Raising Special Children: Respecting Your Boundaries

the yeshiva.net [Music] thank you very much tunish maseno my dear friends leading this incredible organization for families parents with children of special needs and it's really my privilege and pleasure to be able to address all of you as part of nishmasenu our soul i'm going to try to be very practical today and address a few particular items that deal with attitudes of parents families who were given this challenge this struggle this this mission this sliches everybody knows the source of this is in zohar that of ram and yitzhak embody two distinct qualities and avoid this hashem in our service of god of ram and bodies says represents fergus delta presented the quality of love and kindness and benevolence and generosity and affection idiots has embodied the quality of kivura kuri's discipline curious strength guru's boundaries gura is internal fortitude and these are the first of the two patriarchs the two others the founding fathers quite literally of claudius all of the jewish people and in fact it says in many swarm that their wives balance them out sora represented morgavura she was the counterbalance of avramovino desire says azer kennegday she helped him by being different than him connective actually being the opposite of him because avraham was hesed and sorrow was more gevorah she had that inner strength everyone even wanted yeshmal in the house he wanted hugger in the house he wanted everybody in the house and and sarah said that some sometimes it's too dangerous for yitzhak we can't you know yeshmal was bothering yitzhak he was torturing it he was abusing it the other way yitzhak was the exact opposite she was the azer kennedy she helped by not being like him she was very different than him she represented absolute hassan just tremendous kindness and affection and that's what the stories of the khomesh show of rama venus archim is replicated in the next into in the next parachute by by rifka the beginning of rama vino has this open tent and everybody is invited and everybody is welcome and he sees these three bedouin arabs and he just graciously runs over to them and bows down and the next moment they're in there they're in his tent they're reclining under the tree he's running he got them water and he he got the best meat and the best mustard and the best tongue and the best yogurt and the best cream and the best milk again he nurtures them he he nourishes them he sustains them he speaks to them he brings with them and the same scene happens again rift by rifka right eliezer is thirsty and his men are thirsty and the camels are thirsty they just went on a long trip from kanaan family to syrah to mesopotamia to kharan at the border of of turkey and iraq we still have the city today it's called haran harun it's it's one of the cities that we know for sure the ancient biblical city literally has the same name and he goes there and rifka of course is by the well and just without thinking she doesn't complain you know he asks her for a favor and she graciously she doesn't tell him to do it and she doesn't say you know i'm not going to be used i'm not going to be manipulated take the barrel do it yourself you guys are strong she's just she she she loves love she loves giving she loves kindness that's rifka rivka is is the daughter-in-law of avrom but in many ways she's she's literally the replica of avraham and she's the perfect soul mate for for yitzhak who's who's gura that's what the zohar says opposites attract is not just an english expression it literally says in desire qaddish that's azer kinegder the azer is kin negative from from being different this doesn't mean it's a mitzvah to always be different doesn't mean it's a mitzvah always disagree it's admits it to the opposite but it means that sometimes the greatest relationships are those where people who are different from each other learn to respect each other and everybody gets to broaden their horizons to expand the horizontal in your dish your horizons your hash office your perspectives by creating space for the other person so you become a better person and sometimes hard as a negative is difficult but that's what challenges you and makes you the best person possible that makes you the person you're capable of becoming so we have here this paradox the desire points out and sarah gevura and and and then you have yaakov who is the fusion of avraham and yitzhak with but why was it set up this way why is this the foundation of jewish history and the answer is the balatanya rights and many others foreign because the foundation is always hesita the foundation is always love in zoey here it says lace there's no avoider like that void of love desire says said ozil and cool the middle said must accompany all the other middles in other words every minute has to be based on attachment on a connection on ave but you can't stop there we can't stop with avraham you need yitzhak because love needs boundaries because when the love is infinite and it extends and extends it extends odd and finite and there's no boundaries then suddenly that love can ultimately foster destruction if removing whose love has literally no boundaries so then ultimately the love itself can be destroyed through the love right if i just love everybody and everything and i only see the good then i can allow criminals to prosper i can allow injustice to take root i can allow abuse to endure at some point i have to cut off after grade bound to have to say this is wrong this is unacceptable i have to be able to reject certain behaviors that's the concept of guru it always has to begin with ahava it has to begin with khasit because if not the guru can become destructive it could become cruel it could become judgmental it could become selfish but if there's no guru whatsoever and the av extends and extends in its sense sometimes it just extends so much like you know the big bang if it would go too fast everything would just dissolve back into nothingness so you have to have those boundaries the gemara says that when hashem created the world that was expanding and expanding and expanding which is fascinating because modern science basically has developed the same idea just in our generation until hashem said die on my lawyer my dad said stop stop stop expanding too fast there's not going to be anything left that's me the sagwara right boundaries that's the name shindala dude shindala dude why am i sharing this with you today because this is so important in life each of you parents are so filled with love i know it i see you we know you're filled with love you're saturated with affection you have so much warmth you give your children so much love and that love extends more and more and more but i want to talk to you today about is the opposite the boundaries that you need the boundaries that we all need you want to be so giving you want to be so generous you want to be kind you want to be nice but you also need boundaries the boundaries are not here because you don't love enough the boundaries are here to protect your love to protect your health to protect your integrity to protect your sacred space to be able to create walls that are healthy what do they say good fences good neighbors make what did the kotzker say the khatsuki rebels you could all translate it on your own as you wish but the basic translation is of i am i because you are you and you are you because i am i i am not i and you are not you but if i am i because i am i and you are you because you are you then i am i and you are you and now we can begin to schmooze that last sentence is my addition now we can begin dialogue those boundaries those guvulim as they're called are important you have it in halal it's your shallam the walls of yerushalayim you couldn't take out a carbon outside of those walls of your shelling let's say the carbon peso right if you took it out of the walls of the tribe if sylvia would say the carbon becomes disqualified you couldn't take maester cheney outside of irish lime if it was brought in why because these creduchas it becomes sanctified in this space and by taking it out you contaminate its energy you defiled its energy and it's very real the kedusha is very real so you take out certain holy things they have to remain in the confinements of yerushalayim because if i take them and if sylvia says it becomes this quality you have to burn it you can't eat it you have to burn it because there's a very confusing energy over there and it's true with every single person there are moments when we say protestation of yourself right your slime should just be in the open in shiloh for example when the mishkan was in chile there were no mikhitsus you can eat the karbanas as far as you want there was no limits as long as you could see the mishkan in chile that's because of the uniqueness of yosef about but yerushalayim was different yahudah was different how you say you had all the culture you do was different you have to know you have to know when does the void of yes have had no walls you can go to mitsrayam and in mitzram you get to see the image of yaakov and we all need that balance of hassan and very very important balance but it's also true in every person's individual life what does that mean in your life only you know only you know i can't tell you of course not but i want to give a few examples a few illustrations that may be helpful for you and your lives you know sometimes parents have shared this with me they feel guilty they want to remain till the end of a simcha you want to remain until the end of the mitzvothans but it's four in the morning but you know your child's schedule you know your children's schedule you know your child's needs and you know that if you remain until the end of the semester who's going to suffer the next day you and your child you may not have the kaijus you may not have the stamina to take care of this child you need to be in maximum health you can't because you can't afford to be exhausted other people could sleep in the next day other people don't have the same situation that you have you need to respect your circumstances you need to respect the life that the rebounder shall islam gave you and you can't compare yourself to other people and the reason you can't compare yourself to other people is because we are all born as originals even though so many of us die as copies but we're not supposed to die as copies everybody has a different life everybody has a different nature different nurture different dispositions different challenges different gifts different opportunities different blessings different setbacks different mistakes and different things we're confronted with no marriage has the same challenge like any other marriage no family has the same types of children no children are alike and it's so important for you to respect your life because if you're not going to respect it nobody else can respect it you have to know what you're capable of and mothers you have to know what you're not capable of just like you have to know how to say yes you just have to be able to know how to say no not because you're selfish but because you can't say yes if you don't know how to say no only those who know what are saying no know how to say yes because if you don't know how to say no and you're always saying yes ultimately you may become a shemata and you can't there's no yes anymore there's no person anymore you won't be able to give if there's nobody left so it's so important for you to be able to create boundaries you can't go to every place you can't respond to every every invitation most important thing is to maintain your health and to see your body your physical self as sacred what does desire says goof of the lord kadisha the goof naida's helic nurturing your goal for your body is not an evil it's not even a necessary evil it's a mitzvah the rambam writes in his day is perigdalid the laws of ethics chapter four hey i quote the rambam's words the body being healthy and wholesome is one of the ways of hashem the ways of serving hashem of connecting to hashem don't feel guilty for taking care of your mental health of your physical health making sure you're in the position where you could be the best father and the best mother possible this is so important you know sometimes you can only stay at a simca for five minutes of course you would love to stay for four hours but you have to know what's happening in your home what's happening with your health what's happening with a special child and whose expenses there's going to be we have to stop living a life where we have to be yates of everybody you can't be heights of everybody it doesn't work that way and you know what if the grandmother or the aunt or the grandfather doesn't understand i feel bad that they cannot tune into your life and have more empathy but you cannot sacrifice your well-being your spouse's well-being your special child's well-being or special children well-being and your other children's well-being just because a neighbor or a relative or a sister-in-law or a great aunt is simply clueless maybe you can explain it to them maybe not maybe they're not ready to hear you know somebody told me that somebody was a couple they were struggling with something and they couldn't stay till the end of a particular symphony and somebody was upset somebody was upset with them i said try to explain to them what you're going through they couldn't hear okay they couldn't hear but you respect yourself you need yitzchak you need guru you need some of the of the of the flavor of the ingredients of sorry menu of yitzhak who was of course sarah sarah's uh sarah's ben yahada he was mom's boy the mama i hope you i hope you understand what i'm saying maybe you have to go into the simcha for five minutes and you give the hassan a big hug or in the ladies section you give the kawa a big embrace and you give a genuine mazel tov and you mean it with your heart and soul but you know that you have to go home now you know sometimes your friends want to go out and it's wonderful but you know your schedule and you know what your children need and you know what that outing is going to look like maybe it's going to be great but if it's too stressful for you it's too overwhelming for you you have to be able to say you know i have to go i really will not be able to make it today and if these are real friends the first definition of real friends is that they try to tune into your needs and if not maybe you need other real friends really maybe you need other real friends maybe if it's people who cannot relate to what you're going through you know i was once talking for couples struggling with infertility and one of the women was saying you know her classmates love to go out but all they talk about at lunch you know is their babies growing up which is amazing and babysitting and carriages and and you know daycare and pre-one baby care for the children and how the children are developing and she says it's just heartbreaking for me it's heartbreaking for me now the women don't mean bad it's a classmate and they're just talking about what's on their mind they're not coming is raising the future of the jewish family but i told her you you have to respect yourself you have to respect that pain you know and if they're very close to you they'll understand and you could say you know i love you guys and i hope you have the amazing lives but it's just very difficult for me and if they can't understand that so then maybe you don't have to go out with them you know you could be if i have to we be friendly and nice and kind to everybody but you have to know who you could talk to about what's going on in your heart not everybody you can talk to which brings me to the next point when it comes to this to this area and and i'm going to get emphasized i'm not telling you what your boundaries are but you have to tell yourself what your boundaries are and there's so many different illustrations and examples but respect them yes sometimes we go beyond our boundaries sometimes we transcend our comfort zone but just know do it from a place of choice do it from a place of empowerment you may say yes i have i want to be up till three in the morning this is my sister this is my brother this is my niece i love her tomorrow's going to be a hard day and i have to make these and these arrangements fine but just do it from a place of clarity awareness of choice not that you fall into it because of social pressure and social conformity you have too much on your plate not to respect your identity your distinctive mission your boundaries the question of life is not what hashem asks of him or of her hashem asks of you i want to show up to my life i can't show up to your life it's a beautiful voice from the bolshev gibber i think even from the shallow before azo giber hakovesha who's a person who's a gibber somebody who conquers his his own his own yates of heart so the wal sham the senator said sir somebody who conquers the ate sahara and says no no no no no that's not a gibber it's easy for me to conquer your yates are you know why i don't have your challenges azor gibra covers the seats really i got to deal with my stuff not with your stuff but dick is comets i don't do in your pockets i do in my own pockets biggest comments i don't do in your home i do in my home right it's a vision of savage well you don't bring in i didn't bring in comments to your pockets i brought hammocks to my home that's right after dukting's comments in other words i have to take responsibility for my life i have to ask myself how can i clean up my life how can i remove my comets my ego my insecurity my shells my issues my toxins from my life that's the only question which brings me to another element of guru and discipline is and that is responding to people's comments i know that all types of people make all types of comments to you when they see the child when they don't see the child in show in the supermarket in the store in the grocery at a simcha in a hall at an event people make all these types of comments on shabbos on yumtuff sometimes you know right away they simply don't get it and you know what they don't get it you can even be happy for them they don't get it thank you they don't get it they don't have this challenge and they just don't get it they don't understand just realize that many of them are trying to be nice they're trying to give you physic but they're saying exactly the opposite of what you need to hear and it gets people angry you know it triggers you you know you come home you tell your wife you tell your husband it's like why would she say such a thing the answer is she's clueless he's clueless they just don't understand some people just don't get it they don't it's with everything you know people who haven't gone through certain experiences and certain struggles they just don't understand it you know how it is they people look at parents and how they're raising their children and it's so easy to judge like oh she's a horrible mother he's a horrible father do you know every anything about their story you know maybe they're doing exactly what their child needs most maybe not but maybe yes do you know it's called youtube you have to care you have to ask the right questions you have to be curious inquisitive most importantly you have to be humble you have to know how much you don't know previously you want to be wealthy we're already wealthy when it comes to ignorance when it comes to ignorance we're all wealthy how much don't we know about life how much don't we know about other people's brains other people's experience other people's challenges you have to learn this in life and sometimes you just gotta smile and nod your head you know it doesn't pay to argue to person doesn't get it okay you're fine everyone has their mileage has their histories you're not going to go to them as the experts on your fate on your destiny on how to deal with your children smile sometimes they say something that's really really off color you know you have to tell yourself do i really have the mental space to get in to a conversation can you just smile and say thank you for sharing have a wonderful shabbos and mean it mean it with this is all part of boundaries but you can't let every person's comment affect your choices in life feedback you get from people who understand who care who empathize who want your best that's who you get feedback from that's the feedback you take seriously constructive criticism is wonderful when it's coming from people you can look up to for feedback that means they fashion they know they have expertise they care it's not just enough to know here you gotta feel they have empathy and they want you to succeed they forget in there they're not just responding to their own discomfort this is so important so just and you'll figure this out and then you know and you learn just people give comments you'll give feedback know what to take in know what not to take it when yeshua sent the two spies to go visit eureka and spy on her to so that the jews should go in why was he not afraid that the same fiasco that happened 40 39 years earlier with moisture spies are going to happen again well he did send khaleev and pinchas two great people according to gaza but he told him two words mirage i want you to be deaf he sends deaf spies before him say how do you send a deaf spy what's the worth of a spy if he can't hear anything that's going on so there's different interpretations in ghazal right make believe you're deaf yeah or jaires from the word clay harris you should be potters that make earthenware or they wear vessels but there's another interpretation rashi says make believe you're death no if i go and i'm a spy and i go like this you know people are going to believe me [Laughter] one of the interpretations is yeshua says when you want to conquer the promised land you have to be able to feign deafness you have to be able to know when to be deaf you have to know when to listen to something and when not to listen to something trust me that any great person who ever tried to do anything great was criticized very heavily and if they would not cultivate the art of feigning deafness they wouldn't be able to survive if every person who criticizes me or criticizes you you would internalize and it turns over your kishkis and you can't sleep for a week which sometimes happens to sensitive people hsp's highly sensitive people they hear criticism and for two months they're thinking about it so it's good that you're thinking about it but if you internalize it to the point that you can't function you have to learn the art of cultivating the art of feigning deafness good criticism from people who get it add it up but you have to know vania and vanished here again must have the khura and then there's something else i want to talk about again it all goes under the same umbrella and that is you know the person who's going to tell you oh it's so hard if you need help just call me and what are you supposed to do call them 10 minutes later i need help call them next day i need help you know people if you need help i'm here thank you what is what's that supposed to mean somebody else calls you and says you know what i'm in the store shopping i want to do the shopping for you for shabbos send me a list right now okay it's different types of people somebody says call me whenever you need me what's that supposed to mean 24 hours a day i should call you 20 hours a day i can always use help then there's people who get it you know i'm just doing this for you they don't ask questions but there's other people who will ask you how can i help you and sometimes we're embarrassed and i say to you yeah sometimes that's justified you know we're embarrassed they can't take favors na madhi sufa but i say you have to protect your health your children's health and your well-being and if you can use the help don't be embarrassed these are people who want to help you they're good people they say how can i help you tell them tell them say i really need somebody to do shopping for me the house is empty i need somebody to do the shopping you know i need to go out with my wife tonight we need we need an hour walk we need two hours just just to download just a little down time maybe you could babysit maybe your daughter could babysit maybe i really need help it's been a crazy week it's friday afternoon can you help me cook some food for shoppers for us don't be embarrassed don't be ashamed i'm talking about a real person who you know who cares about you a reliable person a fine person who says i want to help you don't tell them we don't need any help we're good baruch hashanah everything is fine and then you sit down on the couch and you're falling apart and shabbos comes in and you're a mata and you can't be there for any of the kids the kids need a father and a mother that's vibrant and healthy it's so important and it's so hard so when somebody's offering you to help zainesh can martyr be a carbon carbon it's not a mitzvah which brings me to my final point and and that is it's so important to work on the relationship between husband and wife in these situations today it's so important that marriages are good so important especially when there's a challenge in the house when there's a difficult child when there's a challenged child when there's a special child when there is friction in the marriage it exasperates it increases the problem tenfold rahman al-islam because what allows a family to withstand challenges is when the husband and the wife are on the same page when you create this cohesion this actors you become a team you create a fortress and then any ball that comes your way it may hurt but you can contain it because you're together but the moment there's a breach in the wall nifritsa malayala partualista periacar the moment there's a breach in the wall now there's leaks now the children don't feel safe the other children now you don't feel safe and every curveball that comes just continues to break that wall and hurt the people behind the wall children need that wall what's that wall a husband and a wife that really get along with each other doesn't mean you always agree with each other but that means you respect each other you communicate with each other most importantly you trust each other you could support each other you could rely on each other even if you sometimes have different perspectives together you can understand what the other children need how we could show them the sensitivity they need you could brainstorm for different solutions maybe you'll have different perspectives but together when there's trust and loyalty and camaraderie and bonding when you're dedicated to each other when i know i could lean on you a thousand percent and you can lean on me a thousand percent when you're on one page in life just everything becomes so much sweeter everything can be contained can be dealt with when you trust each other that you could cry on each other's shoulders you can laugh on each other's shoulders but you can talk you can communicate it's so important to take time for yourselves even in all the chaos because that time is the shaman it's the shama it's the engine it's the battery that allows you to keep it together for this child for the other children and for yourselves i sometimes you need guvurine you want to give and give you have to pull back and say we got to work on our communication we got to work on our relationship and finally i know some people have shame and i think it's so important to be able to meditate on this every day eloika and this child is given toward you what's the shame what's the real shame the shame that hashem has given me a soul that has its challenges that has its blessings that has a unique mission in the world and he entrusted us with polishing the soul we sometimes take a look and say oh people are going to think we're a bad family we're not a perfect family why i must have done so many awares to deserve this or who knows what they're going to say about our mishpacha or it means that we're a little different and we're a little weird but this is all missing the point the point is that every soul is a helicom it's a piece of hashem that's what it is are you embarrassed with hashem are you ashamed with her piece of russia i don't think you should be it's its mission it has its unique challenges and we don't always understand what and why and what's the destination and what's the purpose but when you look at it hashem has given you a piece of himself a piece of his infinite light for you to take care of it according to the best of your ability and the people around you will respond to your cues you define how people look at your children don't let anybody else define how people look at your children yaakov avraham the gomorrah says your small came out of him you took asaf came out of him doesn't work only doesn't work yaakov learned how to fuse the two mitosis his family was wholesome you know why not because everybody else said so not everybody held so much that joseph was such a good kid they called him the black sheep of the family the brothers didn't appreciate him at all but jaakov didn't let anybody else define for him how to look at his child mitosis because he looked into the eyes of every child and he genuinely believed you are god's gift to humanity and when you believe that your child can believe that about himself or herself and everybody else will just follow your cues thank you very much this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at www.theyoshiva.net donate