Are we encouraging or stunting their self development?

honeymoon

Wed, Dec 22 2021, 6:40 pm

behappy2 wrote:

I once heard an OTD person proudly say that when her daughter came home in 1st or 2nd grade and told her that her teacher told her that Hashem created the world in 6 days, this woman responded to her daughter by asking "what do YOU believe?"

This is wrong. A child needs a base. Do you really want a child to have to figure everything out all by themselves? Even today as a parent I still call my mother and ask her for advice. I reach out to ppl wiser and older. This is the gift Hashem gave us that we have older generations so we don't need to figure it ALL out ourselves.

So yes. A child born to a frum family will have a very different compass than a child born to parents to parents who believe that the way to attain no eternal life is to kill Jews. So yes, as much as we think we have chosen our way of life for most of us it has chosen us.

That said we don't want to stuff it down their throats. We want to educate. We want to encourage critical thinking. We want to expose them to different ppl and ways of thinking. And mostly always love them and guide them.

Nicely put. And no, I do not for one minute want, or think its a good idea for a child to figure everything out on their own. I was looking for the balance between telling them what to do and what to believe in the areas they can't yet on their own, while still letting them develop their own moral and spiritual self.

PinkFridge

Sun, Dec 26 2021, 8:44 am

honeymoon wrote:

This is something I've been thinking about a lot and I would like to get some input.

As parents and educators, we invest a lot of effort into teaching our children to know right from wrong and to develop a value system which will serve them well in society and in the framework of yiddishkeit. I've observed that in many communities, specifically the more insular ones, the way we go about instilling these values into our children is through designing their environment in such a way that they are exposed mostly to the people and behavior which we believe are the right influence to them. Which is a valid mehalech.

Except, what often happens is that these children grow up and start developing their own identity, and start seeing the world beyond what they were exposed to all their formative years. And then they need to start making their own moral and ethical decisions in a world where they aren't told what to do and where they are not surrounded only by people who think and believe like them. But they are incapable of tapping into their own personally developed value system, because they don't have one.
.

I don't know if I get the question. Just because people follow different shitos than I do - whether to the R or the L - doesn't mean that they don't make moral and ethical decisions.
Parents know that their children will encounter all sorts of situations. We have the model of Yosef, who was in a situation his father never imagined, yet he still saw the image of his father, a kind of WWMFD, what would my father do?

And hold on, before that we have something even more iconic: We have Yitzchak being answered before Rivka davka because his default WASN'T WWMFD but what is appropriate for me to do now. Now of course his decisions WERE informed by the chinuch he was given but he was never expected to be an exact photocopy.

PinkFridge

Sun, Dec 26 2021, 8:47 am

behappy2 wrote:

I think kids own it all the time. As long as you let them push back.

Here's 2 examples:

5 year old. "Mommy I hate you and I'm not making a Brocha" (cuz she didn't get what she wanted) Mommy responds "ok" The next time she makes a Brocha she knows it's because she wants to. Nobody is forcing her.

The 5 y.o. needs to learn that she's not punishing Mommy. Brochos are about her relationship with Hashem. This can be taught in a matter of fact way, with no pressure or fire and brimstone, just the facts.

PinkFridge

Sun, Dec 26 2021, 8:48 am

jkl wrote:

Was just coming on here to say something similar. You don't want to just hand over a moral compass. You want them to DEVELOP a moral compass so they can make choices on their own with things that haven't been defined for them.

So strange. Are people really teaching their children that people in different communities don't have a moral compass?

PinkFridge

Sun, Dec 26 2021, 8:49 am

behappy2 wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isLtc5lFgf8

sushilover

Sun, Dec 26 2021, 9:14 am

honeymoon wrote:

I like this. That is, if the child really believes that it won't matter to the parent whether they do it or not. If they sense disappointment or anger, their future decisions may be motivated by that and not on their own belief that this is the right thing to do.

I went through some angst as a teen and had some friends who rebelled. It would have been really easy for me to do certain things which clearly crossed the line, and it was very tempting. I can't say that my moral compass was well-developed enough to prevent me from doing things I would've regretted (both spiritually and physically), but my knowledge that I can't do this to my parents was literally the only thing that stopped me. Even things that they would never have known about.

Of course, it only works when there is real love and healthy values.

behappy2

Sun, Dec 26 2021, 9:40 am

sushilover wrote:

That is so so beautiful!

honeymoon

Sun, Dec 26 2021, 1:00 pm

sushilover wrote:

This is really beautiful. Would you say you felt you couldn't do it to your parents out of love for them or out of fear? It seems like it was out of love, and not out of fear of rejection.

So you are in essence saying that the job of parents is to provide love and safety for the child while imparting their values and that will guide them through the years where they don't own their decisions and don't have their own value system yet. It does seem more doable and encouraging when looking at it this way.

sushilover

Tue, Dec 28 2021, 11:20 am

honeymoon wrote:

Exactly! My parents weren't perfect, but they instilled me with love and pride and I knew that I could never hurt them by blatantly discarding their values.

salt

Mon, Jan 03 2022, 3:19 am

chanatron1000 wrote:

I personally believe that to live authentically, you need the opportunity to say no to what you are not.

Why?
You think you need to give your children access to all opportunities so that they can choose what not to choose? I'm sure you mean with some bounderies, so the question is just which boundaries. That's where different people differ.

I think you need to give children the tools to say no to what they are not, but not to open them up to all opportunities.

Maybe some amothers can help me out but there's a midrash that says that Yitro wanted Moshe to dedicate his first son to avoda zara, so that he will have the option to choose what path to take when he grows up.
Moshe was punished for accepting this condition of Yitro.