I’m worried that without help, this will spiral into even more dysfunctional behavior as he gets older

Moderated by Faigy Peritzman

MY oldest son is a smart and energetic eight-year-old. He does well in school, and his rebbi says the boys in the class like him. But at home he acts very differently. He has a hair-trigger temper, often having meltdowns when things don’t go his way, and lashing out at me or his younger siblings. The intensity of his tantrums frighten me.

I want to send him to therapy to help him learn healthier ways to respond when frustrated and to discover if there’s anything more worrisome at the root of all this anger.

But my husband is completely unfazed by our son’s behavior. He tells me that many boys get angry easily, and he’s adamant that his son does not need therapy. When I point out examples of my son’s inappropriate reactions, he just shrugs and tells me he’ll grow out of it.

I’m worried that without help, this will spiral into even more dysfunctional behavior as he gets older.

Do I force the issue and have it become a conflict between my husband and me, or should I just hope his behavior will change as he gets older?

Rabbi Efrem Goldberg is the Rav of the Boca Raton Synagogue, a rapidly growing community of close to 1,000 families in Boca Raton, Florida.

Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky once ran into a talmid and inquired about how he was doing. The young man gave a krechtz, explaining that his child had kept him up several nights in a row. “Tzaar gidul banim,” he sighed. The great gadol turned to his talmid and said, “That isn’t tzaar gidul banim, the pain of child rearing, it is just gidul banim, child rearing.”

The essential question, the point of debate between the two of you is: When do behaviors, thought patterns, or phobias rise to the level of a clinical diagnoses, and when are they normative and regular? When do they need intervention and treatment, and when do we assume the person exhibiting them will grow out of them? When are they gidul banim, and when are they tzaar gidul banim?