Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Parenting Part 4

[Music] do [Music] good evening today we're continuing learning about parenting from the book spare the child and today is a very important class last week we started chapter 2 developing the points and here we will try to explain the difference between proper education and control so last week we defined it and we said that education focuses on the future it is something that we do now to influence the child's behavior now and into the future and the future is the main thing even if the child will not follow our instructions now but as long as they they hear the message and we give them a good feeling about it they will eventually do it because as they mature they will realize the importance of it and our standing on top of them will no longer be a deterrent sometimes our forcing them to do it serves as an obstacle they really want to do the right thing but they want to feel independent and when we stand on top of them they say no i don't want to do it so late in life when they become independent they say now i can do the right thing and what did my parents tell me oh that's what i'm gonna do because really all along i knew it was the right thing i just didn't want to do it because my parents were forcing me so that's the idea of even if your parent if your children don't do it now eventually they will because you gave them a good feeling about and you inform them whereas control focuses on the here and now it is something that we do to influence the child's behavior only in the present without lasting effect and uh one of the examples is when parents want to show off how good their child is when there are guests and the parents say oh serve this bring this clean up this and they hope that the child will to do because that will reflect well upon the the parent and if the child refuses then the parent gets angry oh what do you mean in front of my um guests you didn't listen and and the struggle of egos begins so we have to be very careful though when we exercise control of our children it is for their benefit because at that moment control is necessary now when do we use control and when do we need and that's what this chapter is about the following will show us how to di how the difference between hindu and control plays out in practical terms we are on page 22 of the book he quotes a person who attended one of his classes and this is how he worded it i sometimes think that the best advice i can offer parents is stop your education stop your renewal sometimes in trying to educate the child the parent only does damage hassaslum and in the the previous chapter we saw a few examples of that too often it's just so clear that these car these kids fall worse specifically in the areas where their parents invested extra hinuk efforts we hear this from the children themselves and we also hear parents saying time and time again but we worked so hard specifically in this area how is it that this is where he fell so badly this heartbreaking question comes from not distinguishing between and control really what they should stop is control and something they never started when these poor parents are asked to describe their immense hinu efforts they invariably describe measures of control not they describe everything they did to get the child to behave correctly in the year and now but they don't speak of any efforts to motivate the child to continue that behavior in the future in other words they invested no effort at all in helping the child like the good behavior and want to choose it on his own this makes it clear how essential it is to understand the difference between and control these parents all along thought they're doing education and when in fact they were just controlling their children control alone is not enough after exercising control and measure must follow control without is pointless at best and harmful in most cases so this is uh one of the rules how to exercise control over your children if you do exercise control you have to make sure to follow up with the measure again is something for future and something that makes the child feel good and want to do it on his own so even if you force your child to behave the way you want don't celebrate that's not the time to stop at that moment you have to continue and you have to inspire the child praise them reward them if necessary and remove the obstacles and and educate them give them information otherwise they'll do it then and they will not do it later or they will actually rebel shalom now he continues at the same time we cannot completely let go of control can't say oh since control is risky i'm not gonna exercise any control that's also not good you cannot engage only in true motivation and encouragement and encouragement builds on a child's successes and sometimes success is only possible after you force the child to do something and we will often have to exert control to get the child to perform in the first place once we have done that we have forced the child to do and again we're talking about young age yes and they did what we forced them to do we can and must take steps to make him feel good about what he did so he will appreciate his own behavior and be motivated to keep it up in the future on his own and this principle will be discussed later at length now it's just introduction of the principles a well-rounded effort involves two stages setting the stage for and sometimes that involves control and number two is the actual the first stage is exerting control by making the child do what he needs to do we set the stage for the actual hinuk that is to follow the second stage which is the real goal is and again that is praising the child making him feel good proud of what he did and encouraging him to continue the behavior a well-rounded measure involves control for the purpose of hinuko an act of control followed by itself the distinction between control and hynuk might sound theoretical but in its practical implications are immense experience shows that most of the educational failures that characterize our times are caused by not recognizing the difference between control and education now note 12 says not expressing enough affection is the root cause of most cases of children who rebel against the parents and what the parents stand for i want to read it again not expressing enough affection is the root cause of most cases of children who rebel against their parents and what the parents stand for even if you are tough even if you are demanding but you love the child and you show it to him the child will be able to handle any demand we're not discussing um children in in this section we're not talking about children who are going to do bad things only but any spectrum where the relationship between children and parents is not the best and we are the performers of children is not what their parents would have hoped for and in many cases it's because the child doesn't feel the love of the parent and therefore the child doesn't feel good about himself doesn't feel about the pair good about the parent it doesn't feel good about what the parent stands for and if that is judaism then the child is very cold towards the judaism and therefore cannot succeed in something you don't like okay now we continue in the book the critical importance of this subject is the basis for the subject of our next chapter control without internalization in internalization is achieved by education our discussion will provide an additional perspective more information and a deeper understanding of the issue and now we turn to page 28 for chapter three we start control without internalization if controlled is used without any education just control in the previous chapter we raised the painful question why so many of our youth failed specifically in the areas where the parents invested their greatest effort our answer was that these tremendous efforts included only control and not actual education while this is true this is partial answer it explains why those special efforts did not provide the desired result but does not explain why they caused harm and i explained myself a little bit why they cause harm but let's see what the author says these parents claim that their children's worst failures were particularly in the areas where they invested so much effort apparently the efforts themselves somehow cause the failure if they put in less effort the children would do better surprisingly how does control actually cause harm one of the most basic premises of is the principle that our external actions affect us internally the things we do not only result from our personality and character but they also shape our personality and character we do not because our character tells us sometimes we do because we're forced but once we do it it changes us i might not be a kind individual but if i do acts of kindness because of peer pressure i may one day become a kind person an act of hazard not only results from the middle of hassan it also creates reinforces and develops the middle of herself if the has said kindness is done secretly it also develops the middle of modesty and humility so again doing something good is beneficial for our own character that is why we say that if you have a choice to do a small act of kindness to many people multiple times or a big act of kindness to one person once everything being equal it is better to do what to do many acts of kindness to many people multiple times even though in the quantity putting all that kindness together will be equal to one act of kindness that you did for one individual but in uh the effect it has on your character multiple acts of kindness will have a greater influence on your character because you had to put your hand in your pocket and take out a quarter take out a dollar again and again and again and you asked yourself a question should i give charity to this guy should i give charity to this organization and every time you said yes and every time you practice giving charity and next time you realize it's much easier it becomes natural for me to give charity as opposed to if once a year on yom kippur you donate a huge amount of money to the synagogue for the honor of opening the ark or something like that you gave the same amount as the other person throughout the year but you only forced yourself once the other person multiple times he worked on his character so that's an important uh idea that we don't need the child to become a sadiq to become righteous immediately we don't need them to do everything correctly right away start with little things and at the beginning you have to force them control that they should do it because as they do it the exercise they and and the that is the training that's why the first 13 years of a child's life he doesn't have to perform its vote because it's only a training ground and being that it is a training ground we don't have to be so harsh with them do a little bit receive praise do a little bit receive encouragement do a little bit i take you out for pizza they should feel good that they're capable and they appear they see that their parents are happy about them they're successful and success breeds success overcoming the urge to do something wrong is not only the result of fear of god and self-control it actually helps develop and self-control which means if sometimes you are forced to do what's right and not to do bad because maybe someone is looking maybe someone will find out because you feel guilty but it helps you to develop the the character trait of self-control i prove to myself that i don't have to do it if for whatever reason i was uh strong and did not do the wrong thing once even although it was for an ulterior motive but next time i will be able to do it for the right reason because my muscle of self-control is being built and therefore whenever we see the child stopping himself from doing wrong we have to notice it we don't shouldn't just say to yourself to ourselves oh good this time he behaved well i'm not going to scream at him and ignore it no whenever you see the child either doing something positive you have to encourage him to reinforce that behavior or whenever you see the child not doing something bad you have to point it out and praise them as well to make them feel good for exercising self-control so again overcoming the urge to do something wrong actually helps to develop iraq fear of hashem and self-control so we refer to this principle as internalization you do something for an external reason someone was watching someone forced you but then the benefit that it does for you the strengthening of your muscle for that good behavior is called internalization when the person's external action connects with the person himself is integrated into his personality and shapes and reinforces his character that is the definition of internalization and we have this in our torah sources our sages say in sephirah man is affected by his actions his heart and thoughts are always drawn after the actions he engages in for the heart follows the actions that's the the important rule over here the heart or the mind or the character follows the action you do something multiple times eventually you become better you smile a lot you become happy you give a lot you become kind you control your anger you become patient and the good thing is by doing small things you also help and later you will be able to overcome big challenges now this principle often seems to come conflict with reality and we see that many children are doing everything correctly when they're young and then when they grow up they abandon their way why why were they not affected by their actions why didn't so many years of authentic torah life imbue them with iron self-control they lived in a household where there were rules and they were being forced controlled punished and they went to yeshiva with arabia and their principle in the masjid and all controlled and screamed at them and gave them detentions after and they they did well they didn't uh punch each other in the eye they didn't uh take away toys they didn't have food fight and they seemed to be praying beautifully why when they grew up and they left elementary school or they left their parents home all of a sudden they are not enthusiastic why didn't it cause them to aspire for exalted lives of purity and spiritual growth and here he wants to give example from non-jewish history to show that this is human nature the russian cossacks of earlier times were famous for their speed and energy they carried out grueling missions with lightning speed and grim determination ferociously overcoming anyone and anything that stood in their way the term kassad was used to expre to express intense energy speed and determination however surprisingly as soon as these kazakhs retired they often underwent an extreme change these same quick determined man previously the picture of speed and energy would live out the rest of their years sprawled lazily in front of tavern ovens as soon as they would retire from the army you could find them in masses drunk lazy wasting their years how did these seemingly strong men remain unaffected by their actions they were running for decades riding horses fulfilling their their missions and as soon as they finish their army duty no sign of alacrity no sign of punctuality no sign of purpose what happened why didn't 25 years of energetic service turn into inherent traits why didn't they become energetic and enthusiastic actually hafez heim asked this question we're now on page 26 and explain for all these years those soldiers were actually running toward their warm spot by the fireplace when they can drink and enjoy their stupor which means for 25 years what was in their mind alcohol and a warm place to sleep so they did not allow their actions to penetrate their character their goal was not to do good and to become great the goal was just to get over with this service and retire they spend their lives dreaming of the day they would be released from the army and would be able to spend their lives in lazy abandon in other words a person's actions will influence him internally only if he wants them to as in therapy they say if you go to a therapist and you want him to help only then he can help you if someone is forcing you to go to a therapist no therapist will be able to help you if you don't open your mind and you don't want to be helped it's not going to help as they say in other words you can lead the horse to the water but you cannot force it to drink so same with our poor kids when we force them and they have to perform their duties but in their mind they're only thinking when will the half an hour of my tutoring session be finished and i'm gonna run outside and play freely when will the rebbe stop talking and i'll go to recess when will the last kardashians the synagogue be said and i'll go out to eat challenge and really even though they're doing all the good things their mind is not there their heart is not there they're wishing when will its finish and when it does finish and no one is standing upon them they like a spring that you press and then you release they fly away and they have they want nothing to do with their previous life why because we did not develop the desire in them when a person's desires or at least when a person desires or at least does not resist the influence of his actions they will affect him internally and become part of who he is but if he doesn't want that to happen and feels that these actions are being forced on him against his will they will have the opposite effect and we see that in a in a yeshiva many boys and girls come to yeshiva boys from non-religious families to kiruvushivod and we tell them about hashem we tell them about torah we tell them about all the proofs that the there is god and the torrent signs and everything some of them become inspired and become religious some of them some of them become unaffected they just listen and they leave and they continue doing whatever they use to do why what's the difference one wanted to find the truth he wanted to be convinced in the right way he said yes please help me to find the truth convince me i'm willing to do it just show me and the other one said i'm not interested i'm going back my pleasures my life is waiting for me something forced me to come either a free trip or my parents or my my um friends or they promised me a monetary payment so i'm coming uh when is it gonna be finished just give me my ticket give me my money give me uh freedom and that's it and they go back unaffected they heard all the proofs they heard all the the beautiful stories and inspiration they are not affected why because they don't want to be affected and not only that it may actually have an opposite effect because now they're going to say yes i heard everything and didn't affect me must be it's not true and when in fact they didn't pay attention to anything they didn't want they were closed-minded but they think they listened and now that means that they don't have to listen anymore there is no truth in it shalom and that's why you find boys and girls who live the religious way of life if you approach them and say let me tell you let me tell you an inspirational idea they'll say no no i went to yeshiva i went to elementary school and then my parents put me in a public high school so i went to yeshiva i already know what it is i would i would tell them elementary school you're not learning anything you're only learning aleph bed you learn only learning how to read the siddhur you learn only learning a little bit about homage but you're not learning anything about torah anything about life anything about hashem any philosophy they don't teach you in elementary school and sometimes a person says yeah yeah i went to high school yeshiva high school and then i left i went to college and i forgot everything but i know i know what judaism is about no in high school there's barely time to teach you any judaism it's mainly babysitting uh just controlling the class and teaching you what you need for regions and other other technical stuff nobody is teaching you inspiration love for hashem fear of hashem love for the jewish people desire to serve hashem you don't find that in high school you have to do it on your own and why because in high school they're not capable of doing because most kids in high school don't want to be there and if they don't want to be there even if the rabbi is great even as if the menaah and are great and they give great inspiration if children don't want to be in school they're dreaming about basketball about girls about drugs hustle shalom they're not going to get anything from school and so somehow someone who did go to yeshiva and comes out and he had his mind closed all along might think that yes i heard all the lectures in fact he didn't hear anything his mind was closed so we have to be very careful that in our forcing the children we have to touch their heart as one of the one of the rabbis said that if you want to get your children interested in judaism you have to approach boys and girls differently for boys you have to put a smile on their face when the boys are enjoying a good a good story a good joke their mind will be opened up they're happy with life and then you can tell them about their obligations and for girls you have to put a tear in their eyes you have to tell them stories that that touch their heart that make them cry make them make them emotional and then you can tell them about their obligations but if it's dry for both boys and girls this is what you have to do this is the halacha why did you say the bracha you have to stand like this you have to eat like this you have to do like this they remain unaffected not only that they can actually develop an aversion to it that is why those cossacks develop their extreme laziness not despite the energy they displayed previously but because of it every time they put in energy in their mind that energy was bringing them closer to their lazy rest if we win against this enemy if we conquer this city maybe the king will grant us vacation and we will be able to be drunk for the next month and that laziness developed into a pathological laziness which surfaced as soon as they were no longer forced to perform this is not just another aspect of human nature but rather it is the fundamental aspect of human nature man was created as a bokeh someone who chooses we have freedom to choose and we have to exercise that free choice if we don't if choices are made for us we never change we never develop because we only develop when we choose to do the right thing to operate with a free choice the power of of choice is the most important part of who we are and it fundamentally defines the essence and purpose of man means that we're free to decide what we want and what we don't want this ultimately changes into the decision of what to seek in life and what to try to eliminate from our life that's very dangerous if it's misused misapplied if the parent will give a good feeling about judaism then the child will choose judaism if the parent will give a negative feeling about judaism then the child will naturally choose a path away from judaism while we might be able to control what the child does or does not do no one can control the child's inner inner choice not the parent not the teacher not even the king like we explained in the story about the british ever rebbe who found jews right before pesach and he asked them if they have any comments they said no no no we don't and he asked them do you have any contraband any forbidden substance and they said sure for the right price will do anything and he turned to hashem and he said hashem look at your your precious children they have no policemen over them who tell them remove comments from your houses no judges no punishment and still they listen to you of their own choice and where's the king he makes rules he puts policemen he puts punishments judges prisons and nobody cares people are still doing what's wrong in the eyes of the king because control doesn't help we still have a choice if we think it's right we're gonna do it if we think it's wrong we're not going if someone else tells us it's the right thing and we think it's wrong we're not gonna do it so we cannot control what the child will want and what he will reject because a person's behera is the essence of who he is and losing the power of free choice is like losing one's identity as a human being and one's whole point the purpose in life and therefore if we do succeed in taking away the child's behera we may find shalom that this child will get lost he will very likely commit suicide because a person whose freedom of choice is taken away does not have desire to live and if we force them to follow mitzvot or any thing that we want them to do and they feel that they don't have ability to choose they will resist as much as possible because it's equivalent of dying submitting to someone's forceful request and by the way for the husbands and wives out there this is an important lesson when you make a demand of your spouse you are actually making it harder for them to perform even more than with a child it works with an adult if you make them feel that they don't have a choice they will rebel and they'll prove to you that they do have a choice on the other hand if you present it to them here make a choice what would you like to do you can do this or you can do this i would personally like this if you can accommodate me i would really love this but you're free to decide please choose to your liking then the person will be almost forced to choose what you want why because you gave them the choice and we feel scared how can i give them a choice what if they will not do what i want and in fact that is the best way to encourage someone to do what you want by giving them a choice and telling them that my desire is this but you're free to do what you want and that's that's and that's a great secret for a wife to help her husband do what she wants and that's a great secret for the husband to help his wife do what he wants just to express your desire and give them the choice with children at a young age we still have ability to force them but as they grow it has to be changed to expressing your desire as a parent and because of your relationship with them they will want to do the right thing of course i want to do my parents desire because i want to make them happy they're so good to me they've done so much for me and they give me so much freedom of course i want to be a good child of course i want to make them happy that's the ideal relationship between parents and children when parents don't have to repeat themselves when parents don't have to scream when parents don't have to manipulate their children don't have to bribe don't have to threaten you just request once and the child is happy to abide why because at the young age you through control forced them to do what's right and then you made them feel good about it and you developed in them a desire to do what's right and you show them a lot of love and they want to please you now there is a note 14 on the bottom of page 26 education associates the principle of an individual's being influenced by his actions with the concept of mitochondria which means even if you learn torah and domits vote for an ulterior motive it is still good you should continue doing things for an ulterior motive because involvement in torah and mitzvot will ultimately bring us to do them with the right intent if i learn torah because i will be famous earn money get praise so learning torah makes me feel good and then i will form an association that learning torah is good for me and as i mature i will not need as much the praise and the and the money and the fame i will develop natural desire love for torah it will speak to my mind and my heart more than my negative character traits in that regard it famously applies only if the person does desire to ultimately ultimately come to the right feelings i know the torah is the greatest but i don't want to do it so much but because they're paying me or because they're praising me because i will get the into a good yeshiva a good shidduch okay i'll do it but i know in the back of my mind that really it is the good thing so that will inspire me to do it for the right reason it will give me a good feeling but if to begin with i have no value for it and i'm doing it only selfishly for an ulterior motive then it's not going to change me okay now we are on page 27 therefore we are created with a natural resistant resistance to any form of force and in fact the tamil says that someone who is obligated to do something receives more reward than someone who does it voluntary even though in our society a volunteer is respected more than a worker but in reality someone who has to do it is harder for him a volunteer feels good about it i'm a good person i'm being praised honored because i did it voluntarily so i do it happily but person who has to do it is his job i don't really want to do it i would rather be somewhere else what do they paying me is not enough and i have to wake up early and it's kind of inconvenient so we say that when a person becomes jewish when he converts before he converts he is inspired he wants to do it he wants to try it out he practices mitzvot happily once he converts experience shows that it becomes much harder all of a sudden i don't really want to do it i'm not as excited about it why because now i have to do it so we have to be smart and uh in in addition to forcing our children we have to also inspire them encourage them explain to them why it's important why it's for their benefit we are created with a natural resistance to any form of force including force that stems from a parent's love or from a teacher's sincere dedication if we feel we're being forced we're not given a choice we don't want to do it we were created not to do good but to choose good doing good by force without having chosen to do so is a mechanical and meaningless act this should make us realize that the distinction between control touches on the essence of what man is that is why it's so important to understand this difference forcing a child is beneficial only at a young age and only if it is followed by by proper education but when the child is older and the parent is still forcing him controlling him manipulating him that is not good and very detrimental such a parent is raising an animal and the child if he is smart if he is strong he will rebel against such a parent and that's the right thing to do against such a parent because this parent is taking away his life and taking away his such a child who is doing mitzvot and learning torah without his own choice will not get much reward for it so naturally the nishama also the good inclination wants to rebel and wants to do things on its own because only then the person will get a reward since man is essentially defined as a chooser not merely a doer it should be obvious to any educator that ultimately his job is not simply to get the child to do the right thing by force or the like the function of education is to train the child to want the right thing and to choose it an educator who disregards this basic point and works only with control is attempting to subdue the child's very identity as a human being man is created in such a way that this simply will not work the idea that is about shaping the child's inner world rather than just controlling his external actions becomes obvious but it may be so obvious that it becomes forgotten as the case with with many important ideas we know hashem exists but it's so obvious that we forget about and we don't think about hashem throughout our day we know there is a lama by but we forget about it and we don't think about it when we choose our actions we know many things but we take them for granted and therefore we forget the failure to recognize this point is a common root of almost all of the tragic cases in to which we referred here the bitter mistake of ignoring the child's inner world and focusing only on his external actions creates a reality in which parents and teachers invest major efforts which only cause harm we want to see the child doing good and we concentrate on now only on the immediate action immediate obedience that's why the failure is often worse specifically in the areas where the parents invested their greatest effort as harsh as this may sound we cannot afford to sugarcoat this truth control without equals investing efforts to distance the child from the love of hashem and from service of hashem if we only force our children we are actually distancing them as as he said earlier sometimes he wants to tell parents stop educating your children because your education is not education it is only a form of control and it will not produce long-term effects the opposite it may be actively damaging the child and uh let's take the following case as an example a troubled youth was asked why he values that why the values that were most emphasized in his parents home were those from which he drifted the farthest he said what's so hard to understand they forced it down my throat so now that i'm on my own i want to be free i will not do anything that will remind me of that of when they controlled my life and wouldn't let me do what i want the counselor speaking with the boy said but you do put on tifilin every day you still put on tifilin even though you were forced to do that too not true said the boy when i began putting onto villain i loved it i even enjoyed the smell of the villain when they were new wearing to wearing to film made me feel big and i put them on happily no one ever had to force me to put on mighty filling so even though this is part of judaism and that's part of judaism or whatever his parents forced him he can't physically he cannot do so now you don't keep anything that you were previously forced into after thinking a bit the boy admitted there there were still a few such things that he continued to do because he did not have guts to stop them and how do you feel about them it's what you that you don't have the guts to stop what do you feel when you do do them the boy became red and he said i feel hatred i'm too weak to stop doing those mitzvot i'm scared and i still do it but i hate it what do you mean i feel like i hate myself i hate my past and yes i hate this mitzvot this brings out another important point even if the child does not have the guts to stop doing the things he's used to doing he performs them feeling as if he must what will people say how will people look at me will i ever get married will i ever find the job if i publicly become not jewish shalom but he performs them feeling as if there is a gun to his head so such performance is still not what we desire in the better cases he does so this interestingly and mechanically in the worst cases he does so bitterly and resentfully is this that of hashem the servant of hashem we are striving to produce is our glorious vision of hinok to raise people who will carry out their duties with a sense of bitterness resentment and frustration so we summarize this chapter introduced the concept of internalization which means education that starts with control encourages the child to do it and then makes him feel good about it and the child says oh i like it i want to do it and now the internalization happens he makes a decision that it's good for him that he wants it and he decides to continue doing it for the rest of his life any measures that cause internalization is a chinook measure any measure that does not cause this positive choice decision to continue doing it because i feel good about it is control yes you you force the child to do it now but it didn't make him feel good at best it didn't distance him at best it didn't give him a negative feeling about it but it will not help him to continue doing it in the future we learned in this chapter that a parent or teacher who fails to distinguish between proper education control is not just missing the mark but he's actively ruining the child if the child is not internalizing the things we impose upon him those duties will feel forceful and give rise to resistance and repulsion so in short must create internalization and that means we have to train the child to choose good to inspire him to want the right values and to incorporate them control without means getting the child to perform properly without taking measure that will cause him to internalize the desired behavior or action such control is insufficient and it may promote damage next chapter we will introduce another concept called association again this chapter we define the difference between control and and hinouk education and we combine them through internalization that both control and education are necessary but only if control leads to education and that whole process is called internalization thank you for listening um we should all have success with our children we should inspire them to be good and we should see the fruits of of our labor thank you have a great day