Dear Yavneh Family,

On Tuesday night, I joined dozens of Yavneh kindergarten- first grade parents in the Sara and Leon Broch Bet Midrash to learn from and with Dr. Yoni Schwalb, one of the founding visionaries of the revolutionary Shefa School in Manhattan, where he currently serves as the associate head of school. His presentation,“Raising Children in the Age of Screens,” also included many pointers about how we can effectively set limits and build settings and resilience with our children.

Some of the salient quotes that resonated with me include:

 ·        We, as parents, seem interested and even invested in our children being comfortable all the time

·        We want our kids to be resilient and the clear path to doing so is allowing them to bounce back from age appropriate difficulties

·        We often judge our parenting by how happy our kids are minute to minute - that is not a good metric by which to judge our success

·        We should be helping our children build up their distress tolerance - some techniques include giving chores and saying “no” more often

·        Kids can do hard things and kids can survive being disappointed

·        Children don't and won’t develop executive functioning skills when parents keep coming into save them

To some extent, we understand this knowledge intuitively yet it is often hard to put into practice in the moment when our children are having a meltdown. It can be hard to watch anyone, especially our own children, as they work through distress.

Yet, life inherently consists of many moments of distress and struggle. Recently, I heard a presentation from Rabbi Meyer Yedid, a prominent Rav and speaker from the Flatbush Syrian Jewish community. He notes from the pasuk in Sefer Iyov כִּֽי־אָ֭דָם לְעָמָ֣ל יוּלָּ֑ד (ה:ז)

that man is created to toil. Our purpose in life is to work through struggles and persevere. When we adjust our expectations and expect the world to present challenges, we are not surprised or thrown off as easily when new ones inevitably emerge.

On the flip side, when we expect life to be only relaxing and simple, and then encounter typical events that require hard work and effort, much like child rearing does, we can find ourselves thrown and disorientated.

One example that Dr. Schwalb shared from another school, involved a parent who would text her friends nightly to learn what her child had for homework. When asked, “what would happen if you didn't find out the homework on the child’s behalf?” She replied, “Then he wouldn't have it done the next day…and maybe the day after.” Following this logic, the child would eventually learn to take responsibility and bring him the homework himself. Now granted, this may not work for every child and it is important to know where each child is on the executive functioning continuum. The point however remains that eventually our children will have to learn how to do hard things on their own.

This is part of our goal as educators and parents; not just to impart knowledge but how to raise healthy, successful, independent young adults. It is hard to watch our kids struggle through challenges, yet that's precisely what they need from us.

I close with a perfectly timed anonymous quote that I received this week.

“My second grader was working through something he felt challenged by at the time. He continued on his own to work at it until he got it. And when he was done, he came to me with a huge smile and said "It's just like Morah Devorah said - we just need to stay on the surfboard and ride through until we get it. I did it - I stayed on." I understand this was likely an analogy that she shared in SEL about getting through challenging times and it was so incredible to hear how he had internalized it.”

Sincerely,

Rabbi Jonathan Knapp

Head of School