Our Family, Our Strength - Principle #5: Education by Emulation - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Abramov

shalom in the twenty five basic principles of Jewish child rearing we are now on principle number five parents have to understand how crucial is their role in educating in the sense that the they are the child's heroes and a large part of educating is by emulation parents are the figures the heroes the children want to emulate and therefore parents have to understand they're constantly with the spotlights on them and their behavior is of extreme importance sometimes much more penetrating and effective is their behavior than what they say if a parent is not consistent with what he says and what he does that's something that confuses the child because the Prime and educating vehicle is children emulate they emulate adults little girl wants to be like a mama and little boy wants to be like his papa they want this figure in their lives and they're going to emulate them so therefore it's in every aspect of our lives children are very carefully watching how our parents are behaving so let's take for example a child parents decide well we're going to start making bra hot in our home blessings before partaking of food a Jew makes many blessings up to 100 blessings a day in the framework of all all blessings blessings is rahat is a very significant part of our service to a xem so it's important that a person is focused when he bled when he makes a bra fire that he has intent that he has cabana so when the child perceives his father or his mother muttering something under their breath without really thinking about it while doing something else and then popping the food into their mouth no no amount of lecturing to children about that you must make your bra hot carefully and allowed is going to help if the parent doesn't do that himself so that's one classic example where we are educated by emulation rather than by what you say right the ideal would be if both I are consistent one of the great great moral teachers of the previous generation rough dessler the famous book my family ow says that acute to be agree to be consistent is a an extraordinary powerful Prince of principle and equally it means that your behavior must be completely consistent with your actions and your speech and what you say so that's something of great importance now let's take another mundane example something goes wrong something doesn't work out so if a father is trying to knock in a nail and the nail goes awry he's doing some home fixing and he tries to knock in a nail and the nail falls out and he makes a loud expression of distaste from what happened and he says some bad word or he he he shows extreme impatient that's training a child the child is watching the father and he is learning that when things don't go right then you can give vent you can give vent you can even matter words which are not in accordance so if someone treads on one's toe and one reacts violently and it's something that's been picked up in the home because I'll bring us our rabbis and the town would bring us many many examples of misbehaviour very often stems from what was observed at home so parents have to be honored by the fact that their children are taking them very seriously and their children are watching their every move and therefore we parents have to be constantly on our toes and and and aware that we are being watched and just purely by emulation the children are absorbing these modes of conduct and behavior into their lives so again we gave the example of an expression of disappointment if something the car doesn't start and person expresses extreme irritation that's something that's going to be absorbed by the child and the child will begin to learn when things don't go right to express extreme irritation you can be sometimes insensitive to others you can sometimes flat lash out at others verbally hopefully not physically but even verbally now the child is learning these things he was absorbing these things purely by emulation even if they were never said even if the country was said but a child is watching parental behavior as opposed to necessarily listening when parents are saying a very positive good message if their message is not consistent with the behavior it's the behavior that will prevail you