So triggered | Imamother

amother

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 5:48 pm

My girls are in a more right-wing school than I ever imagined they would be in and it is really triggering me so so bad. We tried getting into other schools but being that we live in Lakewood and the school system here is nuts we weren't accepted anywhere once we were already in a school.
I try very hard not to let on to my girls about how I feel but every day there's something else I see or hear from them that just triggers me. I'm not going into details about why it triggers me, but it does. The question I have is how can I get past my triggers. Changing my thoughts doesn't help, I have physical inner sensational reactions. And it affects me in a negative way.

amother

Amber

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 6:04 pm

I have to send my girls to one particular school in my town due to the custody order/divorce.

I hate it.

I have deep philosophical or otherwise differences with the school.

I keep most of it to myself, and without being directly contrary to things the school teaches or does, I have learned to find teaching moments where I tell my kids what our family does and what our family values.

For years, I was more tortured by the mismatch, but now I take this approach---again not being directly contrary to the school, but rather being a proponent of what our family values, etc.

amother

Pearl

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 7:13 pm

amother [ Amber ] wrote:

I'm getting divorced now and would love to hear more about this if you'd be ok sharing, how can they say that the kids need to stay in a specific school? My soon to be ex tried saying that but I told the mediator there's absolutely no reason for me to commit to that. He now wants to incentive me that if they stay in their current school he'll help with tuition (otherwise state law where I is only requires minimum child support.)

amother

Amber

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 7:37 pm

amother [ Pearl ] wrote:

My ex demanded it and the judge in the divorce did it. This is in NYS (but not NYC).

It's also the only orthodox day school here.

amother

Topaz

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 7:46 pm

amother [ Zinnia ] wrote:

Therapy. If you want to change your internal reaction.

Let's calm down, no need for therapy here.
OP, Are your girls happy? Do they have friends?

When you hear something from them take a deep breath and remind yourself that as long as your children are happy in their school it's worthwhile for their sake. I would assume part of being triggered is also the fact that you know you didn't get into your school of choice.

Also, don't underestimate the impact you have on their chinuch. Teachers can teach and preach but what they see and hear at home has a bigger effect on who they'll be.
If you feel they are learning things that are too frum and can be detrimental to them in the future, tell it to them your way.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the schools in Lakewood don't vary that much so I can't imagine they are learning anything so drastically different in this school than in others. Many Lakewood teachers switch schools and they are saying the same thing in either one. Unless you wanted to send to the least yeshivish school and your girls are now in the most frum school.

amother

Fri, Sep 03 2021, 9:32 am

My kids are in a very right wing school in Lakewood. Not mainstream at all. We'd be 'classified' as heimish chassidish. I would've sent my kids to a bais yakov kind of school but that doesn't exist here. Everything is so labeled here. And we weren't offering money to get in either. 5 other families in my development got into the schools we were trying to get into. How is that supposed to make me feel? What is utterly so rotten about us that we didn't deserve to get in??? Now I have to deal with emotional triggers every day! Every time I see a family like us in a school of our type!

Chayalle

Fri, Sep 03 2021, 10:14 am

OP I hear that this is difficult for you. I say the following as someone who attended an elementary school that was more RW than my family's Hashkafa, and I felt like I misfit there.

For some perspective, which you might not find at all helpful, I will tell you that at least your kids are in a school that is safe. With a positive attitude, they are unlikely to be harmed in the school.

As a young child, my grandmother A"H used to tell me stories of her childhood in Czekoslovakia. There was no frum girls school, so they attended public school. One day they had an anti-semitic sub. He called all the Jewish girls up to the front of the classroom and made them put their hands out, knuckles up, and he rapped their knuckles hard with a tool used for discipline. Not only did it hurt, but it shamed them as well. My grandmother told me to appreciate that I went to a frum school with teachers who would not hurt me like that.

Years ago I had a conversation with a woman who lived in my neighborhood, whose kids went to a school that was more RW on the Lakewood spectrum, because that's where she had pull and that's where she got in. She continued to be herself, but did her best to be a supportive parent, happy that her kids were in a good school - because it is a good school, even if it was not a good fit for her. She had conversations about her values with them, while telling them that the school also had good, but different, values and emphasis. When they got to high school, she was able to apply and get them into a high school that was closer to her Hashkafos.

It sounds like your kids are more okay than you are, but for whatever reason, you have your own struggles and triggers. I agree with the poster who recommends professional help for this. I disagree with Topaz that there's no need for therapy, but perhaps that's because my focus and opinon of therapy is not that it's a drastic measure. It sounds like you are experiencing emotional pain, and therapy can help you with this.

Chayalle

Fri, Sep 03 2021, 10:19 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Not sure I understand your post about BY kind of school not existing here. I think most schools in Lakewood are BY. Am I missing something?

It's really hard to be the odd one out. I lived for a while in a neighborhood where my girls were from the very few to attend BK high school, and I see what a difference it made for them when I moved to a neighborhood with tons of girls in the same school (and for me. Carpools on play practice days, finally.)

If you are heimish/chassidish, there's nothing rotten about you, just the schools are so inundated with applicants as it is, and a BY kind of school that is Litvish probably accepted first the Litvish/yeshivish families, and thought you would go to a heimish/chassidish school.

Yeah I hear about the labels. I come from a more JPF, somewhat heimish but not quite, background myself. DH though is litvish/yeshivish thru and thru, and that helped in this town when it came to schools....(and the fact that it was not nearly as bad back then as it is now.)

tigerwife

Fri, Sep 03 2021, 10:31 am

Chayalle wrote:

I think she might mean a school like Beis Yaakov of Boro Park where there is a huge mix in the parent body. Nothing like that really exists in Lakewood.

Chayalle

Fri, Sep 03 2021, 10:46 am

tigerwife wrote:

I think she might mean a school like Beis Yaakov of Boro Park where there is a huge mix in the parent body. Nothing like that really exists in Lakewood.

Ah okay.

I think because Lakewood started around the yeshivah, and much of the original parent body of Bais Faiga was yeshivish - BF was founded to service them - you don't have that here (though the Satmar Dayan's daughters went to the local schools like everyone else! But definitely a minority.) And many of the BY-type schools here are basically modeled on BF.

When enrollment is at full capacity, the yeshivish BYs are going to service the yeshivish crowd first, and assume that heimish/chassidish will send to their own schools.

In some of the more RW schools, you do have heimish/chassidish people was well (thinking BRR, Bnos Melech, even some of Bais Tova). I guess that may be what OP is talking about.

amother

Fri, Sep 03 2021, 12:05 pm

@chayalle
Thanks for ur validating response. Yes, it is my issue and causing me immense emotional pain. Obviously I try very hard not to let on to my kids my true feelings, I'd only hurt them and me in the process and wouldn't gain anything.
I am in therapy (with a good therapist) not just for this - but I find a lot of the therapy is changing your thoughts , perspective etc. I don't find that working because I have physical reactions first... Life is a struggle.