Taking children to shul - what the SHLAH says

lech lecha08

Mon, Sep 06 2010, 12:52 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Liba wrote:

FWIW I am not into kids eating in shul on YK

I believe it's assur to eat in a shul, period. Yom Kippur or not.

ETA: Oh, I see someone addressed this. I still do not believe shul is a place for eating, and my children know we don't eat there.

I don't know how old your kids are but what do you tell them when everyone else around is eating? I refuse to bring snacks to shul too and we're usually only there for about 15 minutes. Even so, they see other kids with bamba, bisli, whatever and decide they're hungry

Hashem_Yaazor

Mon, Sep 06 2010, 1:07 pm

lech lecha08 wrote:

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Liba wrote:

FWIW I am not into kids eating in shul on YK

I believe it's assur to eat in a shul, period. Yom Kippur or not.

ETA: Oh, I see someone addressed this. I still do not believe shul is a place for eating, and my children know we don't eat there.

My children who can't sit in shul without moving or eating leave the shul. It's as simple as that.

Let's say we go to shul Shabbos morning, the kid(s) who can sit with Abba quietly can go to him, but if they feel restless, they go back up to me. I may or may not have some cereal in a bag outside by the stroller if they are hungry, but they usually aren't, and for boredom, I don't try to cure it with food.
I never buy Bissli or Bamba -- all junk.

R"H I bring them when we're ready and it's near the end of davening, and they can run around outside shul, and I probably will bring snacks or water bottles depending on the circumstances for outside shul. I'll go in for women's shofar blowing after minyan is over. The kids may or may not come in with me, depending on their behavior. That should take all of about 5 minutes.

My priority is to let the men daven and to let my kids be kids. My kids are not adults and should not be expected to act like them, nor should they be in a situation where they are disrupting the men from davening.

Any davening on my part is a bonus; I'm not using my husband in shul as a babysitter. I have arranged with a neighbor to take turns within our apartments to alternate davening and child watching while the children play. The one year I tried going to shul resulted in too much clock watching and fretting about the kids, and I didn't daven as well as I can in my own home with my kids at my neighbor's a door knock away.

My oldest is 5 but he understands we don't do everything others do. It's really not that difficult if you're consistent to explain we don't eat in shul; you're more than welcome to eat outside of shul.