So the Torah Is a Parenting Guide?

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:25:22 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

By EMILY BAZELON

Published: October 1, 2006

In the third century, the rabbis who put together the Talmud instructed fathers to teach their sons to swim. It’s safe to say that most American Jews aren’t familiar with this directive, whether or not they take their kids to the lake or the pool. But one morning this past summer, a group of mostly non-Jewish parents puzzled over its meaning in a classroom at the Carolina Day School, a nonsectarian private school in Asheville, N.C.

These mothers and fathers were accidental students of Judaism. They had come together because they often felt flattened by achieving the modern ideal of successful children. They were seeking relief in a weeklong course based on the book “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children,” by a Los Angeles clinical psychologist named Wendy Mogel.

Genevieve Fortuna, a 58-year-old former preschool teacher who has been teaching classes on raising children for 30 years, wrote the Talmudic quote about swimming in blue marker on the classroom’s white board. The half-dozen or so parents, dressed in summer-casual shorts and sandals, looked up at her from their seats around two child’s-height tables. Fortuna opened her copy of Mogel’s book. “Jewish wisdom holds that our children don’t belong to us,” she read. “They are both a loan and a gift from God, and the gift has strings attached. Our job is to raise our children to leave us. The children’s job is to find their own path in life. If they stay carefully protected in the nest of the family, children will become weak and fearful or feel too comfortable to want to leave.”

Tags: kids, parenting, children, child-rearing, torah, religon, jewish

10 Things I Learned from My 4-Year-Old

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:48:58 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: www.steve-olson.com

10 Things I Learned from My 4-Year-Old

To use positive words
One evening at the dinner table my son said, “Dad this food is disgusting.” I thought - where did that word come from? Another time while I was explaining the rules to a game he said, “Now that’s just ridiculous.” A minute later he said, “this is stupid, I give up.” At that moment it dawned on me… He’s getting this stuff from me. From now on I better choose my words carefully.

When my son was born, I imagined how I would teach him about life. Little did I know that he would be the teacher. He taught me:

To look for opportunity everywhere
My son views the entire world and every new person, new object, or new event as an opportunity to learn something. When a new person walks in the room he wants to know who they are and if they would like to play. If I drop a new object into a cluttered room, he will spot it, touch it, pick it up, ask questions about it. Nothing new goes unnoticed.

A new synonym for persistence
Santa Claus brought my son a white board and a set of dry erase makers for Christmas (can you tell I’m in IT). My son learned to write very early. He spent months obsessed with writing letters on the white board. One day I looked at the board while he was writing and I saw this combination of capital letters - SHHANDSHOWBO. He also knows how to sound out words, so I asked him what it was. He said, “It’s a word I made up - Sha-hand-show-bo.” I asked, “What does it mean?” He said, “To keep trying even when it’s hard.” Now when I get frustrated I think - Sha-hand-show-bo.

Tags: lessons, life, learning, kids, postivie thoughts

Clipmarks | rmowery's ChildRearing collection

So the Torah Is a Parenting Guide?

10 Things I Learned from My 4-Year-Old

10 Things I Learned from My 4-Year-Old