Our Family, Our Strength - Principle #9: Compassion - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Abramov

we continue in the twenty five basic principles of Jewish child rearing we're up to principle number nine we've mentioned before that there's a lot of aggression there's a lot of unsavory things going on around us all the time it's sufficient to pick up a newspaper or to hear in the media so much aggression so much violence so much crime so many so many negative negative things children in their little worlds the worlds of the playground in their worlds of school they also encounter a lot of aggression this is not a healthy environment for a child to grow up in and therefore obviously we need to limit to the to whichever extent we can we've mentioned keep them away from media which is uncontrolled which is not which is not kosher keep to keep the homes as kosher as possible but their interactions they are social interactions it can often happen that children encounter some difficult social situation with friends with neighbors we mentioned bullying we could we mentioned teachers who are irritable or teachers who were may be overreacting or maybe even reacting in kind but very rarely will the child be exposed to compassion out there his feelings were hurt a little girl took away another little girls dolly and she was absolutely shattered by this and she cried bitterly it's something in her world that was a huge thing some nasty kid knocked down the building of blocks that she had just made and to the hood this was a real tragedy she had been building this with so much care and so much love and so much and came along could be a sibling it could be a friend and just knocked us down and the child frustration will cry now in the outside world there really aren't many people are going to be giving them showing them compassion but when the child comes home it's very important to give the child the opportunity to express to talk about things the child must feel that the mother and the father are are interested in their lives and interest in their lives to the point where they will they will show and display compassion where the child says that he was picked on by a teacher or the child says that he or she were was pushed out of a game and they weren't she wasn't allowed to join in this game or that game and this was a real hurt some me which is very painful now these things may seem very insignificant to us and because there are that's just little kids playing around but this child that's their world and it's important for the parents to show compassion and now sometimes the child can be in the wrong sometimes the child can have can be can be punished or whatever by a teacher or sanctioned in some way and the child may be wrong but we know and we're going to discuss it at a later stage when punishing there's got to be punishing has to be it's a very careful and a very delicate art the art of punishing because giving a punishment has to be exactly the right kind of punishment it can't be laced with anger it can't be exaggerated it has to be fair and sometimes just in the in the flow of life these things just don't happen so we need to be there at least to express compassion and understanding and identify with what's going on in the child's life not always can we come up with a solution sometimes the child is God I found themselves in some kind of a social pickle in a social struggle and the child is being ostracized the child is being pushed away from someone so we don't always have an immediate solution but just showing understanding and compassion and giving them the inner strength to be able to to face up to their challenges because we can't sort out every little interaction that takes place during the course of the day on the country children need to develop a certain sense of Independence but when the parent is showing compassion all the time and the cherry parent is compassionate the child's growth is overloaded with with schoolwork and there's a huge test and the parent then it is show understanding passion compassion for for for the child's burdens for the child's life a child was punished their child was given some kind of a punishment to do something at home so say look you know it's a pretty you got yourself into trouble and this trouble is something which which you shouldn't have happened but I understand you were punished and that's pretty painful for you so I'm very sorry about that I really am show that compassion alongside was sometimes a practical approach to sorting out the problems but it's a cold world and very often full of aggression and sometimes there's even cruelty out there so we have to have we are the only ones that can give compassion and caring and understanding we've got to be there for it not that we necessarily are ignoring issues but the issues should always be laced with understanding caring and compassion you