I don’t know how anyone could imply that not sleep training a baby means being derelict in your chinuch duties

When Therapy Hurts Too Much [Inbox / Issue 769]

After reading Sarah Chana Radcliffe’s response to the woman in shidduchim with a traumatic childhood who wanted to know if she had to go for therapy before marriage, and the Inbox letter, written by a woman who married a man who did not go for therapy before their marriage, urging her to do so, I have something to share. As someone who can identify with the young woman in shidduchim, I believe I have the right.

I too grew up in a home with many emotional issues that affected me badly, and I too have tried therapy time and again.

To the letter writer — although no one would want to put their spouse through what you went through, please understand that therapy is something that’s extremely painful, especially if you’re doing it while living with the situation that you’re trying to heal from. It can sometimes feel that not only is the therapy not accomplishing anything, but rather is causing more harm, since so much more hurt and pain are brought up.

I fully understand your position — going into marriage like this is really not an option. But sometimes the alternative — going for therapy beforehand — can cause even more harm.

I don’t know what the solution is. But coming from the other side, I wanted to share my perspective.

Name withheld

Bon Ami Shines [Family Room / Issue 769]

I was happy to see “Bon Ami” featured in your list of cleaning product recommendations as it has been my favorite cleanser forever! I learned about it from my mother a”h. Aside from its not scratching the sink, Bon Ami shines elsewhere.

Bon Ami will shine your silver without scratching, and best of all is that it’s much easier to use than commercial silver polishes. Wet the sponge or paper towel, sprinkle Bon Ami, and proceed to rinse and wipe the silver item. Voilà!

It will also shine your stainless-steel pots and pans. No steel wool is necessary! Difficult stains and/or burned-on food residue will disappear when rubbed. The more difficult stains sometimes need a second or third scrubbing, but eventually stains will be gone and the pot will shine, unscratched.

Leah

Facing Memory Loss [In Her Shoes / Issue 768]

Ora McCarthy’s beautifully crafted story, “In Her Shoes,” gives the reader insight into the colliding, confusing, and chilling memories that people with memory loss experience, often at the same time. She gently distinguished between positive and negative reactions to obvious memory challenges.

We don’t contradict, insist, or correct people who are confused. We respond with feeling, rather than with words, and go with the flow. Sometimes we need to distract. Sometimes objects can stimulate positive warm memories for someone who is challenged in this area.

The children’s picture book Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox details the multiple objects a young boy brings to his neighbor in the nursing home near his home. It’s an excellent book that introduces memory, the blessings of memory, the joy of having listeners, and the irregular sequences to children and their parents. We all need to be educated on how to communicate with people with memory loss. Let’s not leave them alone in their confusion and fears.

Faigie Horowitz, MS

Who’s This For? [Family Reflections / Issue 768]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Sarah Chana Radcliffe’s article on harmful helping, as this is one of the most common topics I work on with parents.

As a clinical psychologist specializing in emotion dysregulation (or “overwhelming emotions running the show”), I often share with my clients and their families a model called the biosocial theory. The biosocial theory explains emotion dysregulation as coming from a biological emotional vulnerability that some people (also known as “supersensers”) are born with transacting with an invalidating environment, which over time leads to emotion dysregulation.

Now, an invalidating environment can be severely abusive and neglectful. But it can also be — as is the case with most of the families I work with — the most loving, adoring, involved, invested, caring families who are unintentionally invalidating their loved one. And so we work together on how to validate the valid, learn emotion regulation skills, and promote helpful and healthy behavior with behavior change strategies.

When someone is born a supersenser, their emotions can be big and confusing to the people who love them most. Common interactions can therefore end up sounding like, “Whoa, what is with you? Calm down! Relax! Get over it! It’s not such a big deal. What are you freaking out about? You’re always so dramatic.”

The problem with these responses is that they teach the supersenser to continually push away and ignore their emotions until they explode, so we end up with emotions either being numbed out or at 100 percent intensity. What supersensers don’t learn from invalidating environments is what their emotions are, how to trust and listen to them, and how to solve their actual problems. This leads to many of the issues people with emotion dysregulation suffer with.

Now we get to accommodation. When emotions get very big, the people around the supersenser often go into a panic and try to “solve” it, usually with accommodation. “You’re so upset you can’t go to school? Of course you can’t.” “You need to stay in bed because you’re having such a hard time? Not a problem, I’ll bring you your favorite ice cream.” “You’re having a panic attack? I’ll pick you up, just wait right there.”

These are typical responses of the loving, caring, involved families who are trying so hard to help their struggling loved ones. Unfortunately, this is truly harmful helping. Accommodation is validation of the invalid. We don’t want to validate the invalid.

When I teach parents how to sleep train their babies, and they say they just can’t listen to their baby cry, I ask “Why?” Is it for the child’s best or for your comfort? Because the child needs sleep.

If the parent continually comes to the baby when he cries and soothes him until the next time he cries, they are only teaching the child to cry in order to get soothed, which obviously makes it pretty hard to get to sleep. There is no chance for the child to learn how to soothe himself. Those babies show higher cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the morning, and six months down the line, still can’t get a good night’s sleep.

You as the parent can choose to respond to your child any way you’d like, and I encourage parents to ask themselves “Who’s this for?” In any interaction, you can ask yourself, “Is this for my comfort, or for my loved one’s long-term best interest?” And if you’re not sure of the answer, find out. Consult with an expert or test out your behavior by thinking about the long-term consequences. And once you know, you can cheerlead yourself through the short-term challenges by reminding yourself, “Who’s this for?”

Dr. Chaya Lieba Kobernick

The CBT/DBT Center

Sleep Training Isn’t Chinuch [On Your Mark / Issue 768]

I was really puzzled by Tali Kleiner’s comment, “If you aren’t willing to teach your baby to sleep, how will you set limits when your three-year-old hits his sister?” I don’t know how anyone could compare the two things, or imply that not sleep training a baby means being derelict in your chinuch duties.

Sleep training babies is a controversial practice; babies wake up at night to have their nutritional needs met, not because they’re being badly behaved or can’t delay gratification! It’s usually something they grow out of; I’ve never sleep trained my children, and neither my five-year-old or 15-year-old wake up crying every three hours looking to eat.

Hitting a sibling is a behavioral issue, one that they need to be trained out of, and I’m pleased to say that while my five-year-old still does hit his siblings, my 15-year-old wouldn’t dream of doing that.

Sarit A.

A Matter of Mindset [Inbox / Issue 768 To “Not Just a Single”]

I was so saddened to read of your pain, and related to it somewhat as a former “older single.” One of the nicest and most memorable things someone did for me when I was single was to call me up and invite me for a meal, as if I were a “real person,” instead of my needing to call up a potential host and awkwardly invite myself over. I urge communities with singles’ populations to have programs in place that make it easy for those in need of Shabbos meals to be able to find them.

However, in regard to your other points, I want you to know that some of your pain could potentially be avoided. In both my experience and my friends’, people took us seriously and didn’t view us as “just singles” — as long as our mindset was in the right place.

At some point in my singlehood, I came to a place of healthy acceptance of my situation (without giving up), and shifted my own self-image from “nebach older single” to “contributing, worthy member of society.” When I did this, I realized other people viewed me that way too, and took me, my profession, and my ideas seriously.

Unfortunately, I have often found that the idea of the “marginalized older single,” while not quite a myth, is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than it is something that’s actively perpetuated by our communities at large. Take a look around frum society today, and I think you’ll see that singles and their ideas and contributions have been welcomed. There are single singers, writers, therapists, and any other profession you can think of, who have been accepted not despite their singlehood, but because they are people, just like anyone else.

Wishing you much hatzlachah in your journey.

Name Withheld

CORRECTION

In Issue 760, a fiction story featured a character who forgot yaaleh v’yavo when benshing on chol hamoed and repeated bentshing. This action was incorrect: one does not repeat benshing after omitting yaaleh v’yavo on Chol Hamoed. Thank you to the alert reader who brought this to our attention.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 771)