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Home
and Family
Positive or Negative
Education
by A. Ross, M.A. in Speech, Education
Young parents with a first child are often at a loss what to
do. We do not learn formal parenting. Much of it is
intuition, a lot is common sense, and with the second and
subsequent children, it is experience, and the experience of
friends. By the time our children have grown up, we have a
great deal of experience. When we become grandparents, we are
probably best equipped to bring up children, but by that
time, we are not expected to raise them any more.
Sixty years ago, a sense of decency prevailed in the world.
Morality was more widespread in the streets and there was
less depravity and moral corruption for our children to see
and hear about. When I was a small child, my family lived
[England] surrounded by non-Jews. I went to a non-Jewish
school. When I was about seven or eight, I remember the
mother of a little girl, much younger than I was, kneeling
down on a level with her child, and almost shaking the life
out of her with the refrain, "You told a lie, Christine! That
was a lie! Don't you EVER tell lies!" This left an indelible
impression on my mind. Nowadays, a well meaning neighbor
might well call in the police to this family for child
abuse.
Today, with the stresses of the modern world, and the lures
from the street, parents cannot just rely on trial and error.
I once heard someone say that whereas in olden days a parent
had to plant, water and cultivate the young child with the
help of a supportive community, nowadays the parent also has
a major weeding job. It is a strange phenomenon, that very
young parents who feel they did not get the correct support
and upbringing from their parents, and harbor bitter
resentment in their hearts, perpetuate the same mistakes in
their children. There are many authoritative books on the
market for effective parenting in the Orthodox home. Not all
are realistic, and not all suggestions work in every
situation, but some are worth reading. It is important to
keep in mind that they do not all give unanimous advice, and
parents have to choose what works for them. In some
communities, people are able to attend classes in
parenting.
Hardly ever in today's world are parents told to discipline
their children. Corporal punishment is a `terrible crime'.
Actually, in school and even at home, in this day and age, it
is a criminal offense. Nobody is allowed to hit a child.
Whether it is a parent or a teacher, nowadays smacking is not
an option.
When a toddler runs to poke his fingers or a toy into an
electric socket, remove him from temptation. He does it
again; remove him again. And again, and again... Better
still, buy one of those safety covers which go over the
electric socket. But meanwhile, you haven't got a cover, so
remove him again... In older days, a sharp slap on the hand
worked wonders. For a particularly high spirited individual,
the slap had to be repeated, but this negative reaction on
the part of his mother cured the temptation for the electric
socket. There were other temptations for which a sharp slap
on the hand was, again, a remedy.
I am not advocating a slap in anger. But I do feel that
controlled - and consistent - firmness from a very early age
might help many a parent. There are some very lively,
inquisitive little children whose mothers seem to spend their
day saying `no' to. Mothers read books which tell them to be
positive. A mother can't take her eyes off the child for a
moment - even to read it... She will either have to take him
out regularly, each day, or occupy him under her constant
supervision. He will not get up to nearly as much mischief if
she occupies herself with him until he is ready for pre-
school.
There are mothers who would much rather go out to work than
endure a lively toddler all day. They don't know what joy
they are missing, but the choice is theirs. Babysitters
cannot give the child the love of a mother. I can hear some
women saying that they don't have the time to take out their
children each day. Time for what? Parenting is their job! So
the house is not as clean as they would like it and the meals
are not as varied as they might like them. We don't have the
time or perhaps the energy for things we don't like doing. A
fact of life. Make this toddler your priority for the year or
so that it takes for him to become a little more human, more
restrained, contained, disciplined.
"Never raise your voice" is another dictum to which parents
feel they should conform. R' Shamshon R. Hirsch used to say
that a parent's education begins about twenty years before he
becomes a parent. So some parents are prone to raise their
voices. Their children will also shout. This doesn't mean
that a parent has to feel riddled with guilt at the end of
the day. Parents are also human and have to train their
children to live with the vicissitudes of life. No doubt,
readers will disagree with me, but perhaps a child who had a
kind, caring mother who was, nevertheless, constantly
shouting, will be able to cope more easily with a loud
voiced, domineering boss.
There is not doubt that positive teaching is more effective
than a negative attitude. When you want your child to do
something, there is no harm in giving him an incentive to
work for. However, so many parents offer their children huge
bribes. Why can't a child learn to work for something instead
of receiving instant gratification? A very wise woman once
said to a friend of mine who had bought her daughter an
extremely expensive present which the child wanted, because
she had made her own bed for a whole week, "When she does it
for a month, are you going to buy her a house?"
While we are busy with the daily effort of keeping the house
running smoothly, which as all mothers know, entails being a
cook, cleaner, launderess, teacher, psychologist and wife, to
mention but some of our occupations, we have no time to
evaluate how we are doing. Most mothers, when it comes to
bedtime, feel a failure on some occasion or other. With a
great deal of davvening and goodwill, we pray that
Hashem will help us bring up the children to be yirei
shomayim and each one to achieve what he is meant to
achieve. By seeing their parents laying stress on Torah
values, we hope that in retrospect, we will know that by
trying our best, we have succeeded.
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