me, my ego was not happy.

I think we always want to be in control of every situation. We don't like the idea that the results don't lie in our hands. The more control we have the more secure we feel but the more we freak out when things don't go our way.

There is a perfect child. I bet you didn't think I would say that. Well there is! But he is the child who has tantrums, or cries, or doesn't share at times. Why is he perfect? He is perfect because he is exactly the child you got from God, in order to fix yourself.

I'm sure we all have times where we look at others lives and think, "oh if only I had her problems, life would be better" or we think, "she doesn't have any problems!".

It's just not true. I don't think we all have 'problems' but we all have challenges or obstacles in life that we need to overcome and we need to realize that they are given to us because ONLY we can deal with them. God gives each one of us the exact tools we need to deal with OUR problems, not our neighbors problems. Which means, in any situation where we feel really stretched, like we want to yell, get mad, run, we have to recognize that we have the tools to USE this obstacle in order to grow from it.

By raising our children we are raising ourselves. If we choose to look at the situation as an opportunity to grow, we only stand to gain.

So there I was, sitting with Noam snuggled up as peacefully as can be in the calm of the day. And then Adina started to cry. Thank God, another opportunity.