When You’re Dysregulated, You Can’t Regulate Your Children

the yeshiva.net [Music] morning Dr Aban it's a pleasure an honor to be with you likewise good morning nice to see you as well thank you thank you so good morning everyone uh we are going to start um welcome everyone and thank you for joining us again this morning morning my name is y poter I'm a co-founder and executive director of fresh start and it's an honor and for us to continue hosting this webinar series bringing together Jews from all over the world and all different backgrounds when Fresh Start opened a few short years ago our goal was to provide services and programming to help clausell heal from the past experience including childhood abuse trauma neglect but here we are today the traumas in the present and the current events in AR and around the world are causing many of us to feel anxiety fear and a host of other emotions and possibly behaviors we thought we buried a long time ago so we hope this webinar series will help all of us navigate these challenging times both for ourselves and for our children hence the reason Dr ablon is joining us today today's webinar will be focused on helping our children navigate challenging times to learn more about Fresh Start please visit Jewish freshstart.com I would also like to thank the our anonymous sponsor who sponsored this webinar series Le Mayan and in honor of too and Ellie sullon two pillars of the Detroit Community joining us today we have the tremendous list to be joined by Rabbi YY Jacobson who needs no introduction I'm I hope you're okay with that Rabbi y y I feel like he heard that so many times ushi doesn't introduce him anymore we don't introduce those are the best introductions okay it's also the safest we are also joined by Mrs Tova Korn co-founder and program director of fresh start and of course Dr Aon and Dr abon I'm happy to tell you that your last uh webinar with us on Rabbi YY went at least in our community viral I know it's been viewed thousands and thousands of times um I got amazing feedback I think re why why you got meaningful feedback so it's an honor to have you Dr Avon is founder and director of think kids in the department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital he's also an associate professor and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and he's the author of three three books changeable the school discipline books and treating explosive kids uh we will allow the goal of today is to have a discussion then open it up for some Q&A which we'll moderate and monitor and with that being said R why why perhaps uh lead off this discussion and um take it away yeah so as everybody knows the Jewish people face profound adversity since October 7th 2023 um uh of course the Jews living in Israel but really Jews around the world who have been uh shocked and stunned by an explosion of uh horrific anti-Semitism that no Jew imagin especially in the United States of America not from everybody very good people but from enormous amounts of of groups and you know places of Academia and journalism where you would expect uh some uh ethical refinement so it's it's a very difficult time for the Jewish people a very difficult time uh we've been around for 4,000 years so we know what works what works for us is Unity uh spiritual and emotional fortitude uh Faith uh uh love connectedness resolve uh resolve courage confidence uh being anchored in in in real spiritual truth and in moral Clarity but all of us you know want to really become the best version of ourselves you know times of War times of adversity bring out the worst in some people and the best in other people one of the things that always moved me about Dr Stuart abon's uh ideology when it comes to education and we discussed it at length in the last webinar and this morning I refreshed myself with your tet talk that you gave a few years ago the 19 or 18 minute uh brilliant T talk was something that always res that resonates with me because one of the key principles in Judaism and Torah is to be able to identify that in each child there's infinite goodness and our job as parents and Educators is to poish the diamond and cultivate it and one of Dr abon's powerful ideas is instead of looking at the children and say wow you're such a troublemaker you really don't want to do it you really you really want to make your parents miserable don't you you want to make your siblings miserable don't you you want to destroy everybody's lives instead it's looking at the child and seeing that there's an innocence there is a purity there's a Holiness for Judaism that's a Core teaching that every one of us has a soul that is literally Divine and it's whole it's untarnished it's it's it's it's Splendid it's it's sacred it's amazing we also have blockages and we also have other forces and of us and we all need to choose you know which space we're going to live in with ourselves and with with our children never mind when we're dealing with trauma one of I think the most powerful effects of trauma is that we don't get to know how beautiful we are we don't get to know how Soulful we are how much love we have in our hearts because of a message that creeps into our brain internally and often externally from people or events or experiences around us that Eclipse that and uh you know today I think is such a powerful opportunity to be able to go into that space with ourselves and with our children Dr ablon you know always teaches how you know if we should always be able to identify that goodness in our child and and and help him or her bring that out so I think today we want to really focus on how we can be here for our children um in the profoundest way to be able to give them tools that will allow them to use this time and this crisis really as a catalyst to become uh the people that they're capable of becoming which we believe every person is capable of becoming an ambassador of love and light and kindness and uh and beauty and uh and hope and hope and healing so uh here we are today and thank you thank you to Fresh Start thank you and thank you to and of course thank you D and thank you uh for everybody that's joining us here and all those who will watch it later and uh it's really a pleasure and an honor so maybe we should uh give the the mic to our esteemed guest to be able to uh make a presentation and then we can uh take it from there sure well thank you um first of all let me say I'm um I appreciate the invitation to to join you all today and and the community for this discussion and I I'm really hoping it's going to be just that a discussion um and I'm hoping that discussion will be helpful to folks uh I I will reiterate some that um you just mentioned Rabbi which is uh you know in my work we have a saying we say that kids do well if they can uh not kids do well if they want to and it's as simple as we just have to make them want to but rather kids do well if they can because what we believe is all kids want to do well I have yet to meet a child who prefers struggling to to doing well um and so we we really feel like every child is striving to be the best version of them themselves and when they're struggling it's uh very infrequently a lack of motivation that would be getting in their way uh usually what it is in our language is is a lack of uh being able to access the skills they would need to be able to navigate what the world is throwing at them and I think as we um gather today to talk about how to be helpful to our children to support them during enormously difficult times I think the first thing for us to discuss is how to support one another because the reality is that um most of the stress uh this chronic stress that is being felt throughout your community uh is being felt by the adults by the parents by the Educators now that doesn't mean it's not also being felt by the children because children are incredible emotional barometers you know we we often have this thought that we can Shield children from things especially by not talking to them about things or talking to them you know talking in front of them or from shielding them from inputs from TV from social media um children sense things children understand things at a level we really don't give them credit for so frankly there isn't shielding from sh as much as we like to think we're capable of it we're really not um and they're barometers of our anxiety our stress um our moves um you know uh what we're preoccupied with so I think you know the first important Focus for us is how um how do how does everyone be there together with one another to support one another because the reality is that during very disregulated times uh to use a sort of clinical term um you know if we're going to be there to try to help regulate our children help them manage and control their behaviors and understand their feelings behind those behaviors it starts with us being able to manage our own reactions responses emotions and yes as a result behavior um you know there's a sort of a fundamental truth that is often shared in in uh my field which is that a disregulated adult cannot possibly help regulate a disregulated child uh and it's not just adult to Children you know that there we talk about there's an inherent power differential of sorts but um the reality is that no disregulated person can help regulate another person um now so help us regulate ourselves so we can regulate others that's where I'm heading where I'm heading is you know I often tell people that you know there's there's lots of different ways to to to regulate ourselves and and help regulate one another uh there are what we call top down and bottom up ways um talking about the top or the bottom of the brain um and you know there there are ways that are frequently talked about that are sort of more bottom up if you will which involves just literally taking care of yourself um which means you know watching your your sleep you're you're eating your exercise you're getting outside uh you know these kinds of things to stay regulated but when we're talking about strategies um that you can use to help regulate another human look I tell people uh the greatest human regulator we have is empathy empathy is tremendously regulated and so a large part of my work and the folks who who utilize our work is about teaching people how to become better empathizers and you know sometimes people think well that's just sort of a skill you have or you don't some people are just super empathic and others are not and while there that's truth to that um you know I I've never seen a skill that can't be built of any kind and I'm not saying that somebody who struggles with the skill is going to become fantastic at that skill overnight but there's no skill that can't be practiced and veloped over time and even I'm not just talking about kids brains that are more malleable but the adult brain is changeable also so anybody can learn to get better at empathizing and so I guess what I'd like to just unpack and then hopefully we can you know uh involve people in the discussion here is is what does empathy mean um and to me empathy means to understand uh you know it doesn't mean that you have to have walked in somebody's shoes to be able to empathize with them and it certainly does not mean that you have to agree with their perspective entirely or point of view or things like that but you do have to work really hard to try to understand and I think one of the things that I would imagine is in this community people are having very different reactions and responses I'm sure there's commonality and similarity but we want to be careful not to assume that our reaction our response our emotions are the same reactions responses emotions that someone else is feeling and how can you uh check well you can get curious and you can think of yourself as a a detective really trying to understand what somebody's reactions points of views um responses are and so it's really about being open-minded being curious being non-judgmental and really just wanting to talk and understand what somebody's experience is and um last thing I'll say for now is I you know just last week I was at a a conference for schools um a schools a conference Focus focused on what people refer to as social emotional learning in schools and I was doing a presentation along with a colleague of mine um who focuses a lot on um helping people understand Express and manage their emotions uh his name is Dr Mark bracket uh has F book by the way called permission to feel which is a great book but he has a particular approach he works with in uh folks in schools around but one of the things that he was really emphasizing in our joint work last week is that we often make a lot of assumptions about people's emotions um because when we're reading people's emotions it comes entirely through our own filter through our own experiences and you know um that can be very helpful but it can also produce um you know some assumptions uh you know I think there a long time ago somebody wrote a a paper where they distinguish between what we call blind spots and bright spots and blind spots is you know when because of your own experiences your own upbringing background Etc you might have some particular blind spots everybody understands that concept the concept of bright spots was if you have people with shared experiences value vales cultures perspectives you also have to be really careful of your bright spot which is assume making assumptions that we are so aligned that I know exactly how you're thinking and feeling about this and that's a mistake and the biggest reason that it's a mistake is it misses an opportunity to gather information and really understand it maybe you're exactly aligned but you know what if you really take the time and the patience and the Curiosity to understand and find out you're aligned that will be immensely regulated it's not just being aligned is what's regulating it's having someone listen to you and understand you um really while trying to sort of bite their tongue on their perspective or point of view or experience well they just try to explore what's going on uh for the other person so I thought that might be a useful uh place for us to start and obviously there's a lot more that I how do you deal how do you deal with the Ang like I find myself say hearing or seeing somebody uttering somebody of influence or trying to be uttering just a monstrous lie you know Hitler once said don't tell people a small lie they won't believe you tell them a monstrous lie and then oh of course it's true you know can be not true and I find myself getting so angry angry I don't know helpless or angry now sometimes maybe maybe that's the right emotion like maybe that's the right emotion absolutely but it's very dysregulating it is very disregulated but you know there there's some a notion out there that there's like like positive and negative emotions which is a silly thought you know there's hard emotions and easier emotions but uh you know it's not feeling anger is not a negative emotion anger is an incredible indicator and what you need to be thoughtful about of course is um you know trying your best to sort of inhibit the impulse to immediately react from anger and try to really understand okay why is this anger me so much and let me make sure I understand my own personal reaction to this and think about how I want to express that and of course what I want to do with those feelings because I want to be very clear also that the notion of of um emotion regulation it does not mean that you should always be controlling your emotions no emotions can be very helpful to drive us to do things that need to be done in the world and so you know managing emotions is not always to quell emotions anger can be a very useful and indic and indicator and emotion for us to drive action you're saying you just want to make sure you're harnessing it productively to help to help the cause of goodness yes exactly exactly now when you when you see a child if fact could just get very practical and maybe it's not a question on principle it's very practical let's say you know you see a child your child is at home you ask him questions or her questions no answer um they all they want is computer or whatever just leave me alone you're trying to communicate you're trying to build a relationship it's not just resistance and behavior it's resistance that you can't even begin to build the communication level so yeah you say Dr you go to Dr Ain he says there's a skill there's a skill missing it's not it's not Rebellion he's not trying to destroy your life he's not a bad he's not a bad kid how do you even begin to build that skill when right when your child are just ignoring you or throwing a tantrum and they don't want to talk to you like right well yeah a bunch of things for us to unpack here I mean first of all that could be a struggle with skill you know perhaps the easiest simplest example is you know a lot of kids have difficulty with the language and communication skills necessary to take in everything that you're saying to them with receptive language and formulate their thoughts in a sort of coherent and effective and quick enough way and communicate them back to you and one of their ways uh sort of to to avoid having that challenge is just not to engage at all and you know I'm always struck uh by and I have three children myself I'm struck by how often when we go to try to talk to Children if we don't get a fairly quick response that suggest they're engaging in the communication we throw more words at them very quickly and often often times we sort of throw more words at them with more intensity and if we still don't get a response we remind them that if they don't respond to us there's going to be some consequence to this so in other words then what we do is we throw emotion on top of something that is already hard for them and it's no surprise they shut down or escalate so sometimes it can absolutely be a skill I will say though that there are other times where you know a child might have the skills to fully engage in that conversation but frankly they've had a lot of um examples of those conversations sounding a whole lot more like lectures than conversations again which every parent has been a part of you know when sometimes you're lecturing and you know you're lecturing you don't want to lecture but you can't stop yourself from lecturing so a lot of times you know there's also a thought of oh I know where this is heading and uh you know this is not gonna not going to be something that I'm going to find it engaging or fulfilling at all so um you know of course I have some thoughts about this one on a very practical level I encourage us parents to be really thoughtful about when and where and while doing what we try to have conversations like this especially difficult conversations um and you know every child has their preferences for times and places to have conversations uh you know I remember when my three children were younger that they had three entirely different sort of times and places and frankly activities we you know a big mistake we make is we often think that a serious conversation must be sitting down at a table or on chairs looking at each other face to face it's extraordinarily disregulated for children to do that and they often start to dissociate as a response which is part of the reasons you don't get engagement um one of the best things you can do to to to regulate is to have some motion or some activity this is why taking a walk with your child and talking is far more effective first of all there's not constant eye contact which is disregulated but there's motion there's movement a patterned repetitive movement regulates our human brains uh and so whether that's taking a walk um you know uh with older children when you're driving in the car with them again you're not looking uh face to face at one another one another there's some movement a little bit of distraction uh you know um throwing a ball back and forth you name it but some other activity I'll tell you you know um the reason why therapists who work with children and Adolescence almost always have the game of Uno in their offices is because Uno can be played without using a lot of brain power but there's also a patterned and repetitive back and forth that goes on which regulates the brain and provides a little distraction while you can have a conversation at the same time so sorry for my long-winded answer here but first off I would say where should you have this conversation when are they at their best for these conversations is it at night before bed is it while having a snack is it in the while they're in the bath is it outside throwing a ball is it taking a walk um and you know eating ice cream eating ice cream absolutely absolutely and you know then the other thing you want to do is you just want to um provide a lot of reassurance that um you are just interested and curious about what they're thinking and how they're feeling about whatever the topic is that you're wanting um you know to to talk with them about and a know big big pet peeve of mine is I think there's so much advice out there about how to talk to Children about difficult events and I think that has us emphasizing the wrong thing it's not what we say to kids during difficult events it's how we listen and hear from them and again I'll just point out we're often really surprised if we do a good job of listening to them what they're worried about may not be what we think they are worried about especially younger children who developmentally are very egocentric they should be um and they're much less concerned about what is happening in other places they're much more concerned about what does this mean for me my immediate life safety wellbeing family here the immediat and uh you know we don't know that until we sort of uh you know approach with an open mind and just ask questions we so you when if a fa a father turning to a son or a daughter and saying you can't ignore me you can just sit at the computer and ignore me when tati daddy speaks to you you have to you have to answer so if I say that to my child and you're the child what is the child processing and why is that wrong and how can I substitute that phrase well the child is starting to get disregulated and there's different forms of disregulation there's escalating you'll have some children will will tell you I'm you know um I'm not ignoring you I don't want to talk to you right now they may yell at you they may say something that that you know is uh particularly offensive but another child may continue ignoring but honestly you know their brain may have completely dissociated and they're not focused anymore and so you know if uh what was the first thing you said that child said back to you no the child just doesn't you scream more you get more Ang you're gonna this you're gonna do you can't ignore you can't ignore when I ask you a question you gotta answer well and so what I my Approach would be uh quite the opposite which is the reassurance that actually you can ignore if this is a bad time for us to talk so it seems like maybe this is a bad time or you're not feeling Ready Or there's something about this that isn't going so well we don't have to talk right now okay that's a form of reassurance we don't have to talk right now I'd like to talk at some point so maybe later we can find a good time to talk and and that's another important point is you can actually collaborate around when you should talk where you should talk and how you should talk before you even talk so what does that look like okay well then just skip that that interaction that just happened come back to them later when they're eating their ice cream I guess it takes work from a parent not to take it personal and become defensive like you're ignoring me you're ignoring me like it's almost like I need you my kid to be my therapist and reassure me that I'm a respectable person I think that's something we can all fall into very easily absolutely and look we feel very disrespected very easily right um and there is nothing like disrespect or feeling like our Authority has been challenged right to have us reach for power and control again right because where that conversation usually goes is you're ignoring me stop ignoring me uh if you don't you're ignoring me it's about me and if you don't if you don't stop and pay attention to me here's what's going to happen to you because let me remind you I am the one who holds the power here and emphasizing a power differential ironically further disregulated kids okay soort of you know Reaching For That Power you mean because they feel less safe because they feel less safe absolutely yes yeah absolutely and and again I just want to emphasize that take different forms because sometimes people think oh no when I you know when I get very Stern and angry with my child um you know I can sit they they calm down and they stay focused that is what we call dissociative compliance that is a child in their brain thinking danger danger what can I do to get this over with as quickly as possible because this is uncomfortable and generally what that looks like is a child just sort of playing along with um whatever they think we want to hear uh in that moment or what they want us to do so that they can get past this as quickly as possible so it's really the inner work of the parent to always tune in to where the child is and make that adjustment and again you know um you know if even the most attuned parent we're g to be wrong in terms of where a child is at often so this is why being curious and asking questions what we don't have to talk right now it's okay you can ignore me right now but can you just quickly tell me why you're not responding and and then we can leave it but it'll just help me to know for the future and you know you'll be surprised what comes out of a kid's mouth right it might be because I'm in the middle of something as simple as that but it might be because I think you're mad at me or because I know I must have done something wrong and the nice thing is if you hear anything from a child any it provides you an opportunity to sort of operationalize empathy because anything a child says to you is something you can reflect back to them leave me alone okay sounds like you want me to leave you alone and you know what I'm not going to force this right now okay or I'm in the middle of something oh all right so you're right in the middle of something right now Ian this is not rocket science right I'm just reflecting back what a child has said but that alone is very regulating but sometimes parents are struggling let's say the child hits them or says something really not nice you know obnoxious and they feel it's their responsibility you know you don't hit your mom you don't hit you you don't you don't say these words and then they're stuck between Dr ablan Who Says understand their frustration or their experience and oh so my child should now hit me like could you answer and let me be clear I think it's fine to tell a child that they shouldn't hit you I I just in my experience 99% of the time that child is already aware that they shouldn't hit their parent and yet they're still hitting their parent um now I think it's absolutely fine of course to let them know that they shouldn't do that and let me also be clear that I I am not someone who says you should never use a consequence um you know in parenting um no I just always tell people be smart about what consequences accomplish and what they don't accomplish and they are good at reminding children of what to do or not to do and they're good at motivating children because they don't want to receive that consequence again to behave better in the future but they don't teach skills and if a child so give me this scenario this child is is saying very derogatory things are actually physically hitting a father or a mother even if it's even if it's light but the point is so could you let you act out the appropriate behavior well what I I would need to know a little bit more about is what is the situation that is giving rise to that in the first place because by the way kids don't start swearing screaming hitting for no reason out of the blue people say sometimes they think that's the case there is always a trigger always an antecedent there's always something your child is so a father tells me right he goes to pick up his child from uh from school it's it's not far one day he doesn't come with the car he decides let's walk you know little exercise it's a nice weather the boy loses it the boy gets the boy loses it he sits down on the ground throws a tantrum hitting the father because he didn't come with his car he's going to walk they're going to walk back home the father thought it's going to be an amazing experience not only amazing it's a disaster this is why I was smiling because I could think that this would be something I would do what a great idea we'll take a walk beautiful day together we'll take a hike we'll contemplate the beauty of nature nature we'll talk about the B Dan and let's be clear that this is a great example of we don't yet know why this idea of walking you know went over so poorly with this particular child and there's Myriad reasons that could be the case and the sort of the Bedrock of my work is try to be curious not Furious now I will say this to you this In the Heat of the Moment there it's much harder to do this kind of problem solving and if this is the only time something like this is ever going to happen with that child you'll do you the best in the moment um but you know that's something that's just passing the reality is this is probably an issue that has happened before and will recur and so the worst time to do to problem solve is when they're sitting there on the curb um you know doing that at another time when the kids's in a better space proactively much better but let's go back to the scenario because you've got the child uh let's say they've sworn a bunch or whatever and yelled and they're now parked on the curb and sort of refusing to move right um so no surprise what I'm might to suggest start with empathy okay um and what does empathy look like wow okay I guess I thought it would be a good idea for us to take a to to walk back I thought that was a good idea looks like it was a really bad idea in your mind okay don't worry I'm not going to force you to walk back and by the way when people say wait a second why would you say that to a kid I I say that to a kid because I think to myself I don't know how I'm going to force this child to walk back in the first place it's not a big leap to say that but what I do is I take imposition of will off the table that is regulated I'm not gonna Force you it sounds like this was a really bad idea can you fill me in about why it's a bad idea don't worry I'm not gonna Force you I want to understand and then what could you hear you could hear everything very from something very practical it's going to take us longer to get home and I wanted to do XYZ once I got home uh it you know it could be uh something they're going to have a hard time telling you which is that they actually would like to be seen with their uh father as little as possible around their peers and hopping in the car and getting out of there is going to be a lot quicker than they might be spied by some of their friends who knows um and by the way it could be something the child isn't even able to articulate because a whole bunch of kids who struggle um to manage their their behavior one of their underlying skills that they have a hard time with is what we call cognitive flexibility fancy word for flexible thinking and what that means is when everything goes according to plan rules routine in the world life is great but if you throw a change something new ambiguous uncertain they weren't expecting unpredictability they have a very hard time with it okay now that by the way for people listening here that's very typical for young children you know developmentally this is a skill that you build um but you can have much older child who really struggles in that skill domain and by the way if they struggle enough along with some other skills maybe they would have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum but regardless of whether it's a minor or age appropriate challenge or a more significant clinical challenge um that's that maybe what's interfering is that you just uh sort of they have a black and white brain um and they were thinking black and you threw white at them they can't compute okay now I think Rabbi what people are going to say is okay great let's say you were able to calm the child down let's say they told you I don't maybe it's as simple as I don't feel like walking I'm tired let's do it that way okay um so you get their concern on the table they've calmed down a little bit through your empathy what do you do now and what we say to people is well you express your perspective or your concern which is okay well you know I guess I thought it might be fun nice to walk together outside but that's just what I thought okay what you think is you're tired and you just want to get home what I was thinking is this might be fun for us to walk so we were thinking about this a little bit differently okay and the reason I'm doing this with my hands folks is this is how I always illustrate whether you're really collaborating with a child because if you only have you know your concern on the table I thought it would be nice you are headed right towards imposing your Al will um if you only have their concern on the table which is I didn't want to walk I'm tired I just want to get home uh you're headed just to addressing their concern true collaboration is there's two sets of concerns here okay which leads to the final what I call ingredient of this the first ingredient being hearing out the child the second being expressing your concern or perspective the third being let's collaborate and what is that look like so what do you think we can do now because you just want to get home and you're tired you don't feel like walking and I hear you okay and by the way let me just point out to people you could be thinking at that time what do you mean you're tired do you have any idea what tired is I'll tell you what tired is okay you know school is not nearly as tiring as you want to hear what your dad did today that's not empathy and empathy is not agreeing or disagreeing it is simply understanding the child is saying they are tired they don't feel like walking okay and you had that idea you thought was good so what do you think we can do now since you're tired don't feel like walking I had this idea but it didn't sound like a great idea to you what do you think we can do at this point and you're inviting the child and you're giving them first cracket Solutions which is not only practiceing problem solving but it is giving them ownership autonomy Buy in um so that they're going to be invested in whatever solution we try to Fashion but you elicited a response from the child what if you didn't even get there throwing a tantum screaming hollering crying right well so uh first of all if they don't respond you have another tool at your disposal against it's it's not rocket science but it's called Educated guessing right I mean there's only so many reasons in all likelihood the child didn't want to walk so what would I do if they were just quiet I would say okay well um do you mind if I take a guess here is it just that you're tired don't feel like it is it you wanted to get home quick for some reason is it um that this was just a surprise you weren't expecting or is it something else that you know of but I haven't guessed yet and it's like playing 20 questions okay with most kids you won't get 20 um but the other thing the worst case scenario is let's say they're too upset they're too disregulated to to access this part of their brain to fill you in well you know you could decide I'm in crisis management mode here what I'm going to do is say Okay um you know what sounds like I made a mistake and would have been good for us to talk this through ahead of time you're not feeling so good about this um let's just figure out how we get home you know as quickly as possible without walking okay if that's an option Dr ablon can I just shiman I I please the the uh everything you're saying applies to Everyday Life um is there anything different that during these uncertain times you know I brought it up with a different uh webinar that we did that a couple weeks ago there was an article that there were helicopters over Brooklyn New York during um the end of school to sort of protect the kids and make sure they were safe so obviously there's a lot of elements of uncertainty and you know safety concerns Etc is there anything else or anything different or any additional yes thoughts ideas that you we might give to our children during these specifically disregulated times yes and thank you for grounding Us in in the the current context that gives rise for this this webinar in particular right now um I you know I think the most important thing to to for us all to realize here is in times of heightened stress uh what happens is we all lose access to skills that we had before and we able to apply so what this means is that you're going to see children who weren't throwing Tantrums weren't having difficulty having difficulty you're going to see children who are having difficulty have much more difficulty because you know all of our skills um are really dependent on the context we're in and the resulting state that our brain is in and if we are in a context that is very stressful and anxiety ridden and scary what it means is that our brains are in more of a state of heightened arousal uh an activated sort of response uh and in a state of heightened arousal we have less access to all those skills so for example you could have a child who has no cognitive flexibility issues really they're pretty flexible for their age and something like that this example we were just sharing would never have thrown them during ordinary times but during the these times as simple as I thought we would walk home when they were expecting to get picked up that could tap into inflexibility that's there that wasn't before and by the way a good reason inflexibility might pop up in a way that it wasn't before is a sense of control you know in times that are frightening and outside of one's control all of us we seek control understandably kids who have been traumatized not just kids people who have been traumatized subject to Chronic toxic stress in their lives seek control so you know you're you're going to be you're going to see chances or or opportuni situations arise where there's going to be much more of a control struggle than you've ever had before because the child is searching for some control in their lives so in other words everything we've been talking about is even more important and I would say to us parents during these times give more leeway to your child and yourself to not have to solve the problem and really to not let me be clear not give in but to make a strategic decision to say you know what this is a stressful time we don't have to walk home right now it seems like something has touch this off and kids do well if they can they're doing the best they can you know what this is not a battle I need to fight here um we're going to come up with a different backup plan to to get home quick in a car um and we're just going to sidestep that one for now because you're GNA have more issues to contend with currently you mentioned something very powerful that you know children have that egocentricity and you said and it should be that way I think sometimes it's hard for us because the word ego can be a really bad word you know egocentric narcissistic self-indulgent selfish Etc could you clarify how allowing the child to be egocentric maybe there's a different word for it but is really the healthy thing for the development of that child like yeah he's worried about himself or herself not about the world and it's supposed to be that developmentally appropriate right in terms of children's development even their moral development they should be most concerned about themsel earlier in life and so you know trying to Buck that developmental trend is is not going to go well but the other because basically destroy their self esteem self-love yeah but I also want to point out that even in that discussion that we were sort of role playing there you know um when you are really present empathizing and trying to understand your child's perspective it's not that you are reinforcing an egocentric nature for them because what you're sh showing them is here's what empathy looks like okay here's I'm modeling empathy for you they'll learn to do it with others well you actually are asking them to do it with you because the moment you share okay one here's what I was saying is your you're saying you what I just asked you to practice so you're actually teaching them much more kindness and selflessness you got it so when you use the word egocentric what you really mean is create the safety for the child to be able to feel secure and soothed and safe so now they can actually give and and cons you're modeling that you are modeling it and then you're asking them to practice it now I I'm also aware by the way that there's some questions in the in the Q&A here should we take some of those here we'll get I wanted to like just the example that you were giving I was like sitting through it and watching what you were doing with your hands I felt like that was on one hand we were also practicing as a parent this was the scale over here and that was what you were saying at the beginning a parent has to make sure their ground and right and so we are practicing and we're also teaching our kids to practice so I was waiting for you to sort of like hear out the skill and then apply it to what's happening these days so for example I'm trying to like bring it back to what's going on how much do I share with my kids what do I not say to my kids how do I make them feel safe where does that still come in when when when and and I'm hearing what you're saying about the kid is going to have a tantrum but the kids are afraid they're hearing things in school they're not hearing like how do we apply this to our Everyday Life currently when I feel fear or right you were talking at the beginning about the anger and there's so much Injustice happening right now our anger is consistent how how do I stop the anger while I'm in anger and still apply this to them well I I think one of the important things here that we've been discussing is you need to be careful not to project necessarily your a anger and your fear onto your child you need to start by trying to figure out where they are at now and you mentioned you know they're seeing things they're hearing things uh one of the first places to start is to ask them what they seen and what they've heard and what they know and try to unpack what their experience so far has been so that you know where to start and this is what I was saying before like that the idea of that you know for instance I could tell you what you should say to your child right now frankly I have absolutely no idea what you should say to your child because I don't know what your child is thinking and feeling and I don't know what they've experienced and been exposed to and right I need to hear that first so what does that look like it looks like picking the right time the right place as we discussed earlier to start a conversation where you're going into detective mode and it might start as neutrally as um you know there's been a lot of things going on in the world that uh you know I I have been very worried about upset a lot of scary things and can I pause for one second because as you're saying it I'm thinking to myself what if the child didn't Express to me is it am I putting something on them when I ask that because what can't even tell me I just know well this is what I was saying before though if you are telling me that you are feeling intense anger and fear there is no way your child is not aware of those feelings in you there is no way so and now again I don't want to project because I'm going to go into information gathering mode quickly but it might be you know you you've probably been able to tell that Mom has been very upset and worried lately and there's a lot of uh important and scary things going on and I wanted to talk to you about them because I I don't even know you know um how much you know and what you have seen and what you have heard and I'd like to understand and that's the stance of um what I call this first ingredient of a discussion like this entering into empathy is I'd like to understand and you're you're starting to ask a bunch of questions uh as the rabbi said what if what if your child says nothing back you can do some educated guesses okay if they say anything to you you have an opportunity to reflect that to them and I I want to respond in this context to Ruth's uh question she typed in just because it's a it's a quick one here she said when I reflect back to my children they yell at me uh stop repeating what I said um if your child is saying that you don't have to repeat back exactly what they said what you can say is okay so what I'm hearing from you is or have I got this right it can be in any words you want and say it a little different in fact I encourage us as parents to not directly repeat back what a child says because that is annoying to them often uh just parenting them but to say in your own words um and and that's an opportunity for them to be able to tell oh wow they are really hearing it because they're sending it back to me suggesting they've thought about it and this is their uh you know their interpretation of it but basically going back to this conversation as soon as you kick it off it's questions it's guesses it's reflecting things you've heard and it's trying to reassure them I'm I really just want to understand what's going on uh what your experience is what you've heard what you think what you feel is that helpful I think so and I think there was one question somebody is just asking there they read about a mother who wanted her kid to understand um what's going on in the world so she took them to one of these rallies or to one of these places and she showed them the shabas table set up right the table that's set for Sabbath with all the names of the kids who were kidnapped and she's want and she wanted her kid to feel empathy to what's going on so she took him there and they walked from one shair to next and read the name of this kid and this child and that child and that child and and the kid fell apart he was seven years old and he fell on the ground and he's crying and crying and she's saying this is what I did and she's showing how beautiful it is that her child understands is finally understanding what's happening and then this Mother's saying I feel so guilty because I don't say a word to my kid like where's the balance I'm not telling my kid that there's even a war do am I allowed to just completely hold back these days and other mothers are taking their kids out there to show them these tables animals I I uh I mean I don't know the situation but if I may say something I really don't understand why there is a need to take young children and deprive them from their childhood when it's not necessary why not bring our children together to the table and say our brothers and sisters in Israel are going through a challenging time and we're going to pray together we're going to sing together we're going to send love together to them we're going to do a Mitzvah together we're going to give charity for them we're going to recite Psalms together um let's use it as an opportunity to to highlight those emotions and those uh that sense of unity that brings positivity to the world um we're we're we're Jews we know the power of a faith of a Mitzvah of Prayer of of spiritual connection that's why we're here thousands of years later we're here because of these gifts that's what I that's what I want to give my child I I I I'm not understanding why take a seven-year-old kid or a six-year-old kid or an eight-year-old kid and subject them to the knowledge of atrocities that are difficult for us that that that that I I I have a hard time sleeping and I'm 51 years old I don't see the benefit of it right and I guess I I would just uh so I agree entirely and I would add um you know that what I described before kids do well if they can we need to apply it to ourselves as well which is to say parents do well if they can which is I am positive that that parent had a really really good rationale for why this was a good idea now developmentally it sounds like it was too much for that child and there were probably better ways to address the parents concern about helping that their child understand what's going on in the world and to have empathy there were better ways developmentally to do that but I want to recognize the parents Instinct and concern was a good one maybe just not the solution and you know it really does matter a kid's age and developmental level because at a different age and with a different child that might be a very powerful appropriate thing to do but this to me all gets back to let's not impose Solutions or frankly interpretations feelings emotions responses onto our children you can't make someone feel something uh what you need to do is you need to start with where they're at so for instance you know um I would have loved to have that parent have a conversation with their child understanding where their child is at what they're hearing what they're knowing things like this and raising the concern of it I think it would be helpful for you to have a sense of what's going on for some of the children um what what do you think that could look like and you could talk about it together but not not just sort of come up with a solution like that and and I I really appreciate you raising and being honest about you know here people are are are taking going to lengths like that and I feel like I haven't even mentioned that there's a war going on and look we do need to find a middle ground okay and where that middle ground is is going to depend on your child where they're at development Mally what their skills are and frankly what they feel like they are ready for can tolerate Etc they need to be co-creators of the solution there I would suggest in your case yeah your your child was how old again did you say seven or yeah so so you know again they're understanding your emotions and frankly knowing that and feeling that your mom your dad uh is very worried very scared very concerned very ma mad angry and not knowing why that is is much more upsetting than hearing some of about what's going on Believe It or Not uh and again I'll go back to the egocentrism of young children because what young children of often assume is it's about me I must be doing something that is causing my mom to feel so angry scared Etc so it's often very reassuring for a child now this is where we need to control our own emotions because a child may feel relief to hear oh this is about a war going on not about something in my own family right here our adult response might be this is not relieving that's not the response I was looking for for you and this is where we can't project our own reactions and we need to realize that it's okay developmentally for a child to feel that way so we can't attribute emotion we want to try to understand where the child's coming from well if I can add also I grew up as a child at the feet of The Great LA and he was such a a powerful proponent of bringing children together especially during difficult times for the Jewish people and having them say verses of Torah together and verses of Hope and healing and love and giving charity together and singing and encouraging their spirit and praying together and his point was first of all it creates safety for the children it shows them that we're in this together and the most powerful thing is it teaches them the spiritual connectedness of the universe our our words our attitudes our love our connection to God to our souls it sends it brings love into the world it brings power and empowerment and strength to the Jewish people this is this is how we actually help our brothers and sisters we want to help our brothers and sisters more than anything else and and and children from a Jewish perspective are are the inter inter the link between Heaven and Earth the innocence of children and the purity of children you know in the times of PM again Iran Persia hmon wanted to anite all the Jews and Mar gathered 22,000 children not to frighten them and and scare The Living Daylights out of them but actually they learned Torah together 22 and and and the talmud says that that's that was the spiritual salvation of the Jewish people so I think you know we I want my children to know who they are to know what it means to be a Jew at this time but but to give my child the empowerment of how he or she and all of us can actually do something in a very real deep authentic way to bring more light to our brothers and sisters and to innocent people the world over right I have another question that's coming up I'm sure this is coming up to so many of our people because we are Jews and we have all the laws and I don't know RAB I'm going to direct it to you first because what's ifab I'm going to let you translate it but when Dr Aban saying over here he knows it it's the fourth Commandment of the Ten Commandments trust me about it respect respect your father and mother so what's the question so the question is when we're starting here at the beginning and we're saying like oh you know I have to be empathic to my child I want him to do something now and we're going to have I mean we've had so many of these questions come out on our on our um previous ones where I'm a parent what do you mean they're supposed to respect me that's how it is that's our morals we teach them that we're a parent like what do you mean I have to back off like right it's a great question let me tell you how I see it me tell you how I see it I'm sure there's much more to this I'm just going to tell you how I see it and that is as follows let's think about adults okay uh Tova I know I I'm not your father I'm not your mother but how would you respect me or any person more if you feel that I understand you and I care for you and I get you and I really want to be here for you or you just feel that I'm a clueless individual who has absolutely no understanding of your life even if I mean well and I'm not a bad person when would you respect me more I'm not even talking about love I'm talking about respect I think what Dr ablan is telling us and and I think it's a very powerful idea I don't see that at all as contradicting respect if if I want my child to really respect me really respect me not say that he respects me because he's afraid of me losing myself and going crazy and hollering in the house but really respect me the more a father and mother are tuned into the soul and the emotions and the needs of their children and show them we're here for you we are a presence of authority and compassion and empathy but Authority doesn't mean I can Crush you Authority means I'm going to take the responsibility and I'm going to display the power and the presence of mind to be here for you I think that probably elicits the profoundest respect ultimately when when that child is 40 or 50 60 70 years old they will still be respecting father and mother and and I think also there are times respecting father and mother is also about actions which means how do you speak to your father how do you talk to your mother how do you communicate to them even if you're disagreeing and I think the more children feel understood and respected the more they will actually feel inspired and enthusiastic about showing that respect to their parents even if there may sometimes be a disagreement but they'll still know what respect means I think it actually helps the behavior of respect even on an external level because if I if I really respect some somebody inside so then my behavior of respect in terms of words and actions will probably be elevated to a much more authentic and profound degree that's how I feel about it why why I I I'm sure you're familiar with this Rashi but there's a A plus rash writes there he says yeah well I just I want that to AB to understand what you said there's a verse in Genesis where God explains why he why he chose why he chose Abraham as as the father of the of the Jewish people and ultimately although and he says he the language is because I know him and and the so Rashi one of the great commentator said it's a language of love because when you really when you really cherish somebody and and and love them and and you're actually knowing them it's about knowing them so I think right that's that's what you mean to bring out yeah yeah yeah there's a beautiful comment here that I don't know because I I don't know all the MOs and everything but um somebody over here writes yob aino called his children my brothers right he referred to his children as like later on somebody asks a question why is there resistance to these ideas of Dr ablon in the religious community um I don't think it's real resistance I think just people are scared that we don't want to raise obnoxious rude self-centered immoral promiscuous narcissistic kids and if I follow this advice my kids are going to become rotten potatoes and Rotten Tomatoes do whatever they want scream curse hit when when they their teens who knows what who know what are going to do if I can rule with a with with with discipline and authority and decisive morality and not all this understanding empathy empathy empathy empathy empathy yeah you could scream at your father empathy EMP empathy empathy they're going to grow up to be horrible people horrible Jews I think that's what people are afraid of and I get it but I think it's because we're not really worked out we're we're just coming from a place of fear and we ourselves are disregulated maybe it happened to us as kids so we think that's the that's what we have to communicate to the Next Generation I don't find this dis advice and this perspective as trying to raise children who are spoiled and R and R I think it's the exact opposite I think it's about bringing out the deepest goodness of children believing in them believing what Torah teaches us that every person has a Divine infinite soul and and organically they are the most beautiful beautiful people yeah we have aara we we we have we can have negative inclinations that block our Beauty and our job is to remove that and help kids and ourselves make those choices am I going to live in a space of love and and and serenity and light or I'm going to live in a space of misery and resentment and negativity and and lack of forgiveness and and the more the more we help people see their light the more they can choose between their light and their Darkness that's what it's about it's about educating children from within it's about creating people who will Who will really identify with the spiritual values in the deepest way it's not about forcing it one day every child becomes independent you know today it's already happening at a very young age right you used to become independent I don't know at 20 30 today already you know if your kid is not independent at nine it's a miracle 13 14 oh my God they're going on 90 so I think this is really about education where you're inculcating empowerment into them that they ultimately become AG they have agency and they can identify what's happening inside of them by us modeling that type of of relationship I mean that's how that's how I'm seeing it that's how I'm seeing it I feel resistance to this is something that's coming from my own my own fear or my own insecurity the fact that I'm not worked out I I'm I'm not working on myself and and education as Dr ablon said real education is about educating yourself much more than your child right I mean if I could just add I mean I think um look we need to remember that discipline the word discipline actually really to teach and you know I think there's a misconception also that this type of parenting is somehow permissive parenting and sort of taking laxidasical taking the easy you know route which it is not at all what what we're talking about today is very hard work it is anything but right it's harder it's harder work it's much harder work we're also working on ourselves yeah and I think that the comments about um you know respect before look if we want to teach children to respect their Elders people's in people in position of authority other humans we have to teach them how to do that and in essence what I think we're trying to describe today is how to respect a child respect their emotions their thoughts their feelings where they're at and you know what I found is when you listen really hard to anyone they're much more likely to be receptive to listening to your teachings as well I I just want to I just want to read out a comment here we'll give a shout out to toar shavas one of your star students Dr abon she writes as a as a from Orthodox Jew who has been trained by directly by Dr ablon and has been using this model both professionally and personally for many years I'd like to share that this his model Works in remarkable ways and only strengthens our masora and principles which means our tradition so thank you Tamar uh for that I do think we have a we have a Live question I just interject that um thank you for those comments tomarrow and you know tomarrow is a a true expert in this work and so she is an incredible resource uh to people in this community who are really wanting to be able to take some of these Concepts and these ideas and and um really make them things that can come alive within your community and within your faith so I um recommend tomarrow shames as incredible resource for uh for Tamar it's so nice to have you on and you know I know you spoke to the doctor about it and we are hopefully going to be rolling out something with tomarrow for our alumni and for parents to I know we've had some conversation about it then we're moving in that direction we've spoken a lot about it already so it's nice to see you tomorrow nice to see I think somebody asked a very powerful question I want to get if we can get Dr to abn's feedback in Judaism there's a teaching that anger anger is not a good thing so this person is asking if maybe when we talk about anger and you spoke earlier about anger maybe a more a deeper and more authentic word would be pain in other words when I'm angry there's Injustice I'm hearing something that that reeks such Injustice and and maybe cruelty and barbarism I'm in pain that pain means you're a human being you you have a good heart you you have a conscience For Heaven's Sake I don't want to get rid of that pain if I get rid of that pain it means I lost my soul I think the distin between pain and anger is anger is a form of helplessness I'm just angry I'm just angry Ang okay so what now so I'm going to break my windows I'm going to punch you in the nose if we can identify it as pain pain could be a motivator so what can I do right now what can I do right now to bring more love into my life to bring more light into the world I think that maybe is a is a powerful distinction Judaism is against anger not because it doesn't want you to feel emotions but it wants you to be able to to direct that emotion into into productivity into healing rather than anger is just I'm a helpless I'm a helpless person who's just angry at the world and all the sick people that live in the world okay so now what and this should eat so now I'm gonna go eat this is one of the reasons I referenced uh my colleagues work Dr Mark bracket before who um you know one of the things he teaches is really trying to help people develop a a language of emotion and to be more granular because we often describe our emotions in these these categories I'm angry I'm happy I'm sad I'm anxious I mean anxious is a great example um that that word is used so much now but it doesn't really tell us what we're actually feeling we need to be much more granular in terms of understanding our own emotions and so you know I I think folks might find his work um particularly helpful he actually even has a an app that helps you take an emotion and really drill down to be more specific what am I actually really feeling here what that app called what's that you know what that app is called uh I think it's called the mood meter because that's the tool that they use um but if you mark bracket is his name he at the Yale Center for emotional intelligence his book is permission to feel uh but it's this mood meter it basically sort of divides our emotions into into four quadrants to start and it basically starts by saying uh you know what's the degree of pleasantness or unpleasantness you're feeling and sort of the arousal level is it sort of a high or a low arousal and then you go from there into these four quadrants and you drill down further it really helps us to get much more sophisticated in our emotional awareness and our language when communicating with one another as well right there's a first question here is somebody coming on live somebody ask question I see your hand is raised um I did give you permission to talk we'll give you a moment maybe it was a mistake and that's okay um but re why way there's a there's a question here from you want to read some zc I wanted to read zc goad yeah yeah go ahead I have a six-year-old daughter I feel like I hold my breath when I hear the door door opening when she's coming home from school because from the moment she walks in she's already complaining she wants to go to her friend the friend has to come to the house it makes me so miserable she comes home like that without even giving me a chance it's like she didn't want to come home in the first place it's like a curse to come home is there a way that I can make my daughter's homecoming from school be more pleasant she also puts up a fuss about everything I tell her she also gets into her her siblings she gets into fights with her siblings and that that have nothing to do with her the siblings are fighting it's almost as she makes it's almost as if she makes sure that she's loud enough to be heard what can I do six-year-old girl a mother is lamenting well this is a good example of you know there there may be a lot more sort of General disregulation uh going on uh for this particular child at this time because you're seeing it cut across different situations but my advice would be this would be to say um I mentioned earlier that these kinds of difficulties tend to be predictable that they don't come up out of the blue for no apparent reason and it sounds like you're describing this the moment she comes from home from school it sounds like it's very predictable that when she walks in she's uh upset and wants to have a friend over go to a friends Etc that's the problem you want to try to solve and don't try to solve it when she walks in the door from school um catch her at a moment where she's regulated calm those you know those we said before and start with curiosity and I would recommend you say something like this um I've noticed when you come home you seem really eager to um have a friend over or go to a friends um and I want to try to help understand so we can you know do something that'll work for both of us can can you fill me in um how come and this is where notice thank you for uh being honest about you know what you're worried about is that it's like she feels miserable when she comes home or she doesn't want to be at home and I wouldn't jump to those conclusions just yet we need to take the time to unpack it from your daughter's perspective use those questions take guesses if need be but I would say if you have to take a guess don't jump to is it that you don't want to be home and you don't like being don't jump there I would um start with other educated guesses like do you feel like you're not having enough time to to be around your friends um is there something about being with your friends that feels much better than for right now being you know at home without friends I I would use those kinds of questions and once you understand her concern then you'll raise any concern you have and invite her to problem solve what this could look like because I don't know you know when you say is there a way I can make my daughter's homecoming from school more pleasant I'm sure there is but I don't know what that looks like now until we understand more of her perspective or more of her point of view here uh s is here s want do you want to ask a question go ahead you can hear me yeah I can hear you okay great um it's more of a um a um a plug I just want to say that the Fresh Start program helped me work on myself and identify traumas and deal with them and I saw that you know my children respected me more because I did that that alone and wow there's a way there's a way to go with many things not an overnight uh change but I do have to give a lot of credit to the fres Start program I won't forget your call to me when you called in and uh we spoke about who should come first the parent of the child and S was an amazing example who wanted to send a child and we spoke about the the power that a parent has so thank you for that you I also think you know to to highlight one of the words of Dr abbl earlier many of us were trained you know from a in a very very young age that education is about words and actions and I think what we're learning so much more words and actions are very important but real education is about pneus it's about who I am it's about how I show up emotionally and the more if I'm if I'm beded if I'm encompassed and enveloped in my own trauma in my own anger and my own pain and resentment that I I have never dealt with how can I show up for anybody else I'm just trying to survive it's like you're choking me 24/7 right and you say oh oh show up for your children I'm just starting to breathe get get your hands off my neck and that's what trauma looks like trauma chokes us it chokes us to death we're just trying to survive some on age three especially people who have been you know abused it's not even our it's not even their fault it's not nobody's fault and the more you know I can clear it up we can clear it up and we can go into our own love you know with selflove then I can really show up I show up for my wife I can show up for my children and the emotional presence surpasses everything I mean that's the key to everything my child feels your child feels Your Presence at dinner table sitting and playing a game schmoozing going out that presence I think is is the most healing factor and the words and actions then flow from that as we I I do want to be respectful of Dr abon's time so perhaps we can move into to wrap up Dr ablon any other sure a question of Joseph at the bottom right before because you're moving into rap you know what Mal Mala Mala wanted to ask a Live question on behalf of teachers so let's just do that okay let me allow you Mala you are now allowed to talk you just have to unmute yourself there you go can can you hear me yes we can okay um so I'm doing some Consulting with teachers in schools and um I had a long conversation with a teacher yesterday who was saying that she's struggling because students feel so entitled um so um so like for she gave like a a small example a longer example one a smaller example was um in the lunchroom if she's trying to make room for particular student or trying to shuffle things around for the sake of a student and she asks you know okay can can you please move over um and the students are like no like we don't want to move over um that that's like a small question a bigger question is that um she had done an activity um out like during the school day but outside of school at um one of the kids um uh the grandparents have a Kabab House they did like a f bran and um and the kids the kids planned she she had like groups of kids plann different aspects of the activity and they they got into loggerheads over um some of the aspects of the planning where you know the teacher wanted it to be you know reflective of the way um it should be you know according to the school according to the standards and hash of the school and the students had their own idea and they felt very um intruded upon when the teacher tried to um um modify at all what they wanted to do they you know she initiated it obviously as a teacher and they're like it's our program you don't get to say anything you didn't get to you know you don't have an opinion and um so she would like to do another out of school activity um she's she's really a very kind and caring uh empathetic teacher but she's just like that was just it turned into such a big deal that you know she she's just genuinely want some direction of how do you manage kids who feel so entitled to do what they want when they want thank you thank goad these are and these are um six uh seventh graders go ahead Dr ablon sure and and look the first thing I would say is um you know behavior that can look like entitlement again this is an interpretation to assume that it's entitlement and you know a bunch of things could give rise to it uh you know to to go back to the the one child who you know uh refuses to move over again this could be as simple as this is a child who has very strong feelings about sitting in a particular place now I'm not suggesting they should be allowed to sit there no um but it may be you know this is a question of of not just being entitled but a kid who has a hard time uh sort of incorporating change into a solution and I I'm going to give the same sort of broken record advice when they don't want to move over I would say okay you don't want to move over how come what's going on really quick okay um and then you know this is why this is not permissive because then the second step is saying and I want to make sure we make room for our friend here um now in terms of the whole group process that's gone on my guess would be here that it sounds from the description like maybe there was a bit of misunderstanding with the students feeling like this was their creation themselves and uh you know like you said the educator sounds like they want to approach this very thoughtfully I I would just suggest a proactive conversation before the next time around saying that it's great that they have been so engaged and taking such ownership of this it is important that this be collaborative and that just doesn't mean collaborative with just the students but collaborative with the teacher as well because the teacher's perspective and concerns need to be represented as well so we need to do this together so let's think about how we are going to structure this proc process so that it is your creation and mine as well because this is intended to be something that I have um uh you know input into as well uh and that's not imposing your will that's saying this is going to be true collaboration here okay thank you Dr abon for that and I guess let's move into just some final thoughts dror or R why why then we'll ask you to wrap it up yeah sure um so I hope first all I hope this uh discussion has uh has has been helpful for folks and I do want to note one of the other comments in the uh Q&A that indicated you know that look in in very disregulated times like this this is not just children whose skills can reive it is ours as well so you know you may find any one of us here that we have good flexibility and impulse control and things like that under normal circumstances but right now um our skills are slipping back and uh we may find interaction with our spouses Partners um co-workers colleagues Etc are more tense and fraught than they were before as well and so what I would just encourage people to remember is what what I said earlier this is not just kids do well if they can students do well if they can this is parents do well if they can this is husbands and wives do well if they can colleagues do well if they can you know we we're all doing the best we can right now to manage what the world is throwing at us with the skills we're able to bring in that moment and I'll go right back to the beginning of where I started today which is the best way to regulate anybody not just your child or a student but your spouse the best way to regulate is to listen our words are really really powerful they can regulate or they can disregulated empathy words of exploring words of compassion words of Interest words of curiosity are going to be the most Reg ating uh pieces of interaction and the last thing I'll share is we started talking trauma at the end um for it sounds like people have had some really meaningful interactions with fresh start uh I I can recommend a colleague uh Dr Bruce Perry's work he wrote a book of um recently that is very popular these days thanks to being written with Oprah Winfrey uh called what happened to you um a wonderful book on trauma and it's uh it's imp PS as well uh so I I suggest you check that out also um as you know everyone here tries to uh understand their own experience and how that's affecting how we go about um managing our relationships in the world because the last thing I'll say is you know the best protection we have in uh times of incredible stress is social connection it is the most powerful buffer our social connectedness you know people will talk about uh the fight ORF flight Instinct the flock instinct is really what helps humans survive over time um and so I I encourage you all to to maximize all opportunities for coming together and connectedness and I hope this has served um usefully in that purpose as well so I thank you all for having me join the community and I I I really do hope that my involvement and participation has been additive and helpful absolutely thank you a why why before we go yeah first of all thank you thank you fresh start and thank you Dr ablan for your incredibly meaningful and profound words and ideas not just here but in so many other forms and places that so many of us benefit from um you know I I do want to mention something it was in 1977 that my own mentor and spiritual teacher known as the lab he spoke about education and he said that in previous generation the model was that one of the primary tools of education is external reward or Consequences whether it's a candy or a lollipop or in ancient times my man he speaks about giving children nuts that's in the 12th century giving children peanuts that was considered cotton candy at the time God's candies you know nuts uh before we got all the sugar and glucose and he said there Comes A Time in history where history consciousness evolves and he says today you see that children are much more motivated by truth and authenticity than external rewards and consequences he told a story about one of the great kic spiritual Masters who was four years old and he came to his grandfather when he was reading Genesis and he started to cry and he said why you crying he said why did God appear to Abraham and he doesn't appear to me and and and he he said he said this is what a child is a child is someone who cares who really really wants to be connected to truth to authenticity and he said that we should realize that those those are our children today our children today are are people young Souls who can be inspired and motivated by the truth Itself by by by by goodness Itself by knowing realizing that this is who they really are they really want to connect they really want to connect with themselves they really want to connect with others they really want to connect with their souls I just thought it's a very very powerful illustration about a lot of this work I just want to say a second point and that's in terms of the time we're living in I think our children will remember forever um how we acted how we lived how we breathed during this time so with all of the challenges and all of the pain I think it's also an opportunity for each and every one of us to radiate our own light and fill our homes with a love and with a light and with a commitment and with a depth precisely because of the challenging times and let's remember as Jews we have been around for many thousands of years through crazy crazy challenges and circumstances holocausts and pams and a till the recent Massacre of October 7th and there have been tools that have been time tested because all the empires that try to destroy us are gone G literally gone and those tools those tools have been spiritual spiritual connection spiritual connection Unity Unity faith prayer what we call Torah mitzvas of course in addition to the physical need to protect ourselves and protect our homeland so don't underestimate these powerful tools to bring into your home and your children um because they they the proof is in the pudding we have outlived we have outlived Hitlers and stalins and Crusaders and tyrants and dictators who literally wanted to annihilate the Jewish people and came close to extinguishing the Jewish flame ASAS today and unfortunately many millions want to so I tell all of us you know let's strengthen let's strengthen each other send love to our brothers and sisters and ask ourselves every day you know what did I do today and how can I create this day a day filled with much more spiritual power much more Mitzvah much more Torah much more prayer much more love and and we will bring in a lot of healing and Redemption into the world and thank you thank you Dr abon thank you re YY thank you everybody for joining us and next time around we should meet under better circumstances but this was a so everybody amen thank you thank you bye bye thank you by this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at ww.the usa.net donate