What is "Soul Parenting"?

okay we're live sorry for the uh late start on the live stream and uh those who are joining us live you can ask us questions here in the chat here on youtube this is a little intro a glimpse behind the scenes if you will into an approach called parenting from the inside out and uh the back story is that during the lockdown of 2020 when i suddenly changed my whole model of how i was doing things normally i'm on the road speaking at different venues that's that's my bread and butter i'm a traveling preacher man you know i go on the road and that all shut down and i was looking for a project to immerse myself in and i had a list of things that i wanted to work on i had a few books that i was going to work on and i was approached by a friend of mine a dear friend of mine and colleague rabbi levy champton from the friendship circle in michigan and he said we have a new idea for a new initiative and that's parenting what do you want to do about that and i said you know what i got to think about it and i started thinking about the idea of parenting and the impact that it has that really the world is made up of families and every family is led ostensibly ideally led by the parents and so basically when parents start parenting better the whole world becomes a better place um and i started to think about the the ripple effect that we could have just by strengthening parents and i told my friend levy okay i'm in let's do it and the whole lockdown we basically spent perfecting a curriculum along with uh a team that helped me to put my thoughts into a system and to organize it and we started beta testing it with some uh groups different types of groups from all backgrounds and all ages and parents of children of all ages and we perfected it or as close as you know everything's always a work in progress but as close as we could get to a to uh ready to launch state and about a year ago we started doing the uh the parenting course parenting from the inside out open to the public this is the third time we're starting uh this week wednesday the women's classes on wednesday the men's class is on thursday we keep a separate class for men and for women for various reasons um maybe maybe i'll speak about that right now because i do want to speak about the various different questions that people have about the course um one of the questions is um why do we have a separate men and women time slot and are they different courses so the answer to that is no essentially they're the same exact course the same material is presented but the difference is men and women often process information differently and and fathers and mothers process information differently so as far as what i'm going to present in each class each week i present the same thing to the men as they do to the women but the interactive part is very different and that's an important part of this course the interactive part um that's one reason why the course is limited we can't just take everyone who wants to to take the course it's not like a youtube video that i upload and it doesn't matter how many people watch it there's an interactive element here at the beginning of every week we debrief and we ask what happened how was the past week what were your challenges what were your victories and it's very interactive plus from class to class during the week that goes by from one class to the next we have a whatsapp group and that's a special whatsapp group just for the people who are currently taking the course which i monitor i would say fairly uh not constantly but during the duration of the course i'm on the whatsapp group several times a day to monitor and to answer questions and to facilitate conversations so that's interactive as well that's why we have a limited space how many people can take the course because of the there's just a limit to how many people i can interact with in a meaningful way at a time uh so yes there are separate men's and women's time slots for the class where there's interaction and then there's also separate men's and and women's uh whatsapp groups a question that is asked often is what if only one spouse is taking the class um and i'll be very honest quite often more often than the other way it's the wife asking what if the husband is not taking it and for whatever reason i'm not going to go analyze it now it's very often that women will take these courses more often than men i would say in the past from the hundreds of parents who have taken it since we opened it publicly i think about five six hundred people have taken it since we opened it publicly um it is generally about 65 maybe 70 percent women to 30 35 percent men um it is significantly more more women who take the class than men but uh what i will say is this first of all if and by the way i've had men who took the class and their wives didn't take it it's not always that the wife takes it and not the husband first of all the the focus of the course and i'll speak about this a little bit more in a moment is personal change so even if your your husband or your wife is taking the course with you which is very nice because then you get to discuss and talk about um the course and work on it together and you can say oh that came up in in your class and no one in my class even mentioned that you know you could you could have fun comparing notes but really because the nature of the course is personal work you're working on yourself even if your spouse is taking it along with you the work that you're going to do is still internal and the beauty of internal work is that when one person starts to change then everyone in their network everyone in their um in their orbit starts reacting to them differently so even if you're the only one changing it's going to automatically change your relationships with everyone around you and that's why i would say even if you're the only one in your family taking the course go ahead and do it and it will have an effect it'll definitely have an effect on you and it'll have also an effect on others on your spouse and on your children which after all is the main point here it's a parenting course it's the effect that it'll have on the parent child relationship um a question that people ask uh ask often is about the sources of the course so i'm a rabbi for full disclosure that's my only training i'm not secularly trained i don't have any other type of professional training other than my rabbinic training all of the principles in this course are from judaism or from torah do some of the ideas align with different secular approaches i've been told they do i've been told by many people took the course aha that is exactly like such and such that i learned somewhere else and my response is okay great i'm glad that it aligns but that's not where i got it from and you know i can't really comment further about that we're taking basic timeless eternal ideas from our people that are our spiritual ideas that are faith-based ideas which jewish families have used to run and function and to operate healthy families for millennia that's what this is about so um do some of these ideas align with what secular authorities say today yeah they do because i've been told that they do but for that matter i'm sure much of what we say is in conflict with what uh today's authorities say and by the way today's secular authorities are not a monolith they disagree with each other as well so everyone can have their own approach it's okay for people to uh to disagree and uh that's just the nature that's the nature of life and uh what i say is that uh you have to pick one approach be consistent consistency especially in parenting and life in general but especially in parenting consistency is so important so pick one approach and go with it and don't question yourself i think that's so important you know doubt and uh confusion really really undermines a lot of well everything in life but especially parenting where consistency is so important because children need consistency um it gives them a sense of security they don't like to be told one thing one day and another thing another day it's just very confusing for a young person who's trying to establish a sense of reality and they're looking to their parent to help them with that so consistency is so important and that's why i say you know take an approach and and and run with it and be honest with yourself if it doesn't work for you okay so find a different approach but if you're going to take one approach that's always the best and you know there's an expression too many chefs spoil the broth it's good to have one chef in a kitchen and they have one vision and obviously that's in conjunction with your co-parent you want to have the same vision or at least a similar vision but uh you have to have an approach you know think about it like this how many companies would start up and get investors if they didn't have a mission statement or a non-profit let's say you're starting a non-profit organization could you start without a mission statement and yet how many families start with a mission statement very very few if any you just you get married and you say okay let's do our best but having a cohesive coherent vision about values and goals and what our family is trying to achieve that's that's our mission statement so one thing that i can tell you that this course offers is a mission statement or i don't want to say it offers a mission statement because ultimately it's up to you and your co-parent to draft that mission statement what this course offers is i would say a lot of food for thought so that you can go and intelligently and carefully compile and draft that mission statement for your family um and and as i said it's very important that it be consistent it's very important that there be a clear vision you you can't try to be all things to all people you can't try to satisfy all opinions you can't try to follow all experts it doesn't work it just doesn't work the experts don't agree with each other how can you agree with all of that what we can do is have a vision for our family a set of principles and standards that we that we live up to or we strive to live up to and against which we check our own behavior okay so that's that's uh what i wanted to tell you about that um a few other questions let's go through them um people ask what if i can't come to the live classes so the answer is you do not have to come to the live classes however it's very important that you catch up during the week there are recordings of the classes the classes are recorded because not everyone lives in the same time zone and not everyone is available at the same time and if you're a parent a lot of times you have something come up and you can't make the live class so there are recordings but the recordings are not archived forever because of privacy and other reasons the recordings are only for during the duration of the course so if you miss a class live you can make it up the next day or the day after but what i strongly encourage you to do is don't i know a lot of people have done this they they fall behind and then they fall behind again and then they say oh i'll catch up at the end of the course it's a process it's a journey it really takes a week to digest each class and what happens during the week from class to class is you're testing it out in the actual home you're on the whatsapp group talking to other parents getting responses from them and you're sleeping on it sleep is very powerful for processing ideas you need those seven sleeps from one class to the next to really let the idea uh seep in so yes there are recordings but the recordings are only for the duration of the course i want to repeat that the recordings are only for the duration of the course the recordings are not archived permanently they are only there to allow you to catch up if you miss the live class and you're strongly encouraged to make up the class sometime during that week there's a question about what are we talking about when we say that the class comes with meditations okay what are the meditations this class is all mental it's all mental stuff this is not um a checklist of behaviors uh you know go stand on your head and spit wooden nickels this is all mental stuff it's shifts little shifts and some big shifts of thinking and in order to internalize these ideas we have meditations now every class there are six classes in the course every class has one big idea and each big idea is facilitated by a meditation it's a guided meditation with me speaking um for like usually about 10 minutes helping you to internalize the idea from the class it's not teaching it's different it's a meditation it's not a class in a class i'm explaining ideas i'm talking um trying to bring out different ways of understanding an idea the meditation is a totally different thing it's uh it's a meditation it's meditative i don't want to call it hypnotic i think it's safe to drive while you listen to them but the idea is to take the idea and to help bring it in in a deeper way and if you haven't listened to the course i'm not sure if you didn't listen to the class that each meditation is based on i'm not sure what the meditation would do for you but if you've listened to the class and you've done the interaction and the discussion and then you listen to the meditation i think it's a very powerful tool that's what our graduates have said it's a very very powerful tool for internalizing the big idea from each class um what are some of the other questions that we get the age the age okay that's a big question um here's the thing it is never too late it is never too late it is never too late to start to improve the relationship between parent and child not only it's not too late to start but um you must you are obligated you are this child's parent get started now don't worry about the past that's not going to help us let's move forward let's start now so we've had parents who take who took this course who had adult children who were all out of the house already now at the same time we've had parents who took this class whose oldest child was i think two years old that had dead you know a toddler and an infant many people took this class and i'll tell you something it's remarkable but the response that parents have given us whether their children are are in diapers or out of the house is that these principles work how is that possible because again i said this earlier but i'll say it again these are not behaviors these are not to do check off items of do this do this do this say that say this say this say that these are mental shifts and the mental shift will allow you to understand how to carry that out into behavior in a way that's applicable and appropriate for your age child for that matter not only the only age isn't the only difference between children right personalities differ abilities differ there are so many differences between children and it's up to you and that's why a lot of parenting approaches that are about memorizing a bunch of tasks don't work is because they're not they're they're not tailor-made they're not tailor-made for your child or your children so what we do here is we give you the the thinking we give you the the the approach or the perspective so that you can see how to apply that in a way that is appropriate for your child's age and abilities and personality and intelligence and emotions i think that's very important now this leads me to another point which is about the general approach of this course and that is that we're all about um [Music] big ideas why because when you tell a person to memorize a bunch of steps it's never authentic to the person they're just imitating they're just reading off of a checklist but when you teach a person how to see things differently genuinely to see things differently then they figure it all out themselves and it comes out intuitively and i think that's the main focus of this class is that we don't want anything to be inauthentic we don't want you to memorize anything we don't want you to imitate anything we want this to be authentic to you we want this to become as simple as as breathing really and we do that by not teaching behaviors but by teaching big ideas and with the big ideas you'll organically figure out how to apply these ideas to your situation and of course that's what we have the interaction interaction for in the course and we have the whatsapp group is so you can talk that through and you can figure out how that application might look in real life but the the ideas are the main are the main power of this course now i just want to conclude with with another uh point a final point and and that's what uh i refer to as spiritual parenting why is this whole thing called spiritual parenting i mean maybe i understand it's a bunch of ideas it's a bunch of paradigm shifts but what's so spiritual about that why does that have to be spiritual so here's what i want to explain it's not that this class happens to be jewish or has a jewish flavor or we mentioned jewish ideas the fundamental premise of the entire course and every big idea that's in the course is spiritual it's all based on spirituality it's all based on the idea i have a soul my child has a soul i am parenting from the soul to the soul it's all based on the idea that there is a god there is a creator who in his infinite wisdom chose my soul to meet my child soul in this precise setting where i would be the caretaker the parent the the steward who is accompanying this soul in its formative years of embodiment in the physical plane and every idea that we teach is predicated on these beliefs there there are none of the ideas that we were teaching come from a secular uh worldview they may very well be consistent with things that those from a secular point of view agree with and i've been told that as i mentioned before many people have said that there are modern theories of parenting and child psychology which do agree with many of the ideas that we teach and that's that's beautiful that's great um but the ideas that we're teaching are all coming from and predicated upon deep spiritual beliefs again that i have a soul my child has a soul and there is a god who chose my soul to be in a position to guide and be a teacher to my child's soul during its early years in its journey through this physical world and and everything we do in this class is based on that idea in other words what i'm saying is this isn't just like you know taking some secular ideas and then throwing in a uh you know and then say at night with your kids this this is fundamentally spiritual now that sounds very cryptic so i don't want it to sound like uh you know trying to uh trying to be deliberately uh uh coy over here so maybe i'll just be a little bit more transparent for instance when we talk about um what is the general definition of the parental role and duty well there i gave it away i said duty you see so embedded in my own thinking but like when we speak about what's the general like how do you actually define what is a parent who is a parent our perspective is based on one of the torah giving us guidance and rules and obligations the mitzvahs are obligations what is my mitzvah what is my obligation what is my duty toward my child that's how we view everything in other words a lot of times and this is the bane of so many parent of so many parents you know they look at it as why isn't my child doing this for me why are they not listening to me why can't they satisfy me why can't they just give me a little bit of nachos why can't they just give me a little bit of rest why are they why are they doing this to me why you hear a lot of that um you know complaining from parents where it's like you know i didn't sign up for this this is not what i want this is the where where's my satisfaction where's my fulfillment and then even you have parents even well-meaning parents not entirely neurotic parents but well-meaning parents who they may not explicitly say this but they feel frustrated that their child isn't living up to their own unfulfilled dreams you know i wanted my child to do better i wanted my child to do what i couldn't do most emotionally healthy parents won't exactly formulate it like that explicitly but the feelings are still often there and and the common denominator between between all these these feelings that i'm describing are basically you know feeling of entitlement parental entitlement and if you're religious oh boy because then then it becomes you know jihad it becomes a spiritual warfare where it's it's not just that i expect to be satisfied i'm standing on my religious principles and i'm invoking the keyboard of the aim card i'm playing the keep it over aim card honor thy mother and thy father well you know where's my honor where you got to respect me which is true there is such a mitzvah but that's your child's mitzvah not yours we we ask ourselves what's our mitzvah what's our obligation what's our duty here to help this child to grow up to be a healthier happier more confident child who's going to be successful religiously spiritually mentally emotionally socially uh in in and and practically in all in all ways so the focus here is really about what's my mitzvah and as you know a mitzvah is in a sinister i say that in english but it is axiomatic in in the torah world view that a divine commandment is a divine empowerment that when god gives you a calling it's because he has already given you the ability to carry it out so that's that's the way we think we think in terms of what are our obligations and therefore what have we been empowered to do for our children and uh that's that's a lot of the basic ideas that's a lot of the basic ideas um i just want to mention if you can't come to the course that's perfectly fine there are hundreds of hours of parenting classes for free on my website you can go to soulwords.org and you can look under parenting you can search the word parenting as a keyword you can look under topics i think uh parenting is a topic under the topic heading on soulwords.org but anyway you go to soulwords.org which is the easiest place to find all of my material and you'll find hundreds of hours of free material there and please be my guest to consume that material and nobody should feel that if you can't pay to be part of the course that you're missing out on some information um i'll tell you what the course gets you which there's a reason why we charge for it the course is giving you an organized system for somebody to go through somebody me to go through with you in an organized fashion and to learn ideas in a certain system building blocks each class has a big idea and each each big idea sort of leads to the next big idea it's organized that way for a reason so it's a very structured process and then you're getting the interaction of how to internalize each big idea and and take it to the next big idea but i would say probably most of the information in the course if you'll go through all of my material that's online on parenting you'll find it here and there it's just like you know if if if you learn uh toyota you know the difference between learning gamora and learning so if you'll learn the whole gamora you'll you learn the whole shots eventually you'll find the basis for all the halachahs that we follow but to actually get it in an organized fashion you gotta open up a shohan so that's what this is this is like somebody opening up ashokhanorak with you and talking about how to apply it in your particular situation but i wouldn't want anyone to feel that this information is somehow behind a pay wall this this like i mentioned before this information is all from toyota so the information is free um but to go through with you as a group and to guide you from concept to concept and then to help you internalize each concept in a in an orderly fashion and an interactive fashion that's something that is limited because i can only do that with a certain size group at a time um and i hope that you'll be one of those people uh before registration closes like like we mentioned the class is starting for women on wednesday night this week this week and for men on thursday night and it goes for six weeks it's a six week course it'll be done before shavuos and that's it okay if you have any questions about this or anything else you could always email me at rabbi soulwords.org that's rabbi r-a-b-b-i at soulwords.org and uh augustine zumer healthy summer to all of you thanks for joining me