Parenting Pearls

Parenting as a Vehicle for Personal Growth

By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

Irecently received an email from a close friend from seminary whom I’d lost touch with. She saw my article along with my email in the bio and reached out to me. It was wonderful to hear from her and remember those days years ago. Elul was spent in deep introspection, mussar and divrei Torah that were geared to the time period. Now, I, like many others, spend the time before Rosh Hashana cooking, making sure the kids have appropriate clothes, and trying to stay sane. I feel very fortunate to have my children who keep me so busy but it’s a big change that can leave someone feeling like they’ve lost touch with personal growth and their previous goals. While yomim noraim used to be spent davening emotionally in shul, it’s now spent in the playground with kids or running to make it to a shofar blowing. Times change, but that doesn’t mean personal growth becomes impossible.

Parenting is a hard job. It’s definitely rewarding, but we can’t deny there are strange and very mundane aspects to it, as well. When we’re younger, we have such high and lofty thoughts; we’re focused on deep, philosophical or spiritual ideas. As parents, we spend our days changing dirty diapers, putting Band-Aids on boo boos (some of which are invisible), and chauffeuring kids between locations. It’s very easy to get lost in all the mundane and tedious tasks that a parent does daily.

As we’re in the month of Tishrei, a time when we focus on personal improvement and development, I thought it could be a timely opportunity to discuss how parenting is actually a perfect vehicle for personal growth. I remember in seminary how we were so spiritually focused during this time period but as a parent it’s easy to wonder what happened to all our goals. On the contrary – it’s when we are doing what seems mundane that we can transform ourselves.

Parenting is Chessed

Diapers stink but your child is healthier being clean. It’s an act of kindness to change a diaper, and you’re doing an act of giving towards your child each time you do it. It’s amazing to think we can find holiness even in changing a soiled child.

I can say the same about nearly every parenting task. It’s a kindness to make sure your child has clean clothes, nourishing food to eat, and a welcoming place to live. By seeing the day-to-day tasks as an act of giving and devotion to your child, you can transform laundry, cooking, and cleaning into something so much more.

When you recognize that the most tedious, and even distasteful, task can be viewed as a form of chessed, you can begin to get a greater level of appreciation for what you do. This, in turn, can help you use those very same tasks to improve yourself. Smile and sing while you change a diaper, give a bath or clean a filthy floor; you are helping someone else and becoming a giver. Your child will feel the difference when they see you happy, as opposed to irate, when you assist them. He/she will thrive on the extra affection and revel in being seen with love and not as a burden.

When you tend to your child you can grumble or you can give them a kiss. You make that decision.

Parenting with Purpose

Parenting can, and should, be done with purpose and meaning. By viewing the various responsibilities as something purposeful, it can turn the mundane into something worthwhile and meaningful. For example, driving your child to school is contributing to their education. Bathing your child is contributing to their health and teaching them personal hygiene. Intervening between squabbling siblings is an opportunity to teach them appropriate interpersonal interactions.

Tasks that can range from tedious to annoying can take on more intention when you can reframe your actions as something both meaningful and greater than its parts. This gives you the opportunity to direct your parenting into something even more useful than if you didn’t give intent to your actions. By choosing to recognize the greater accomplishments of your regular, day-to-day actions, you can grow from what you’re already doing.

Parenting Teaches Self-Control

It’s easy to be nice to strangers and to the people we meet infrequently in our lives. It’s more challenging to maintain our composure with those we’re close to. It’s really easy to lose all sense of calm when dealing with irrational, young people who scream for reasons that we often can’t even understand. To be honest, I’m not even sure they themselves always know why they’re screaming. It takes real self-control and lots of working on

ourselves to smile sweetly at a child tantruming during the day or crying at night.

I can say for myself that it was a real change of perspective when I realized that when I comfort a child in the middle of the night it’s really a challenge for me to improve and grow and not just about my child. When I can react calmly despite the insanity of parenting, then I have accomplished real personal growth. It’s easy to raise your voice when kids fight, complain or act out; it’s much harder to maintain self-control, step back, and evaluate a response first. Our children benefit from a calmer parent, but we also benefit from becoming calmer people.

Personally, it gives me a different perspective to think that I’m working on myself while working with my children. It (often) happens that a child may test my patience. By remembering that staying composed is good for me and not just for them, I have a greater incentive to exercise that self-restraint.

Parenting is a Skilled Profession

Good parenting takes a lot of thought and creativity. Analyzing the problems you’re encountering with your child, thinking of the various workable solutions, and implementing your game plan is a real challenge. Like a chess master

planning the next move or a general commanding the troops, you need to have a well-thought-out strategy that has been viewed from every angle. The last thing you want to do is react impulsively.

Good parenting involves more than just reacting to situations as they unfold. Parents can become masterful professionals that understand their child and create an environment conducive to their child’s optimal growth. Whether that involves being more affectionate, firmer or applying some other adjustment, a well-thought-out par-

Our children benefit from a calmer parent, but we also benefit from becoming calmer people.

ent can make that move intelligently. Even more so, a parent acting with foresight can set the stage in advance to prevent the problems from occurring, for example, having an activity already planned for a rambunctious child when they come home so they don’t tear up the house or hiding the permanent markers out of the reach of little hands.

There are so many ways to enhance your parenting when you prepare your response and give thought to your parenting actions. You will notice a real difference when you have a proactive approach and your actions are well-thought-out.

Parenting forces you to think beyond yourself and grow in ways you wouldn’t normally otherwise. As you reframe before doing each seemingly menial job, you can begin to appreciate just how much it is you are truly accomplishing. Not only is parenting a means to raise your child but it’s also a means to raise yourself.

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 RayvychHomeschool@gmail.com.