Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Parenting Part 1

[Music] do [Music] good evening today are starting the new series on parenting based on the book of rav yakovson this is the book in english it was translated only a couple years ago but it has been available in hebrew for many many years rav jakobson is a a known and very successful means educator in israel and he has given a lot of lectures a lot of guidance to many parents and teachers and hashem now we have opportunity to learn his method and his method is based in large part on rav walbe the great masjid who wrote a leisure who is the the leader of many generations and um he is um an authority also on and rave wrote a a great little book called planting and building so planting and building is a brief exposition and spear the child again this is the book spare the child it's available in stores now or online is a more detailed explanation of the system so i have to start by saying that of course people ask what is the proper time to learn about hinok and our sages answer that the the way you teach your children the way you educate your children is by first making yourself a better person when when a person makes himself educated and what i mean educated means becoming someone who can make proper moral choices someone who is in control of his own character someone who is in control of his own desires passions only then we can educate our children properly as our sages point out that only the person who is in control of himself can control others if you as a parent have a problem unfortunately you can expect that a similar problem will appear in the child both on a spiritual level and practically if a parent does not fix problems in themselves these problems will repeat in the lives of children and therefore it's never too early to start working on educating your children even before you are married you should already plan how you are going to raise your children and work on yourself first if you are married and you ha you don't have children yet or you have small children it's a perfect time to start on uh getting tools for educating your children and again first you have to work on yourself so having said that it's never too early and the first step is working on yourself finding out your values fixing your character working on your desires will guarantee that your child will be more successful and your relationship with them will be better and um now the second thing to to keep in mind is that it is not a one-time um process prior thing it's a it's a life-long process we have a child and we start working on him from birth until we leave the world of course the older the child gets the less ability we have to influence them and therefore the earlier you start the better it is but it's never too late and even when they grow up we can still help to guide them how by by keeping our relationship clean clear and uh therefore they will turn to us for guidance and uh in times of need they will come back or as they mature they will appreciate us as parents more so even if a person is not successful at the beginning he should not give up never lose hope the child matures the child changes the child may show that he absorbed all the lessons you gave them and when they grow up and they mature they will surprise you by doing things and living life the way you taught them so never turn your back on a child never let your hands fall continue doing pulling in effort putting in the input into your child constantly we we never know what seeds that we plant it will take root and when okay and now let us begin he has introduction and i will quickly go through the introduction would you like me to go live on facebook yes for those who just joined we are learning the book of ravi hil yaakov's son spare the child that is based on his great experience and in large part on rav walber's book planting and building and now we are starting the the preface about this book recent decades have witnessed dramatic changes in lifestyle and social norms the world over we know that we grew up in a different culture many of us came from a different country our parents were not the same as we are the media the internet technology everything's different the political situation is different the standard of living is different changes most of which were not quite positive from the torah perspective have presented the world of torah education with very unique challenges not only we live in a different world than our parents lived but in most areas it's a worse world than the world that our parents live and there are uh books written on how parents that lived 50 years ago 100 years ago did not need any books on how to raise children and children grew up good and they were respectful to their parents and they had goals and they were successful individuals and no one was depressed and there was no suicide and there was no drug abuse how is it possible that parents of old were able to raise respectful children without any education and the answer is because the whole society functioned in a better way where there was respect of younger generation towards the older generation and the parents were not scared of their children everyone knew that the older you are the more you know now unfortunately many such things changed society now is a greater threat and the environment that we live in puts an adult down and raises a child high up and therefore when a parent comes to say something to the child the parent has inferiority complex and the child feels that he is the boss so in such in such environment it is very difficult to raise a child to preserve the old standard of authentic torah chinook means education of children it became necessary to inner innovate original approaches and creative techniques we now have to invent methods techniques whole books are written on how to raise a child something that was natural something that every parent knew how to do this struggle has over the years produced a wealth of experience which provides ample response to the challenges of our our times at the same time we are lucky that we are not at the beginning of that change 30 years ago it was much harder even 20 years ago now hashem not only the society downgraded but our educational system upgraded and therefore there is a balance where the natural parental authority is missing now parents can supplement it and and improve their their their skills by taking courses and reading books or hashem this is more and more available to date much of this experience has remained in the private domain of those working in the field of education and largely unavailable to the public the purpose of this book is to change that to make this information available to all parents and teachers it brings together the experience accumulated by a broad body of parents teachers and rabbis means rabbis that work with students personally in yeshiva and those that that work on uh raising the standard of of teachers among the jewish communities all over the world and counselors this is one of the reasons that throughout this work the first person usages are expressed in the plural we and not in the singular eye because the content of this book is not the product of one individual but of a broad body of people just like a researcher does not present the information that only he found but he reads other papers and he collaborates with many researchers the world over and he summarizes and presents the all the knowledge that that exists to date our unique one unique characteristic of this book is that it presents a uniform and consistent approach reflecting a clear central theme this theme provides parents and teachers with a perspective which will enable them to utilize any previous experience and knowledge they may have along with any further insights they will learn or discover in a more educated and effective manner so this is something to keep in mind that there are certain basics that if you have them you're already halfway there and you can build on it certain basics are true no matter what culture you're from no matter what time you live in and no matter what method you decide to use certain basics are always there so this book will will explain to us these basics and then any other system you learn will only improve your uh your skills it will not interfere with it once the educator or the parent clearly grasps and appreciates the concept we're trying to convey he will be in the position too number one select the educational ideas that will work best for his purposes and number two analyze the effect of his past educational efforts and draw on them for the future if you are in the dark if you don't know what method you're using you're just trying whatever uh you happen to uh think of of at that moment you can't grow on your experience because you don't know what you did you did you do last time i just happened to to say something that worked or it didn't work and i don't know why and i don't know how to improve it because i don't know what method i use but once you are aware of the foundations of education you will be able to build on it to learn from your mistakes and to learn from your successes now as we have said the uniqueness of this work lies in its uniform and consistent approach based on the broad synthesis of accumulated experience but this can become a problem if the reader decides to adopt these ideas blindly without studying scrutiny processing and integrating them we therefore caution the reader this is a course this is an undertaking that will produce great results but only if you put in time only if you stick with it from beginning till the end so a few words of caution do not accept or implement anything that you do not connect with this is a very important idea generally in everything you study if you don't feel that this is right for you then don't do it because if you don't understand how and why or you don't agree with it you're not gonna do it well and then it will fail and then you'll be disappointed if you feel that you have a negative feeling towards it this method or this system this idea i can't do on my child don't use it until you clarify it until you understand it better because education is not a matter of technical skill or a profession that can be learned by mastering information our hinok will be effective only if it comes from us as the product of our minds and hearts as our sages say what comes from within your heart will penetrate the heart of your child and if it's only coming from your brain it will not have an effect on their heart they will see and they will despise it they will say i know my parent is trying to control me they're trying to use that system on me and i don't like it nobody likes to the feeling that i am a guinea pig my my parent is just using the the textbook techniques nobody will respond well to it and sometimes the the the child will do the opposite they will say i know what you're doing i know what you want me to do and i'm on purpose not gonna do it because i don't like your approach you're just doing it without your heart just your mind just by wrote you heard it and you're just repeating the information without any feeling without concern for me as the child they will not respond well our hindu will be effective only if it comes from us as the product of our minds and hearts has to be personal and the educator or the parent has to operate with a clear perspective of what he is doing and why he is not a construction worker following instructions and rules rather the educator the parent is an engineer who plans the project understands its needs and envisions the effects of the measures he decides to use therefore a good mechanic a good educator or a parent works only with ideas he identifies with and appreciates and just like an engineer even though he has a grand plan and blueprints but once the project is in progress he will oversee it and if he sees that something needs adjustment he will change the plans so too a parent cannot follow blindly the advice they have to understand it so that if something doesn't go the way they expected they can stop they can rethink and they can adjust the person who who's is composed of a mindless application of anything he has heard or read is headed for failure the fact that an idea appears in print does not just justify its use our hinok our teaching of our children should stem from our personalities and hearts not from books alone and therefore just like with everything in life you learn the same book but you will understand it differently than other people and you will apply it differently than other parents depending on your character your preferences and depending on your child the following quote illustrates this point and now and throughout the book he often quotes parents or students or children or teachers who he guided and counseled and they communicate with him whether something works or not and they express the concern so to tell you the truth i don't understand you i'm surprised that you worked so hard to convince my father to tell me that he loves me imagine this is a child writing or speaking to ravi agusan and he tells him i don't understand why did you tell my father to tell me that he loves me did you really think it would help did you really think you'd be able to squeeze some warmth out of my iceberg over father when he told me that he loves me i just felt his hate even more when he said it his face was as sour as spoiled milk so this is a sad example that when a parent just repeats the information they heard he just uses blindly the instructions the technique that the the the so others use it's not going to work and the child will see that it's fake the parent has to understand why he's doing it what he's trying to achieve and he has to change his relationship with a child education has to come from love from care from concern not for an ulterior motive not because i'm sick and tired not because i'm embarrassed of my child not because i expect something from my child it has to come only from my concern my love my respect for my child and therefore every new idea we learn we have to understand it it has to change our personality our approach to our child has to change and only then we will be able to use that technique this is a stark example of the point we're making clearly the advice this father received to express his love for his son openly is correct and healthy of course a parent should tell his children that he loves them but how should that be done not the way this this parent did it yet not only did it fail to accomplish anything it was actually counterproductive instead of bringing father and son closer it distanced them even more and maybe some of you will understand what i'm talking about those people who learned psychology or they learned communication books and now they're starting to use those techniques on you and you see that they're faking it you see that they don't mean it they smile fakely they give you compliments in a fake way and they use these techniques to convince you to manipulate you and that doesn't feel good so if you don't feel it in your heart don't use the technique you have to first develop the love and respect for your child and then you express and then the child will believe you because it is true this is because the father did not really connect to the advice he received so it did not come from him he did not try to understand and appreciate how important it is for his son to hear that he is loved nor did he try to envision the type of experience that this statement was meant to create or to ponder how he the father could express it in a heartfelt way in order to create that effect instead he took the advice as a technical instruction and followed it mechanically predictably enough this forced and unnatural expression of love did not help it just distanced his son even more because the son saw that the father is insincere that the father doesn't care that the father is lying and that put a further block between the son and the father next time when the father will try to be sincere the son will already expect that the father is faking it again we therefore repeat and in fact beg our listeners do not obey the content of this book but rather learn it a book on is not an instruction manual for handling children it calls on the reader to study the material carefully until he appreciates it internalizes it and feels ready to implement it naturally if the ideas in this book appeal to appeal to your intelligence and sensibility and you come to appreciate the truth and revel and relevance you will gain from them immensely but again only if you appreciate their truth and relevance if you internalize this idea and feel ready to implement them you you will learn to apply them in the right way at the right time and in the right place if you are unsure or hesitant about them you can experiment allow yourself trial and error and analyze the results with a critical eye if you find ideas in this book unappealing even after studying them carefully contemplating them and cautiously experimenting with them then you'd be better off disregarding them entirely they're not for you this is a very important advice and it goes for any other book that you learn on education if you feel you don't agree with the method don't use the method we therefore style this book as a textbook if you will it is not intended to be an easy read and it is not an easy read and many people that i suggested to purchase this book they followed my advice and they reported later that it's difficult they were not successful in understanding and implementing this and this is one of the reasons why we decided to create this group where we study this book together so that we can talk about it and we can um clarify the the every point we poured a lot of effort into phrasing the material meticulously and we're very exacting in our choice of words and definitions we also made a special effort to connect the reader to the ideas by illustrating them with live and relevant illustrations now one point of clarification the book includes many real life examples and quotes this calls for clarification of course all stories examples and quotes have been changed drastically in order to disguise who we're talking about and therefore don't try to think oh i know this person i know who he's talking about because most of the time the the roles of father and mother were reversed the first person with third person some settings were changed adjusted or omitted many identifying details many of these stories and examples have been shared in public forms of the over the last 30 years even when used the first time the stories had been severely altered and with time they were altered more and more to adjust it to to have the greatest impact so you can say that stories in this book are based on true stories but they are not what actually happened thus even when the particular story has two variations neither one reflects the actual story which means if you hear the same story from different sources and some details are changed the answer is both of these stories are not exact because whoever made up this story changed as much as possible all details he just left the punch line many of these stories have been copied by others over the years in books articles pamphlets and so on and this has produced even more variations but none of these sources were actually aware of the true original story and this just as an aside teaches us that sometimes you can even invent your own story we call it a mashal we call it a parable just a story that is used to illustrate the point and even though every story in this book is based on the true story but in order to make the point to come across better we are allowed to change the details and this is by the way an advice for parents if you want to teach your children a very good powerful method is through stories you can say your your personal stories and if necessary you can invent stories and you can adjust what happened in your life the point is that as long as you are trying to relay a good message the story really doesn't matter as long as it does it successfully some of the quotes are sharp bitter caustic though we did re rephrase some of them as mentioned above we made the point of preserving their original tone and feel so as to convey an accurate and authentic perspective to ease sensitive minds the vast majority of these unpleasant excerpts have never been seen by the person to whom they were addressed often they were said or written in the course of counseling or rehabilitation sessions like we read the story on the previous page that a son was complaining that the father miss applied the advice given to him by rav yaakovson of course rav yaakovson never told the father what the son thought of him often they were said or written in the course of counsel or rehabilitation sessions in order to provide relief for the individual involved by enabling him to express or unload his feelings as an important remedial step they were not expressed for the purpose of actually passing them on and this is a very important idea that a parent must also use the concept of confidentiality when dealing with the other parent or with child or with a few children one child should not know what's going on with the other child unless it concerns him and even the parent if you can handle the situation and not tell your spouse what the child said about them that would be better okay now the structure of this book the crux of the approach presented in this book is the distinction between which means education and control this is the main point of this book and that's what we need to understand we'll spend a lot of time explaining what is education and what is just plain control there is a time and place for each one of them sometimes we need control but most of the time we need education education alone without control is not sufficient and control alone without education is dangerous in order for the book to reflect this theme throughout we have structured the book around this distinction part one develops and elaborates on the fundamental point differentially differentiating between education and control part two addresses the areas of child rearing that come under the category of control when control is necessary and how to use it part three addresses the areas of child rearing that come under the category of of education by it's so therefore it's very important not to stop in the middle if you only learn about control but not education it's not going to be good therefore try to go through this book from beginning till end understanding every part of it by its nature the subject matter of part one is more of a theoretical study than a body of practical instruction its purpose is to convey the core approach rather than its practical implementation again in part one we are going to learn the difference between control proper education and control we're not going to learn specific methods for education specific methods of control we will just mention generally the differences of the two approaches and therefore it's just as introduction however even a reader who is only interested in the practical part of the book is advised to read the entire book from beginning to end at least once each chapter builds on concepts and principles that were introduced and explained in preceding chapters skipping stages will definitely reduce the benefit of this book and might even result in harmful mistakes and misunderstandings okay now we have concluded the introduction the preface and now with god's help we start the book itself this is page nine of the book chapter one control versus chinook and he starts by quoting a verse in michele in proverbs train a child according to his way so that also when he grows old he will not depart from it general idea of this verse is you have to find a personalized approach for each child train the child according to his way because if you try to break the child if you try to go against his nature when he grows up and you no longer exercise control over him he will throw off everything you taught him and he will go back to his path but if you allow him to grow in the way that he he is designed by his creator and you just direct him a little bit to a better direction and you give him tools to succeed with his innate qualities that will be real education real and he will keep it with him why because he will realize that it's helping him instead of working against him and that the first opportunity he'll throw it off he will see that it's helping him to go in the direction that he wants to make him more successful and now he quotes the vilna gaon grab and i'll read just the english train the child to do its vote so that when he grows old he will not depart from them but if you force him against his nature he will obey you now since he fears you since he's smaller he is weaker but afterwards once he is free of your control he will depart from it now ramhao by telling us that hashem created us because he wanted to treat us to the greatest pleasure that could possibly exist god created us to give us pleasure greatest pleasure what is that pleasure closeness to god himself god puts us here and he gave us his torah and mitzvot only because he wants to give us this enjoyment ramhal adds that everything about our lives should be focused on achieving this pleasure our goal in life is to be most successful to achieve the greatest pleasure and we learn that the greatest pleasure is knowledge of god closeness to god of course we will only experience the full extent of their pleasure in allah mabai in the next world when we will actually be able to feel the entire reward without any physical limitation but the process begins here in our lifetime we cannot truly dedicate our life to the service of hashem without tasting the joy and pleasure of spiritual life here in this world adult servants of hashem are largely motivated by pleasure and the joy that they experience now in their spiritual endeavors you will be much more successful if what pushes you is enjoyment of mitzvot enjoyment of learning torah enjoyment in doing kindness much more than the fear because the the the pleasure and and joy will produce the feelings of elevation fulfillment and closeness to hashem if we want to raise our children to become dedicated to the service of hashem these feelings are indispensable our main focus should be on positivity on making the lives of our children happy not fear tactics not threats this is the basis of our essential definition of hinok service of hashem and that is the things that we do to cause our children to experience joy and pleasure in youth in spiritual life that's number one what is proper hinuk anything that you do that causes your children to experience joy and pleasure in spiritual life and number two what is anything that causes your children to desire spiritual life and anything that causes your children to learn how to achieve it you want your children again to enjoy spiritual life prayer learning torah doing mitzvot doing kindness you want them to enjoy it you want them to desire more of it and you want to give them knowledge of how to achieve it on their own okay this has to be the over goal of our kino and also the practical guide to every to overall goal of of to and also the practical guide to every detail of our day-to-day again these three ideas we have to keep in mind that our goal is to produce a child into an adult who will know how to enjoy torah and mitzvot and prayer to desire more of it and to know how to achieve it anything that does not connect a child to the joy and pleasure of avoddad hashem of service of god cannot be defined as at best it may be a step leading toward as we will discuss that is the idea of control at the beginning stages of you use control to guide the child and then hopefully once the child practiced the learning the discipline and the mitzvot he will develop enjoyment and love for them however anything that can conflicts with this goal is the exact opposite of even if it relates to the child's torah and mitzvot to put it more clearly and we will finish with this if a parent regularly causes his child to experience negative feelings when he makes him do something related to torah and mitzvot he is actively ruining the child's our goal again is to cause our children to experience joy and pleasure in youth in spiritual life to desire spiritual life and to learn how to achieve it and we have to make sure that we do not cause our children to experience negative feelings when we make them do something related to torah or mitzvot we will stop at this point and bazat hashem next week we will quickly review the beginning of this chapter and we will continue thank you for listening we should have success in raising children is that hashem we should have good children we should have seated the shamaya we should have help from heaven that our efforts should be successful and today is the best day to start it rosh chodesh sivan yesterday we said the prayer the hashem should help us to raise our children well and hashem already answered our prayer by giving us this class hashem and and we should all accept the torah with love the holiday of shavuot is coming in a few days and we should be inspired to follow the spiritual path ourselves and transmitted to our children preset hashem we will meet again um the day after shavuot next wednesday at 8 30. thank you for listening [Music]