MindFlex - Five Ideas to Transform your Parenting with the Buxbaums

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Mind Flex. Tonight is night two of five ideas to transform your relationships. That means tonight we have five fresh new ideas. If you were with us last night, we spoke about five ideas to transform your marriage. Tonight we are going to speak about five ideas to transform your parenting or the relationship that you have with your children. My name is Rabbi Buchsbaum. This is my wife, Sora Buchsbaum. We're very happy to be back on Mind Flex speaking to you out into the wonderful world of Project Inspire and all the amazing things that Project Inspire does and we're excited to spend the next 45 minutes or so together discussing some of the most important relationships that we have in our life, the relationship with our children. Yes. So, we live in Silver Spring, Maryland and we run an organization called The Lab Experience where we engage with youth from all backgrounds in trying to help them tap into the incredible Jewish values that we have, the Jewish values that we have in helping them kind of own those values and make their lives more enriched and meaningful through Jewish wisdom. And we have six children. Six children, can I know her? Thank God. Thank God and each one is more different than the next. So, these are some ideas that we would love to share with you on parenting. We are still learning and we're still picking up tools, but these are ones that we have found have really transformed the way that we parent all of our six children and we welcome you to come with us on this journey. As well as ideas that we were able to share with with many others and in our capacity, in our role, in our organization, we have the opportunity to give classes and teach people and it's always learning about our own children, learning about the relationships that other parents have with their children, and constantly trying to use what we see in Torah, as well as what we see in modern psychology, to try to help develop our children, our community's children, to become amazing, to become incredible, to become the best versions of themselves. And of all of the books that are out there, all the parenting books, and the books in Hebrew, and the Sefarim, and the psychology books, of everything, I would like to suggest perhaps Drum roll. Drum roll, please. That the greatest parenting book out there is one that we're going to be reading together in just a little bit over a couple of weeks, and that is the Haggadah shel Pesach. The Passover Haggadah is a gold mine, a gold mine, of parenting tips because if there is one area within Judaism where we, so to speak, codify the obligation to transmit a tradition to our children, it's the night of Passover. It is literally the night when our parenting goes from just something that we do. Parenting is always a mitzvah. It's always a mitzvah. But there are very few actual rituals from the Torah that tell us how to parent. And when it comes to Seder night, the Torah uh tells us in many different ways, in many different languages, in many different styles, this is the night to create that bond. So, what if we can look at the Haggadah shel Pesach, the Passover Haggadah, the Seder night, and if we can glean from there some of the golden nuggets about how to parent, then we literally have one of the greatest wellsprings of thought um that one could possibly look for. So, tonight what we're going to do is try to pull out a little bit based on the Haggadah shel Pesach some ideas that will help us become better in our parenting. And again, we have these five ideas. So, let us begin with idea number one. And that is a concept of creating family pride or a family narrative. Um there was a an article I I don't know exactly when the article was from. I saw it a couple of years ago in a in a book, but it was an article written in the New York Times saying that this was a study based on children again, this was not within the Jewish world. This was a New York Times study. And it said that children who have what they call a family narrative which means that they could answer questions about they understand their family's history. They can answer questions about their grandparents, about their parents. When they have this family narrative they are more likely to be happy have self-esteem to feel that they're in control of their lives. And what Seder night does, this whole idea of Seder night is that we have this one night a year where we tell our family story. But a story isn't just about the history of our family. A full family narrative is where we come from where we are today and where we're going. A family mission statement, our family values. And when we create this concept, this idea for our children that our family, we're not just a bunch of people living together in the house. You know, like we happen to share a house and you know, we pay the bills and you eat all of our food. You know, it's like then we're just a bunch of people living in the same house. What makes us a family? It's when we give our children a narrative, a full picture of this is what it means to be a Bucksbaum in our case is or a Friedman in your case. You I'm sure we have like a Friedman watching. Yeah, definitely. Probably a few. Yeah. Right? So, if you haven't you right what does it mean to be a Bucksbaum? What does it mean to be a Friedman? You give them the sense of this is my family. This is important. Then we're going to give them a sense of belonging, an identity of this is who I am and I want to live up to that. It's amazing cuz the Seder teaches us this idea through the story and it's so powerful. And when we when we are teaching people who don't even necessarily like know the story and I'm asking them like some, you know, facts that you would just maybe assume that somebody would know and they don't they don't know it and you're telling it to them like in a way like this is your story. Like own it. And you almost see these like light bulbs going on in their head. Like oh my gosh, like I'm a piece of this history. This is incredible. Um on a very tangible level, in addition to just our roots and our, you know, Jewish place where we came from, we also just want to talk about um, you know, our history, our traditions, the things that we do, the things our grandparents did, the things our great-grandparents did, and let our children know that they're a part of that picture. It's very, very special. I I now with the kids home on Zoom, you know, so I overhear different things that are going on. Um and so a few weeks ago I just overheard my son and it was repeating and repeating. Like it wasn't just the first day. It was like a few weeks later I was hearing the same thing and he just keeps on telling his teacher like, "Oh, that rabbi that you're talking about? Like he we're related to him." And he just keeps telling the the relationship, you know, that we have to this rabbi. And and the rabbi on that the rebbe on the phone is going, "Yes, Mosha. I I think you've mentioned that, you know." And it's like time and time and just hearing it again. But that's the truth. That's his pride, you know? That's who he comes from. And we talk about it a lot. and that's something that he kind of owns, and it is a piece of who he is. He just did a book report on this rabbi. You know, this is something that he feels very special about. And traditions do the same thing. When we have traditions that we bring in from our family, from our parents, from our grandparents, and now it's not just something that we do, but this is something that's been done for many, many, many years, and now you are a piece of that history. So, we have an interesting dynamic in our home. Both of us are actually from German backgrounds. At least both of our from our from our father's sides are from German backgrounds. In Vera's home, she grew up with more German customs than in my home, which just has to do with, you know, where my grandfather found himself in his journey. And because of that, in my home, some of the customs are not as German, they're more, if you will, typical standard. Whereas, when we go to my wife's family, so they have, you know, German customs, which are are they're noticeable. They're noticeable. And therefore, my kids are always like, "Dad, I'm going to throw up. Like, how come we don't do that?" How come we don't do that? Because they they so badly want that. Now, in some communities, they naturally have customs that are very specific to them. And it does it or it should, at least if you give it over the right way, it does create a lot of pride. Um but they don't necessarily need to be traditions from the past. They could be just traditions that you as a family, things that you institute. This is something that you that's unique. This is something that again, the Goldsteins Wait, are there any Goldsteins out there? Yeah. There's some Goldsteins, right? This is something that is unique. Oh, yeah, the Goldstein family, this is our This is our Friday night thing. I remember once I I shared the story. I was taking I was on a a guys trip to Israel. And there was a guy who got up, and he was so proud. You know, it's we have sometimes these moments on these guys trips when like, you know, some of the guys get vulnerable. Uh and and and, you know, it of spreads. You know, in the women's trips it happens more. On the guys trips it's a little Right. And this guy got up and he said he said, "I want to share with you." It was a big room, probably, you know, 200 guys. He says, "I want to share with you the way that I bless my kids." And he sang to the entire room, 200 guys, the tune that he uses when he blesses his kids Friday night. You know, I think it was to the tune of "Oh My Darling Mhm. Clementine." But but that was his thing. Well, and you know, he sang it very nice, and I would say half of the room, tears in their eyes. Because that was something that was unique and beautiful. And this And he says that his kids and And I want to add on to this that I'm just remembering. After that, the guys that he was with, his friends, said that they were aware and they had also started doing it in their homes. And their kids just fell in love with Friday night because that was their specific So, what are the things always ask yourself, ourselves as parents, what are the things that we're doing in our home that are going to make our kids think this is part of my family narrative. This is This is my my point of of family pride. Yeah, it's amazing. You know, you think about how much of our Jewish dutyism revolves around the food. And then you think about this point that we're making, and it really makes you think maybe part of that, because food is such a tangible, you you smell the smells, you taste the tastes, like it just transforms you into that space and place. And so, maybe that's a big component of what it's trying to accomplish. My bubby's chicken soup, right? Exactly. Or like now we're starting to get, you know, ready for Passover, I'm pulling out all my menus, and I'm asking my children like, "All right, guys, what foods are you going to want?" And like immediately, they're all just like, "You know, that food and that food." And like it's They're like, "Oh, that's Pesach. You know, that's what Pesach is." And And that's really something that that becomes Pesach in our home. Or certain things you say on Friday night consistently. And these are the things that not only do they take with them, like this is my family um on a on a day-to-day or on a week-to-week basis, but these are the things that they're going to take with them. And please God, pass on to their families, and it becomes part of their tradition. Yeah. So, idea number one is create that family story, create that family narrative, create that family pride through telling the story like we do at the Pesach Seder, through creating your own family traditions, by creating your own family memories, and really your own family mission statement and values. This is what it means to be a Young Israelite. There we go. Okay. Idea number two, four to five ideas to transform your parenting, and that is one that is just so clear. Perhaps it's the one of the centerpieces of the Passover Pesach Seder, and that is the four sons. And this idea that we have four sons, children, each one asking a very different question. Noteworthy also at a very different time. Right. If you look at when the Torah introduces the four sons, it's spread in many different places in the Torah, and each place it's in a different context. They're not even all asking at the Passover Seder. There's different things triggering their questions. The questions that they're asking are different, and the answers that we give them are different as well. And part of being an intuitive parent is understanding that what our children are saying and what they're saying aren't really the same thing. And understanding how to decode their language and start communicating to them in a way that is unique and And is very, very specific to them. I would say I have the privilege of observing my wife who has really a unique which I don't because to me when a kid is crying because they say that their brother punched them, to me that means that they're crying because their brother punched them. And I've learned from my wife that sometimes it could be about something completely different you know, totally, totally. And it's about decoding that. Yeah, you see this from the time that babies are born. Actually, this is something that God really puts into the universe from the time that they're babies in that, you know, I remember reading when I was getting kind of have my first kid like there's different types of cries and you will know the cry of your baby and I'm like, how is that even possible? Like how will I know the cry of my baby? I don't even you can't tell like a cry is a cry. Then you become a mother and you realize a cry is not a cry. Like sometimes you think like the baby's crying like, you know, it must be it must be hungry. But really maybe the baby's in pain or maybe the baby's very tired. So from the time that the baby is young we see this and of course as the child grows older this only becomes larger and a bigger idea and the idea is like stop. When your child is speaking words whether it's, you know, what whatever they're trying to communicate, you have to see what is the underlying message that they're really trying to say that lies behind it. Is it really I'm hurting, I'm not feeling confident, I'm feeling like nobody really is paying attention to me. Can you give me a little bit more attention? Maybe is that what they're saying? Are they saying something simple like I'm hungry? Are they saying like I had a really rough day because my friends were really not nice to me? Like what are they trying to tell you? Because a lot of times you can take a scenario and you can blow the opportunity if you're not looking at what they're really trying to tell you. But if you look at it with the through the lens of wait a second, like I you know, I am I'm on a mission to figure out what this child is really trying to tell me. You can not only crack the code, but you can create a tremendous tremendous bond and connection between you and your child by being able to express like, "No, this is really what you're saying." I remember once reading, I don't remember where, an anecdote of a child a parent brings their child a young child to kindergarten to first day of kindergarten. And the child looks up at this bunch of pictures that the kids drew and they're hanging on the wall. And the kid blurts out, "Who made all these ugly pictures?" And the parent is like his white and his red blue pink or you know all different colors like like, "How could you say that? Like you're calling the pictures of other kids ugly? Like don't talk like that, you know, stop shh don't say that." And the teacher overhears and the teacher comes over and the teacher says, "In our kindergarten it's okay to make ugly pictures." And then the child goes in and then the child looks at a broken toy and the child says, "Who broke this toy?" And the parent's like, "What does it matter who broke the toy? Like it's not your business. Like what do you mean?" The teacher comes over and the teacher says, "In our kindergarten it's okay to break toys." And the child looks up at the parent and the child says, "I want to stay in this kindergarten." Right? Cuz what the child was trying to do was really just get a sense of when I say these pictures are ugly, what the child is really saying was "Can I make ugly pictures?" Right? Can I Is it Am I going to get yelled at if I break toys? And it was the idea of giving them the safety and that security. So it's reading into what they were saying. And I think that it's important also number one we want to differentiate that not all of our children are going to articulate things the same way. And even children themselves will change their style. And we have to learn. Thinking the other day, you know, I'm sure that you you're all familiar. There There's this comic strip. I don't know if it still exists. Remember Garfield? I remember Garfield. So, Garfield is very deep. Garfield is very very deep. There's a lot of depth. But, on the surface, right? You have What's his name? John? I don't know Garfield. Okay, his name was John, I think. And he has these two pets. Garfield, who's like a cat-like lazy attitude, you know? That is as much as I know. But, then there's Odie. Odie is like full of puppy, you know? And he's like Yeah. Like always excited. Always like, you know, John comes in. Always happy-go-lucky. And he has these two pets that are always at each other's throats because Garfield is always like cranky and lazy, and Odie's always always happy. And like when you walk into any home that has multiple children, you have the Garfields and you have the Odies. Yes. And you have to treat the Odies the way Odies need to be treated and Garfields. And sometimes a kid, you know, especially as as I mean, our two oldest are teens already. As they Almost. Our oldest is a teen, and our second is she was just past mitzvah. And sometimes kids morph from being cute little Odies to, you know, stubborn little Garfields. And you have to grow together with them and adapt to their communication styles. So, that is the second idea. So, number one, the first idea is create that family pride. Idea number two is every child speaks a different language, and we have to learn the language of each child. Okay. Idea number three. Why don't you introduce this one for us? Cuz you are the master of this one. Am I going to introduce this one? Okay, thank you. I'm working on it. So, we call this one the rule of the hashtag. And I think what we're really trying to give over here is Well, For those of you who don't I don't even know how to explain a hashtag. I guess how would you explain A hashtag on social media is a way to sort of capture an idea. Someone is posting a picture or something. When you hashtag it, you link it together with other ideas. A hashtag is just a very short way of associating what's happening in this post, what's happening in this picture, with sort of a global trend of things that are happening related to this. Wow, never thought of describing what a hashtag was. Yeah. Okay. If you were to ask me to do it again, I don't know if I'd be able to do it again. You did a good job. Okay. So, this is the rule of the hashtag, and it's that really, there are so there are there are so many ideas that we want to be able to give over to our children. Um but if we are going to like sit them down every time we want to give them this idea and start giving them like an entire speech about why this is important or a whole story. I mean, forget about it. Like, we lost them. So, the power of the hashtag is thinking of the values that we really want to be big values that our children will just remember very quickly and come up almost like a slogan, like a quick slogan that we can just have off roll off the tip of our tongues that number one reminds our children of that idea. And number two is that it sticks with them so that they can then internalize those ideas and remember remember them. So, I'm just thinking, you know, here is a small idea and then it will bring it um we'll bring it out. So, I didn't even, you know, one idea um I remember that my my daughter years ago, she came home with a test and I'm looking at the test, you know, we have to sign as parents like we saw the grades. So, I'm looking at the test and I see in very small letters at the top of the test some Hebrew words written. And I see the words b'shem Hashem na'aseh v'natziyach, which means like in the name of God, we will do and we will succeed. And I was thinking, oh my goodness, I cannot believe that this stuck. Right? This was an idea that I was constantly, you know, some people would just call it baruch Hashem. Um but I was, you know, making it a little bit of a of a slogan. And so, I had put it out there that like, with God's help, we will succeed. And I saw it written on the test and I was like, oh my gosh, success, you know? And I to this day, this is probably 6 years later. Um this child still writes this on every single one of her tests. Um there's other ideas smaller than that, you know, things like, we can do hard things. You know, like, how many times our children will say, "But that's so hard." My response is not going into a whole discussion about mindset and brain and stories and here and there and fixed and growth and all that. No. My my word back to them is, we can do hard things. That's it. They know. And you know that it become a a success when you start seeing that shift in them, when you just remind them, like, we can do hard things. And and then when they're in a good frame of mind, they're able to listen a little bit. You can add a little bit of context. You can add a little bit of content. You can explain it a little bit more so that you're growing that idea. But to have that slogan to go back to is fantastic. Another one that we use in our house a lot is the power of the pivot. This has specifically become a really big one this year. Um but we've all had to pivot quite a bit this year. And in showing our children that we were going to have to pivot and that constantly, you know, we're going to have to learn new ways to learn, new ways to engage, new ways that we're going to be shopping, new ways that our sports are going to run, everything. Um the pivot became a very powerful word word in our house. And to the point that I even had some graphics made, you know, you could put them on your fridge even as constant reminders. But anytime I want to have a kid shift in any way, whether it be like today you have to be on Zoom because there was some kind of an outbreak or it's, you know, I see that you woke up in a bad mood. Like power of the pivot. You have the power. And the other day, one of my kids came home and he wanted to tell me right away that I was going to be getting a call from the teacher. teacher We didn't have that though. I was being silly. But the power of the pivot worked and I did transition. And I was again like, "My gosh, like this really helps." So I don't know how many hashtags there were when the authors of the Haggadah wrote the Haggadah. But one thing that I know is Haggadah is a long book. But when you come to the four sons every single year, I think if you read it every single year, like to me I know I'm going to hear about the wise son, right? The wise son, right? And I know we answer the son in the offer a Passover Haggadah. Yeah. I right that's the the the response to that's what the Haggadah says. The response to the every single We are trying to research this more. It's to me one of the most complicated paragraphs in the Passover Haggadah. But one thing I know is I remember those four words. From the time you're young. Exactly. I remember the rush it's not translating it's not not the point, right? Or I remember these things because they're short nuggets that tell me that prompt me how to properly respond in this moment. The reality is we live in a world where massive trends. We're talking about uprisings, upheavals, riots, things like that. Movements are catching fire because of a hashtag. Because of someone hashtagging this or that. Or the very fact that again we ourselves and probably I would say most of the audience watching this has probably if you're somewhat into with social media, WhatsApp or anything electronic outside of you know, your living room, you've probably come across the hashtag thank you Hashem. Shout out. Now, I'm pretty sure that we've been trying to teach our children to thank Hashem for the last 4,000 years, right? Maybe more than that. Um but suddenly, every kid thinks it's cool to say thank you Hashem. That's the power of a little symbol on social media that goes like this. It's called a hashtag. It's not only kids, it's even adults. Like I see adults, people who will have a hard time talking about their relationship with God and then suddenly on Instagram they're using some of the thank you Hashem, what are those called? The the things. Happy holy the emojis. No, you you know Icons. Yeah, those icons, yeah. Thank you Hashem for giving those icons. So, we have the power to instill values at at your Shabbat table. When you go into a long-winded monologue about right, it's going in one ear, it's going out the other. If you can say it in four words and repeat it again and again. I had the privilege taking my kids to Universal Studios on their winter break. It was fascinating to see how going to a place again, I'm not into theme parks and I'm not into most of the themes that are that that are there. But to see that going to a theme park can be a growth opportunity for a kid because it's I got to do this cuz I need to step out of my comfort zone. Step out of my comfort zone. That is a big theme in our house. words and these kids repeated it again and again. And I'm sitting there on a roller coaster literally thinking like Hashem, this is this is it. Like Shema Yisrael, I'm going I'm I'm already, you know. And my little my my little one was next to me. What is he? He's in 9 years old, right? And he's saying, "Abba, I'm so scared and I'm going to lift up my hands right now." Why why are you lifting up your hands? I just hold on if you're scared. No, cuz I have to step out of my comfort zone. Woo! And she's right. And and and I said like he's so small, he's going to fall out of the thing. But that's it. He had in his head that was what was on his mind. Step out of my comfort zone, right? Power of the pivot. Um there was another one. This is one that goes back to Thomas Edison, but the idea of gam zu letova, right? It's all for the good. Three words, right? Or you want to add in one of the Jewish musicians added in nu nu gam zu letova. These are all just small things. The way we give over lessons is they need to be able to say it. It needs to be a thing. It needs to if you can get a cool graphic and post it on your refrigerator. But those four, five, six words will be just as powerful as the save your breath, save your frustration with not being able to get them to listen, get not being able to get their attention, and say in six words or less. And emphasize those six words again and again, and you will create massive trending movements happening throughout your home. Yeah, I was going to give a shout out to Shimmy Adar for the be the reason that someone smiles. Because that's also one. And all you got to say, I mean, my kids leave the car in the morning for car I drop them off after carpool and I just say be the reason someone smiles. It's so deep. It's so much. There's so much there. But that's all you got to say. Be the reason someone smiles. Thank you, Shimmy. Okay. Okay. right along? Absolutely. So again, idea number one is we're creating that family pride. Idea number two, learn the specific language of your child. Idea number three, the rule of the hashtag. Say it in six words or less. And now, idea number four, which is such a beautiful and profound idea. And I want to introduce this idea with a little bit of small piece of Torah. And that is some what we call gematria, numerology. The way we understand things in the Torah is by analyzing not only words, but the numerical value of those words since each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value. And if you take the numerical value of the second son, what's called the Russia, the rebellious son, the son who captures our attention and our intrigue at the Seder table, right? How many hours and hours and hours have spent different families Seder tables discussing what's his problem? Right? What what is he so bitter about? What is he so angry about? And and and the response is it a warm response? Are we Are we kicking him out or like what what's What is the dialogue? The numerical value of the word Russia, Reshaim Ayin, is 570. The opposite of a Russia, which means a rebellious or a broken child or a broken broken person, the opposite of that usually we say is a tzaddik, a righteous person. Righteous with the word tzaddik has the numerical value of 204. Okay? Well, we'll keep that in mind for a moment. What our response to the evil son, the rebellious son, is it says blunt his teeth. Hakeh es shinav. Blunt his teeth. Shinav, which means teeth, has the numerical value of 366. That means, and again, I wish we had the screen we could pull it up over here. But the Russia numerical value 570. Once you blunt his teeth, numerical value 366. What's left is the tzaddik. Numerical value 204. Simple math, but revealing a very deep idea. You think I lost them on that? Maybe I think I have to keep following them, you feeling me? Right? But what that means is that within the Russia, within the rebellious son, there is a hidden tzaddik inside. There is a hidden righteous the righteous person. And our job as a parent, no matter how difficult, rebellious, or broken a child seems to be projecting him or herself into our life, our job as a parent is to hold in on that inner tzaddik, on that inner righteous person, that righteous which is in this that's inside, focus on it, and as many of the Jewish commentaries teach us, the more that you can focus on the inner righteousness, what's good about them, the more that that thing will manifest itself, it will grow. Your focus on it will bring it out, make it surface, and make it the main part of that child. This is an incredibly powerful point, and sometimes incredibly difficult as well, because we tend to get caught up. If If you have to hone in and find that like tiny little thing, you know, that that's that inner righteousness of a child when they're going through whatever hardships they are, and there's so many negative things to focus on, and you always have to focus on that that positive thing, that in and of itself is tremendously challenging. It's much easier to just focus on the negative. But if you can, and and and it's it's an incredible thing to do to just focus on that one or two or three, whatever, however many positive traits that you can focus on, and just work on that, focus that, and build that, build that, build that, build that, then that child really will really grow into what you are believing in them. I think it's that very famous story of Thomas Edison, right? Like when he um he he came home from school one day with a note from his from his teacher. He was supposed to give it to his mother, and his mother opens up the note out loud and reads reads this note and says like, you know, "Dear mom of you know, Mr. Tom of Tom. Um, you know, your child We have no place for your child We have no place for your child in this school anymore. He is way too smart and he has exceeded all of the knowledge of the children here. Please find him another school." And so, she turns to him and says, "It looks like we're going to have to find another school. You're just way too smart for all of the children." And then years years later, he found this note after his mother had already died. And he opens up this note and he sees the note and he reads like, you know, "Dear Mrs. Edison, your child is terribly misbehaved. He's so socially off. He is a complete misfit to our school and we can no longer take him and teach him. Please, you know, we are expelling him and please find him another school." And he started to cry and he just said like, "Look at what I turned out to be." And this was the power of my mother believing in me and making me think that it was the good in me that kicked me out of the school. Yeah, you know, we we had this happen within the last half a year or so, where for a couple of weeks in a row, I I found that one of our one of our children was acting up a lot and and being being very disruptive in the home, you know, misbehaving somewhat in the home. And I was getting frustrated. And you know, some of the other children were also getting getting very frustrated. And then, in a moment of just trying to defend this one child, you know, because it was becoming contentious with some of the with some of the other children, um, I something occurred to me that I never realized before. And that is that all of our children go through times where they're cranky. Every human being gets goes through cranky times. And as you know from your home, anytime that you have child who's coming in in a bad mood, cranky, frowning, it brings down the energy of the house. I realized at that moment that this one child, who's one who does act up a little bit more, misbehave a little bit more, and stuff a little bit more, you will very seldom find this child walking around frowning. It's an interesting thing. This child happens to be a very, very perk overall very perky child. Which made me realize in a second, all the other children, when something is wrong, they express themselves by being cranky, by moping, by getting in a bad mood. That's not this child's way of doing it. This child does it by acting up. But, you never see the you never see this child frowning or or or or And it's just a different way. And to me, it it it made me focus more on the fact that you know what? Focus on the fact that this is a very cheerful child. Focus on that, and whenever the child is acting up, remind yourself about that point. And I think that that for me has certainly helped me learn how to be a little bit more patient. But, I believe that the more that we learn how to isolate those things and focus on those things, the more that those things can create the overall picture of that child. So, that's idea number four. It is almost two things. It's almost like one is is noticing just those good points, just focusing on the good, um which was something that we also had spoken about in our marriage class. But, the other thing is just thinking of the good and exaggerating that in our own minds, and really building that up because of that, like you use the word, if he will manifest or she will manifest that. There's a great quote that says, "When you focus on problems, problems focus on you." Yeah, very true. We don't want to focus on those things. We want to bring it out. We want to bring out that inner find those inner sparks. Focus on them and we'll bring those out. And that brings us now to idea number five. Let's do first a quick review. Idea number one is create the family pride, the family narrative. Idea number two, every child speaks a different language and learn the specific language of your child. Idea number three, the rule of the hashtag. Say it in six words or less. Idea number four is focus on the inner child, the inner righteous child that's inside. And finally, idea number five. And that is own the vibe of your house. What does that mean? So, we have again, going back to the Passover Haggadah, to the four sons of the Seder. There's three beautiful words that we that are written about what's called the she'eino yodea lishol, the one who doesn't know how to ask. And that is he doesn't know how to ask, she doesn't know how to ask. At pesach lo, you open up the conversation. And what that's doing is shifting the responsibility of the child's asking, the child's feeling of safety, the child's feeling of comfort, the child's level of joy, shifting that responsibility to the parent. At pesach lo, you need to set the tone. You need to set the vibe within the house that the child feels safe and comfortable to be themselves, to ask those questions. All of our children have a trubazillion things. That's a very high number. Most people can't count to that number, a trubazillion. Right? And they have all of those things on their minds, right? And how much they're going to be able to articulate it or feel comfortable articulating it to us is going to have to do with the vibe that we create in the home as being a relaxed, flexible, open place for them to be that. Because if our home is not There is one very flexible, open, relaxed place. And that is Google with their friends. I said one, but there there there are. And not often the places where they look for answers are the places that we want them to be looking for answers. We want our children to have the difficult conversations with us, but we have to ask ourselves whether we are creating that safe space, that open space, that flexible space, that vibe in which they can come forward and have those conversations. And it's not only just about questions and the ask conversations, but always reading the overall vibe of the house and taking responsibility and saying, "What can I do to set the overall vibe, the overall tone of the home?" Yeah. So, I would say music is a very powerful tool here that we should just talk about just very briefly. And that is that sometimes the most stressful times of day, like in the morning and, you know, supper time or getting ready, you know, for for Well, I would say supper time. Getting ready for bed is ready for less hectic in our house, but um sometimes in those very chaotic moments, it's nice to have the music set just to own the vibe, just to kind of create that, just so that it doesn't feel super tense. I also think that embedded in this idea of owning the vibe, it's important to talk about the different times that we do create, you know, just space for the kids to talk. It's become like a like a tradition in our home almost, like smoozing time, you know? Even my little ones be like, "We have tea and smooze." Um sometimes it's very late at night and I really don't I want to say like, "No." But, there's something about that like hold it they're holding that glass of tea and we're sitting down and a lot of times like they're like, "Hmm, what are we going to smooth about?" And like after a few minutes of them just talking about sometimes nonsense, it usually does lead to a very constructive conversation. It also gives me a real solid peek into their day even more than the dinner table, I find. So, it's owning the vibe in general of the house and then it's also owning those vibes of where we can create those pockets of opportunity to be able to create that safe space for our children. You know, even when when you're having a difficult conversation, so you could attack it, you know, head-on. Let's sit down together, right? And then we can be nervous all day cuz we know we have to have a difficult conversation with a child. So, now we sit for 5 hours, we're all nervous about it, we think about it, "Okay, how are we going to say it? What's going to be our script?" Da da da. And it's very very tense. And then the child sits down with with with both of his parents, both of her parents. So, they're like, "Okay, this is awkward, but this means trouble and we have to have that really awkward conversation." Become a master of diffusing all awkwardness. Any conversation that you can have with a little bit of a thought, sometimes it might need 10 minutes of buffering in the beginning. But, if you strategically navigate how to have that conversation happen organically, you can get into any discussion and you can really say anything because if you've created sort of that cushion over there. So, instead of having a formalized conversation, "We need to speak to you about da da da, you know, Mom and I are right?" We don't want those We don't want that to be the vibe. We want to be the vibe that the child themselves has that space to on their own come to that conclusion, on their own be able to see, "Oh, you know, my parents they're in tune with this." So, we want to create again that think about a little bit how we can navigate things. You know, how can I as a dad, how can I make certain conversations in my home not as taboo as they should be? Because again, if I take the lead and say, "You know what? This is an okay thing for us to discuss. This is an okay question to ask. You know, I'm struggling with this. So, it's okay and I'm going to bring up this this this this question at the table even if I'm not necessarily struggling with it. But, I want the child to see that you know what? I was asking the question. So, I want to jump in on the conversation, you know, as well. And things like that, it's that allows us to own the tone to to be able to to own the vibe. And So, I mentioned the music, the laughter, the smiles, all of these things create an environment in the home where the kids say, "You know what? This is a place I want to be. This is a place that's fun. This is a place that's comfortable. This is a place where I'm not being judged." That's what we speak about when we talk about owning the vibe, which is idea number five, act this out you set the vibe. So, we have now five ideas. Yeah. We have let's just quickly review that. We have family pride which we're reminded about through the telling over the story of yetziat mitzrayim. We have that every child speaks a different language. Be in tune with your child, be in tune with the language that they are speaking and what they're really saying underneath their mere words. Number three, the rule of the hashtag, being able to come up with those quick slogans that transform a very deep and powerful idea in just a few words. We have number four, focusing on the inner tzadik, focusing on the good that we see and not necessarily blowing up the bad, but focusing and exaggerating on the good traits that we see within our children. And finally, number five, owning the vibe in our home, recognizing the power that we set the tone. Yes, it's a responsibility. And yes, when we are not feeling at our best, our children do feel it. And yes, it's also okay to sometimes say, "I'm having a day, you know, I and I'm sorry." But then tomorrow it's reset and you start again and we're human and that's okay. But we do own the vibe. We need to own the vibe and we need to try our very, very best to make it the most positive place, the most happy home that we possibly can. These are ideas that we have felt have massively transformed our home, our parenting, and we really hope that they have helped you. Um if anybody would like to reach out at any point, we are here for open for any discussions and we thank you and we once again thank Project Inspire for hosting this Mindflex series and we will wish you all a wonderful night and a good night. were a great audience. We We We This was so much fun. We appreciate it and you can find us on any of the social medias as well and we look forward to continued dialogue together. Thank you again, Project Inspire. Have a good night. Blessings from us to you that we should continue to raise the next generation and the children in our homes with love, with positivity to foster constant growth and that this Passover should be a time of redemption, a time of celebration, and a time of family connection. Amen. Have a wonderful night, everybody.