7 minute read
Parenting Pearls
Parenting Pearls Cautious Judgement
By Sara Rayvych, MSEd
“Mommy, he was playing with it, and now it’s not working,” my daughter informed me as she handed me the device. I will admit that I was upset. In honor of Chanukah, I had purchased for the family one of these kosher devices that played music and stories.
The kids – particularly the little ones – were really enjoying the stories, and I had warned them not to touch the player to avoid breaking it. As you can imagine, my warning had gone unheeded, and they had been unable to hold themselves back from pressing the buttons and turning the dials.
It was brand-new, and I hurriedly emailed the company explaining the issue along with the steps I had taken, such as restarting it and resetting the factory settings. It wasn’t long before I received an email back telling me there was a bug in the system and reassuring me they would have it fixed soon. I quickly realized that my children weren’t at fault and that it must have been something affecting the main server on their end. This was confirmed when minutes later the device was once again happily singing songs.
All of the original evidence pointed to the little ones being guilty. After all, they had been playing with it, and that’s exactly when it stopped working. Despite the incriminating facts, they were completely innocent of the breakage (but not innocent of disobeying their mother).
Often, we think we have all the facts, and we rush to judge but there may still be missing information or another explanation. While it was appropriate for me to reiterate that Mommy had forbidden them from playing with the sensitive electronics, it would’ve been wrong to accuse them of breaking it.
We need to be exceedingly careful when dealing with children since they are naturally sensitive to our comments. We can’t accuse someone that is innocent of a crime, even if they’re guilty of something else. Even more so, if I had wrongly accused them of breaking the device, then it would have detracted from my gentle rebuke that they had disobeyed the “no touching” rule. For the record, “no touching” rules are very difficult for children.
Here, I will mostly use examples that involve children breaking things, using items without permission, or fighting with each other since those are the most common scenarios. But, responding with forethought and sensitivity – and only after careful deliberations – applies to all times we are called upon to judge a child’s behavior.
Proceed With Caution
My younger kids wonder how I can usually figure out who snuck off with my phone. For some reason, they don’t realize that I will make the connection between the video they just took of themselves and the person who ran off with the device.
My little ones act shocked that I knew it was them who colored on the wall. It wasn’t that hard to deduce since they had scribbled their full name on the drawing (and I recognized their handwriting).
Usually, the guilty party isn’t so obvious, and in most cases, they don’t leave their face in a video or handwritten name as evidence. We need to proceed with extreme care before accusing a child of a wrong. Like most words, once said, we can never take them back. Of course, we need to be mechanech our children and correcting them is a part of that, but we must never blame them for something they didn’t do.
We need to avoid knee-jerk responses. It’s too easy to see something is damaged or messed up and blame the closest child. We may be angry, we may be upset, but that’s our cue to slow down and stop before doing something we may regret.
It’s not uncommon that one child will do something wrong and then run away before the evidence is discovered. Too often, the first child to find it is the one that is blamed. Other times, it’s the child that was unfortunate enough to be standing nearby when the parent walked in. It’s very hurtful to a child to be yelled at or blamed for something they had no part in.
It’s always possible that whatever hap-
pened was truly an unavoidable accident. A number of months ago. I saw a little boy fall, and in the process, he smacked into something that broke loudly (he was fine, baruch Hashem). Hearing the crashing glass, someone else quickly came in and yelled at him for the damage. I had a hard time calming down the adult and explaining that the child wasn’t at fault. The little boy didn’t need a scolding, but he certainly needed some compassion after such a scary situation.
We also need to make sure there really was a culprit at all. One day, I couldn’t find my keys in my purse, and I knew my little one had been playing with them recently. I was very frustrated, and all my attempts to get him to divulge his hiding spot went unheeded. A few minutes later, I found them in my purse – despite having just looked there. When something breaks or goes wrong, we immediately assume it was caused by someone, but that isn’t always the case. Similarly, while it’s not the most common scenario, there are many times something occurs without human intervention. I’ve had glass dishes break, seemingly on their own. Afterwards, I was able to ascertain that the room was empty when the dish fell off the counter.
Too often, a child runs in crying, pointing the finger at the child that hurt them. Our natural inclination is to sternly rebuke the accused one. But it’s worthwhile to gather the entire story first. A mother received a call from the school that her little boy had hit one of the girls. He was being punished for the infraction when someone decided to ask him why he had done it. “What did you expect me
to do when she kept calling me fat?” was his simple reply. While this young man (now a grown one) certainly shouldn’t have used his hands, it would be wrong to think the little girl was innocent after she had spent weeks taunting him before he snapped.
A different little boy ran to his mother, crying that his brother had hit him. After further inquiries, it came out that he had been hit as payback after he had given his sibling a very nasty bite that left a painful mark. Hitting is definitely wrong, but it was self-defense in this particular situation.
Kids – especially younger ones – only see their side of the story. They can be convinced of their innocence but that doesn’t make it the complete truth. Only after having all the information can we
attempt to be mechanech the correct party. My experience is that in many cases of fighting, they’re both guilty and it’s not so easy to tease out the facts.
Besides knowing who is responsible for each aspect of a quarrel, we also want to find out the root cause of the fighting to see if it’s something that could have been prevented. Whenever possible, we want to avoid similar arguments from recurring in the future.
It’s important to point out that even between siblings it’s possible to find bullying or one child manipulating another. Parents should be aware and take note if there is a pattern of fighting consistent with bullying. Additionally, one child can manipulate another, so it seems like the manipulated party is the guilty one when they’re really being set up. While it’s unfortunately too common for siblings to argue, we need to keep an eye out for these extra unhealthy patterns and deal with them appropriately.
We know that only Hashem judges alone, and as human beings, we will never have the full story. As parents, we are frequently called upon to judge a situation and provide appropriate chinuch to match. May Hashem help us with this awesome task as we do our best to raise each holy neshama Hashem has loaned us.
Sara Rayvych, MSEd, has her master’s in general and special education. She has been homeschooling for over 10 years in Far Rockaway. She can be contacted at Rayvych Homeschool@gmail.com.
