“I was disturbed by the letter writer who dissuaded readers from attempting chesed because they may not do it right”

Teachers and Parents, Unite! [We Have a Sugar Problem / Issue 958]

Kudos to Rivki Silver on bringing this important topic up for conversation, about how much sugar is part of our frum culture, especially our educational culture!

I work in a large out-of-town Bais Yaakov in the primary division. Many years ago, we had a policy not to give candy as a reward. Except for perhaps an end of the year siyum, other occasions were marked with a very moderate siyum. Chocolate milk and ice cream or a doughnut were the sum total of the sweets. Rewards were a sticker or a fancy eraser.

Fast forward to today... candy is a part of almost every teacher’s arsenal. Remedial students receive a treat daily. Yes, it’s out of control! Even children with no learning issues have difficulty attending to instruction and sustaining attention to work when their blood sugar is constantly roller-coastering!

While some parents are careful to send healthy snacks, many are not. Parents are often too busy or eager to please their children with “fun food.” They don’t realize the negative impact on their child’s school experience.

When Rivki told the story of the rebbi who found that an uncontrollable talmid was drinking a large iced coffee for breakfast, I identified with that. In my first-grade class, I had a student who would bring iced coffee in a reusable water bottle! This child had severe behavioral issues. When I called Mom, she said, “What can I do, she really likes it!”

Please, teachers, administrators, and parents, can we join together in improving the learning environment for our children? If we all support each other and follow through with firmness and positivity, we can improve the lives of our precious children!

A Frustrated Teacher

A Matter of Priorities [We Have a Sugar Problem / Issue 958]

I was so impressed with Rivki Silver’s balanced article about the dangers and some benefits of giving out candy in schools. I was particularly interested in Rabbi Muller’s quote about kids suffering when parents forbid candy. It reminded me of a small incident that I observed a few years ago.

My shul had organized a men’s sports game on a public field on a winter federal holiday. My young kids and one of my daughters wanted to go, so I figured I needed to go along to watch them. When we arrived there and my husband and older sons joined the men, I realized I was the only woman there and that many men had brought along their young children, who quickly wandered off, so it fell to me to watch them.

These kids were playing in a nearby field, but then I saw them moving toward the parking lot. I walked after them and saw that some of them were running around in the active parking lot, dodging the cars that were pulling in and out. I kept telling the kids to stay out of the parking lot because it was so dangerous, and I tried to organize a game in the field. Some kids listened to me, but one eight-or-nine-year-old girl in particular didn’t. She kept trying to restart a game of tag in the parking lot. She’d giggle and run away when I told her to be careful.

Just then, my husband texted me that he was going to go to a nearby gas station to get drinks for the men, as it was unseasonably warm that winter day and many of them had not brought water. When my husband pulled up ten minutes later with the drinks, I saw that he’d gotten small Gatorades as well. I was excited as I realized that this might give the kids something to do. “Who wants a Gatorade?” I yelled to the group of kids. All of them eagerly ran over and grabbed one, except the girl who hadn’t been listening. She’d clearly heard me, but she was standing outside the circle of kids, just looking at me. I walked up to her with a Gatorade in hand and offered it to her. She shook her head no. “My family is not allowed to have Gatorade. Too much sugar and food coloring.”

I just couldn’t get over the absurdity of the situation. These parents had apparently not imparted the lessons of being careful in an active parking lot or listening to an adult, but they had made one rule that was serving to ostracize their kid at that moment.

May Hashem give us all the clarity to make the right decisions in this area.

Anonymous

A Deeper Issue [Connections / Issue 957]

I read the article by Sarah Chana Radcliffe about writing out lines with growing concern. As a qualified therapist who has been working with teenage girls for the past ten years, I feel the advice in this article has not addressed the core issues going on in the scenario.

First, as every therapist will know, anger never occurs in isolation. Anger is the external expression of a deeper and more painful or vulnerable emotion. Identifying and addressing this underlying emotion is crucial to gaining mastery over the anger.

Second, a 15-year-old child responding to disappointment by smashing dishes — that isn’t within the expected realm of teenage behavior. An explosion of anger in this manner is often indicative of deeper pain or a more serious anger or aggression issue. This doesn’t sound like simple disobedience that can be fixed with routine discipline methods.

Third and most importantly, while the author is correct that this child’s behavior is out of line and needs addressing, I don’t think this method is the best fit. Such discipline, when enforced, will indeed alter the neural pathways in the daughter’s brain, but the new pathway being created is not any more conducive to her being successful in marriage, which is what the mother seems most worried about. This “discipline” teaches the child that she must not express her emotions or frustrations. That when she is upset with someone “she should shut her mouth, turn around, and walk away.” I don’t think that is great advice for anyone, especially not for a teenage girl who clearly has a lot of unresolved emotions.

I think the mother could benefit from some advice and guidance on how to better understand what is fueling these outbursts and how to guide and support her child in learning to express her emotions and needs in a mature and calm way. The daughter may well need some professional assistance in learning these skills. That is what will ensure her a long and happy marriage.

I’ve seen too many people bury their emotions and feelings in the name of shalom bayis only to have them build up and then explode or implode, causing untold damage. We need to teach our children that it is okay to express their emotions, even the ones that may seem “confrontational.” The key is to teach them how to do this in a way that is calm, respectful, and conducive to building understanding and strong relationships.

PG,

London, UK

Sarah Chana responds:

You raise some important points that this article didn’t address. For example, it IS important not only to stop inappropriate behavior (such as unacceptable displays of anger), but to teach the appropriate way of expressing strong feelings. Of course, when adrenaline is running (e.g., the child is upset to the point where she breaks a cup), parents can’t teach anything; this is not a teaching moment. The mother will have to approach the child later to use a technique I’ve written an entire book on — a rewiring approach that inculcates the new, more appropriate and desirable behavior.

As this short article was only about the use of “writing lines” as a discipline tool, I didn’t actually go into the full protocol of what this parent might do to fully address this particular child’s inappropriate behavior. If the article was meant to be about how to help a teenager with her anger management, it would have included all the necessary steps such as 1) Establish the foundation of healthy parent-child relationship by following the 90-10 Rule to create a warm and loving authoritative relationship; 2) Use the 100 percent good-feeling strategies within something I call the CLeaR Method for teaching the appropriate communication tools to use when feeling upset; 3) If these steps don’t in themselves stop the abusive behaviors then add the 2-Times Rule of discipline (such as the use of writing out lines) to extinguish the aggressive behavior and; 4) If this simple behavioral approach doesn’t fully correct the problem, then it is time to seek professional help for the child — perhaps there is an underlying issue.

Note that I don’t start off by assuming that a child has a deep underlying problem of any kind. Only if normal parenting techniques fail to address the behavioral problem, do I suggest that parents seek a “deeper” approach for their child. However, I would disagree with you that all anger stems from deeper psychological issues. Some may stem simply from impulse control (neurological) issues such as we routinely find in children with various neurodiversities. Sometimes medicine is actually the “deeper” therapy that will help. You’re correct, of course, to note that this scenario of a 15-year-old who is acting so aggressively is of particular concern because of her age. I will say here, “my bad.” I really should have picked a nine-year-old for the age of the child because, for the purpose of the article, the age was irrelevant.

Nonetheless, stuck now with a 15-year-old for our example, I will say that it is possible that a parent has simply not used discipline over the developmental years, resulting in even a teenager who is still behaving like a toddler. In fact, we see grown men and women doing the same in parenting and marriage — not because they have “suppressed emotions” but rather because they have not been taught to control their impulses. The Torah is big on self-control, especially when it comes to speaking to parents. The laws of honoring and respecting parents encourage suppression, urging us to remain silent in the face of provocation.

Take, for example, the famous story in Kiddushin 31a, of the non-Jewish prime minister Dama ben Nesinah whose mother was extremely provocative. While he was sitting among dignitaries, she approached him, ripped off his golden cloak, struck him with a shoe, and spat in his face. He said nothing so as not to embarrass her, bent down, picked up her shoe and silently returned it to her. The story comes to teach us that even a non-Jew who lacks the benefit of Torah study knows that you must respect your parents, even if it means keeping your mouth closed in extreme cases of provocation. Would this behavior be considered normal by today’s secular standards? Who cares? Our standards are set out by Hashem Who apparently is not as worried about our suppressed feelings as He is about our appropriate conduct.

There is so much more to say about this but I’ll end with this thought: The “suppression” theory of anger (that it might end up causing resentment or physical illness) is endorsed by both Torah and psychology. However, both suggest that emotional and relational harm can be avoided by expressing feelings respectfully and calmly once the volatile emotion is settled. Torah also teaches that not every feeling needs to be shared and that emotional regulation techniques include reframing (e.g., in this case, understanding that Mom’s actions are intended to be protective rather than hurtful), emunah and bitachon (understanding that Hashem arranged the “disappointment” just as He arranges all events in our lives) and working on humility (accepting parental authority as benign, loving, and wise, and accepting Hashem’s loving arrangement of our affairs). It’s possible, in other words, for the teen to accept Mom’s “decree” without coming back to “share all her feelings” about a perfectly reasonable parental limit.

Even When It’s Difficult [Second Guessing / Issue 956]

I was touched by Ariella Schiller’s story about a woman who tried to be kind to her neighbor’s children by allowing them to use her swing set. After a summer of working on herself and showing kindness, she eventually lost patience in the end. I really related to this! It’s much simpler to retreat from challenging situations and yes, sometimes in our quest to do the right thing, we misjudge. But I was disturbed by the letter writer who dissuaded readers from attempting chesed because they may not do it right.

I was raised in a home where we were taught, by example, to help others even when it was hard. Contrary to much psychological dogma, feeling bad about saying no was considered a virtue where I come from. And it was never seen as selfish to do chesed when it lifts you up, makes you happy, and fills something inside you. In fact, my parents taught us that this is part of how the world was created: Doing good makes you feel good. Isn’t that beautiful?

My amazing mother lives with the clarity that dishes can be put away tomorrow, and sleep can usually be caught up on, but mitzvah opportunities don’t always return. Did she ever get tense? Of course. She’s human. But she raised 11 children with whom she has a close, warm relationship, and I think we’d all wish to be described as people who place chesed before comfort. It seems we aren’t scarred. We’re also not too particular about dishes being left in the sink.

It’s deeply gratifying that, although my kids sometimes had grilled cheese for dinner while schnitzel was being delivered down the block, or I was late to a shopping date because of a project I got caught at, all of my children are growing into adults who are passionate about stretching themselves for chesed and sought spouses raised with those same values.

I feel sorry for those who miss out on this joy and connection and tradition.

Bassya Isaacs

Hard Truth [Reflections / Issue 954]

I want to comment on Sarah Chana Radcliffe’s article on being preoccupied with our phones. It was a hard read, mostly because of its accuracy and the hard truth it presented.

I’d like to report a victory in light of the article.

Recently, I had family over and I made an active effort to avoid my phone, and I only realized afterward that I was off it for nearly four hours — an astounding amount of time for me!

What helped me was, number one, reading the article, and number two, knowing how it affects me (and that my attention is completely stolen). I know that once I’m on my phone, even if no one needs my immediate attention, I’m swept away and am not present; I’m lost in it.

Sarala

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 959)