Illuminating our Children
You can't lie in child education; you can’t adlib or fake it. Educating children reflects the real inner dimensions of a parent, as they are reflected on a child…
One can’t overemphasize the importance of raising spiritually healthy children. This is no easy task, and it can’t be done by remote control. The Torah in several different places commands us to take an active role in educating our children (Vehigadta, Veshinantam, etc.) – so, it’s not enough that we send kids to school, even the best schools, pay their tuition, and then run off on our merry ways and think we’re good parents. Child education doesn’t work like that.
Our entire purpose on earth is to get to know Hashem – we do that by way of emuna. Hashem’s greatest praise of our forefather Abraham was that he’d raise his subsequent generations in emuna. In other words, he’d be a proper role model and teach his offspring to act just like he does.
One may ask, why is Abraham the forefather of the Jewish people? Noah was also upright, as were Shem and Ever, his son and great grandson. The reason is that Noah, Shem, and Ever were pious, but they made do with their own piety. They didn’t make an effort to teach the subsequent generations. If they had a son or grandson that took interest – fine; if not, they continued on with their own studies, and let their offspring go in whatever direction they pleased, right or wrong. Such a laissez faire education system led to all kinds of evil.
Avraham, Isaac, and Jacob, on the other hand, actively taught their kids.
Tradition tells us that a person’s favorable judgment in the Heavenly Court after he finishes his term of service in this world is conditional; one doesn’t earn his or her permanent place in Gan Eden until the Heavenly Court sees how the subsequent three generations turn out. In other words, once your great-grandchildren are living lives of emuna, you get your permanent penthouse in Paradise.
Even more important than our own future rewards is that if we don’t teach our children, we completely miss our mission in life.
Educating children is like flying a jet airplane – first, you can’t fake it. Either you know how to fly the thing or you don’t. Second, the tiniest mistake can lead to tragic results. Many unthinking parents destroy their own children with their own two hands.So, you can’t lie in child education; you can’t ad lib or fake it. Educating children reflects the real inner dimensions of a parent, as they are reflected on a child. Therefore, you can go through the motions in business, or you can fool your teachers in school, but in child education you can’t fake it. What you truly know or don’t know reflects on your children.
Here are a few common mistakes in child education, the type of approaches that definitely backfire:
1. Do as I say (not as I do) – no child can stomach hypocrisy; kids “off the derech” often reflect parents that are “off the derech”.
2. Force feeding – in Jewish religious law, force-feeding is cruelty to animals and forbidden. So, if it’s not acceptable for geese, and goes against several clauses of halacha, so why should it be OK for children? Proper child education is never by coercion, but by personal example. Kids have finely developed radar that hones in on inconsistency and hypocrisy.
3. Lack of parental motivation, sincerity and conviction – Our sages teach us that things from the heart penetrate the heart. A parent can’t teach what he or she doesn’t believe in; you can’t educate a child in neatness or orderliness when the parent is slovenly. Let’s take another example – laziness of parents. If a parent can’t wake up, why is he yelling at the kids when they don’t get up on time? Late-rising parents almost always run a chaotic household. It’s really important that a child leaves home for school on the right foot in the morning, after eating and drinking, at the child’s own natural pace, and with a blessing. The child can’t do that if the under-motivated parent is still wallowing in bed, especially when he or she was awake half the night wasting time on Facebook.
4. Expecting children to be miniature adults – another fallacy in child education is when the parents demand that the children are miniature adults. Children have different needs at different developmental stages – healthy children should grow up naturally, and behave according to their particular age. In other words, they should be allowed to play! Take the pacifier, for example. I once knew two professional parents who didn’t let their 3-yr. old have a pacifier. Ultimately, that child will be doomed to neuroses, because his wasn’t allowed to be a child.
5. Museum-director mothers – these are the ones who are sticklers for cleanliness and order; they place more importance on their Persian rugs or Italian velvet sofas rather than on the souls of their children. Usually, they’re yelling at their kids all day long. The message they give is to live for material things, and that we are to serve the things rather than the things serving us. Mothers who are compulsive about cleanliness usually raise kids that are nervous, disoriented, and insecure.
A child needs to play, he needs to grow naturally, just like a plant needs to grow naturally with its own requirements. Where there’s no sunlight, the plant dies. When mothers and fathers rob the loving parental illumination from their children, the children wither. Spiritually speaking, the child’s needs at various stages in life are the very light of his or her tender soul.
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