telling it like it is

I belong to a homeschooling online group. One of the mothers recently opened up to the group about how miserable she feels homeschooling her kids. There was an outpouring of support, ideas and suggestions. While there were a few voices mildly telling her that maybe this is not the best situation, overall, there was encouragement to continue.

I sensed a lot of emotion and anguish in the original comment. It seemed to go beyond "I am having a really bad day". It seemed more along the lines of "Why are my kids not doing what I expect them to do, and what I think all the other kids are doing?", which was equated with the mother doing something wrong. I got thinking about that one, and here are a few of my musings on the topic.

One caveat, though: I will be honest. You might not like this, because it is not feel-good topic. You might think less of me as a parent or teacher or a person, but it is important for it to be out there.

It starts with us, people, and more specifically, women, to be conditioned to outside positive reinforcement. I am only doing a good job if someone whom I deem superior to me acknowledge that I am doing a good job. I only consider it to be a good job if it is quantifiable and measurable, and worthy of recognition. If there is no positive feedback, then it does not count. If there is no financial gain, nothing of substance occured. Moreover, even if I tried and think I did a good job, if a person of authority says that it is not good, it MUST be not good. In homeschooling, a lot of learning takes place in a casual environment. A lot of it is incremental. My kid did not throw a tantrum about unloading a dishwasher! My kid proceeded with an assignment without whining! My kid asked a really good question to which I had no answer! And all these moments happened privately. Hopefully, I will remember to share them with my husband. Maybe I will remember to post them here. Possibly they will resurface as an anecdote later on. But to local day school teacher, inquiring how your kids are doing and whether you started on mishnayot/long division/persuasive writing, these little moments do not mean much. So you do not get that pat on the back. Same goes for family members, who were probably not homeschooled and are judging the kids by their own standards. This constant lack of positive reinforcement can wear people down. I find that sometimes it is nice to be doing my own thing and not interact too much with others. Then I am not stuck in "while we are doing X, they moved on to Y".

Secondly, there is bombardment of educational opportunities which are not taken. When the child is in school, someone else decides to use this curriculum instead of that, go on these field trips instead of those, and enrich the classroom in this specific way. When you are at home, your inbox is constantly buzzing with offers of yet another amazing book/curriculum/educational opportunity/online game/etc. Then you talk to others, and hear how this kid is doing this extracurricular, and that kid is doing that, and, all of a sudden, you worry that you did not pick enough activities for your kids. For most homeschoolers I know, money becomes an issue very quickly, so soon not only you are feeling bad for depriving your kid, you also feel bad for not having a fortune.

Another huge factor is the little lies we, homeschoolers, perpetuate. You read some descriptions and picture this: it is early morning, all the kids are dressed and had breakfast of organic nutritious food, cleaned up, davened, and are sitting down quietly working in their books while the mother is walking around, checking their work.  The toddlers are playing with blocks, the newborn is sleeping, there is laundry churning and a nutritious dinner is simmering in the crockpot. Not an object is out of place, and there are gentle sun rays illuminating the whole scene of serenity and pure joy of learning...

Why don't we tell it like it is? Why don't we write: today I had to wake two kids because we had to be somewhere at 9 am, and they refused to get breakfast. I was accused of being mean for making them get dressed, they sulked while we we out, said that the whole day is going down the drain and I yelled at them, and then the toddler cracked a whole jar of tomato sauce while one of kids tackled another. Meanwhile the wonderful activity that I prepared the night before did not hold anyone's interest. One kid called it stupid and another simply walked away. Next thing I know, it is 4:30, the toddler is eating leftover breakfast and I have no idea what to serve for dinner. And the voice in my head says: if they were in school, they would have learned so much more today and I would have had time to make dinner. Bad mommy! Bad!

Then your mother calls and tells you that you are being too sensitive and impatient. Then your husband comes home, after you somehow wrested everyone in bed and asks what you did all day and why the living room looks like a war zone and did you mail that letter?

Then you lose it and yell and cry. Maybe at the kid who is still up. Maybe at your mother. Maybe at your husband. And then you feel that you will get into a car and drive somewhere, anywhere, just to get away. This very much looks like a failure from all sides: the kids were not taught, the house was not maintained, the shalom bait was not preserved... and then some well-meaning individual will tell you that you need to make time for yourself, and that's why you are losing your sanity.

It's probably raining, too, and even if you wanted to take time for yourself, where are you going to go? Do your nails at 9:30 pm? Go to a bar? Find a 24-hour grocery store and walk up and down the aisles to buy something, anything, just to be distracted?

So, my homeschooling sistas, while being positive is wonderful, we are doing a disservice to each other by withholding a truth instead of telling it like it is. Next time you write about this great craft idea, write EXACTLY how it went with your kids. Write down if there was another adult entertaining the younger ones while you worked with the olders. Write about that housekeeper that whisks a baby away at the sign of fussiness and makes the house spotless. Write down about your husband coming home early so you do not have to worry about serving dinner, clean-up, bath time and bedtime. Write down about the squabbles that kids get into, whether with you, or with each other. Write down about generous family members underwriting house cleaners, camps, extracurriculars and supplies. Write down how you ignored one kid to finish your craft project.

Tell it like it is.

And tell about those small triumphs, like the hour when nobody yelled. Others will appreciate it.

being in charge

It's two o'clock and we are finished. I think, for today, I got a good balance of "things to do" and "things which will get done without stressing anyone out".

6 yo got up at 8:20, he has a cold and needed extra sleep. After leisurely breakfast, he got dressed and unloaded his share of the dishwasher. He even davened with his sister, unsolicited. By the time he got to his davening, it was 10. His agenda had four items: math, Lama, Lashon haTorah and spelling. Yet here, we are, at 2, and he is done, even though he got time to play outside and eat lunch and read.

Yesterday, we had a siyum for Chayei Sorah that 8 yo finished. He got really motivated towards the end, seeing that it is all genealogy and easy reading. Last day, he did about 7 pesukim, just to finish up. For his wrap-up project, we wrote up a family tree of Terach's family. We went all the way back to the end of Noach, found Rivka's blood line, and included Yishmael's children along with all Keturah's sons. I feel like I want to frame it, it is so complex. He also added in Yakov and shvatim. I said that we will add Eisav's and shvatim's kids when we learn them. So we went to Menchie's yesterday, to celebrate. I remarked to my husband how we did a whole parsha in just a few months, and we will probably finish another one by the end of the year. Since we are going at our own pace, it does not seem rushed, just the speed we are moving along at.

Today 6 yo finished his first Lashon haTorah workbook. I will be ordering the second one.

One of the issues I grapple with again and again is how much pressure should be coming from me as opposed to internal motivation of the child. We have been slowly adding more brachot in Shemone Esre with 8 yo. Right now, I let him daven quietly everything till Shemone Esre, and then he says it out loud with me. We are up to Judgement ( din). He read it over in Hebrew and got the basic idea, but I knew that he did not know all the words. He has not been eager to lean the meanings of all the words. Incidentally, Artscroll was having a sale and had a book on Shemone Esre, explaining each bracha. I ordered it and figured that it will help. 8 yo glanced at it, but has not opened it. This morning, I decided to pull it out and show him the bracha and read a little insight. He had no interest, in fact, he said that I am taking away his kavana ( intention). I asked, why? He said that the book is very long and intimidating. I immediately closed the book, bookmarking the page of the bracha and put it away. We ended up talking a bit as to why this bracha comes after the ingathering of exiles and the true justice of G-d. Obviously, while the subject might be interesting to him, the timing is not right. The book  and the bookmark will stay, but I will leave it to his discretion whether to open it or not.

Along the same lines, some days it takes 6 yo hours and hours to finish one or two pages of work. Sometimes he is distracted. Sometimes he does not feel like working. Sometimes I wish he would just get up and say that he will do it later. But most times, I discover that the reason is quite different. Usually it is some assignment, way later on the list, that he is dreading, so he starts stalling early. Usually the dread has nothing to do with difficulty, but with his perception of work. For example, we were supposed to complete a page of questions and answers about Lama. He read the story fluently and translated without a hitch, so I knew that he knew the vocabulary. When we opened to the page, he dissolved into a tantrum. Once he was able to talk ( half an hour later), he said that they expect him to write everything perfectly. Ok, the lines are small (this is a second grade workbook and he is not a comfortable writer), but never did I ask him for perfection. I offered to split the writing, and he agreed. Then I suggested using a ruled piece of paper for the answers, so he would not be constricted by small lines. That was also fine. Then we hit a wall. The practice was for the verb "open", and the choices were "poteach/potachat/potchim/potchot". As long as the picture had a boy, the questions "mi poteach" was fine, but as soon as the picture was that of a girl, he could not understand what they want from him, and why is the question still in masculine. All of my explanation that the questioner does not know the gender or the amount of people performing the action fell on deaf ears. He could not deal with it, and dissolved into tears. I closed the book for the day.

Today we went back to the same page (after skipping a day). He was ready to accept the explanation and polished it off very quickly, writing in half the answers (on small lines) and giving me the other half orally for me to write in.

What would happen to this kid in a classroom? Which teacher would have the patience to recognize that the tantrums have nothing to do with misbehavior but with the pain of reality not conforming to expectations? How often do we, grown-ups, completely lose it when reality bites? When that person takes too long to make a left turn and then we have to wait for the next light? When somebody makes a promise and then does not keep it? When we want it to be Sunday, but it is Monday?

I wonder whether I really should let 6 yo be, instead of enforcing more and more schoolwork. This is not about ability, but this is about sanity, both for him and for me.

Rock garden part 2

Good things come to those who wait. I just wish inorganic substances crystallized like this!

Rock garden

Yesterday we went grocery shopping. Our list included ammonia and bluing. Till yesterday, I had no idea what is bluing, where to find it, and how to use it. Apparently, it is used to "brighten whites", and it is found in the laundry sections of grocery stores. The bottle is, appropriately, blue.

These supplies were requested by 8 yo to grow rock crystal gardens. He took out a book from the library about crystals about a month ago and now finally got around  to it.

When we finished our schoolwork yesterday, we set up the basic solution:

• 3 tablespoons of salt
• 3 tablespoons of water
• 3 tablespoons of bluing

Mix them together, then carefully and slowly add one tablespoon of ammonia.

The resulting solution was more than enough for our three gardens.

1. A few different rocks and pieces of charcoal.

2. Crumpled and shredded paper towels

3. Crumpled aluminum foil and a few toothpicks on top.

Spoon the solution on top, mixing gently. They suggest not pouring it on.

Rock garden, before the solution

rock with the solution

While we saw some crystals form right away, the real beauties awaited us in the morning. I just wish my proteins from grad school crystallized like that!

What's going on:

These are salt crystals. Water is needed to dissolve the salt. Bluing contains powdered fragments which seed the crystals and let them form. These fragments attach to the materials (coal, rocks, paper, etc) and provide scaffolding. Ammonia helps water evaporate faster, so that crystals can grow quicker.

The best part was that this experiment came out of kids' desires, so they were eager to check on it and show it off to my husband.

white crystals

more crystals

As another aside to my science coverage worries, we visited Goodwill this past Friday and walked out with two textbooks. One was World History and another was 4th grade science. 8 yo grabbed onto the science one and browsed it the whole Shabbos. There was a vocabulary preview at the beginning of a unit. I conducted my own experiment and asked him if he knew any of the words. He said that he knew all of them. I asked him about the meaning of mimicry. He immediately gave me the example of a milk snake and coral snake. Same went for the next section, about plant parts. He knew all the words except for one, and did not mind looking through the chapter to find it. I breathed a sigh of relief. Even without formal schooling and memorization, he surely knew the concepts and the vocabulary.

what does Judaism mean to you?

Today I got a phone call, asking about homeschooling and one of the questions raised was, what do I do to make being Jewish special to my kids? In other words, how am I assured that my kids will not turn after the surrounding world and abandon Judaism at the first opportunity.

I did not have a good answer on the phone. I said that, in my opinion, for kids, making being Jewish special sometimes leads to being snobby and thinking that others are somehow less than you. I said that my kids are confronted with being Jewish and being different all the time; when they are asked about the head covering, when they are asked how they celebrate holidays, when we skip on certain events because they conflict with Shabbos or take place in a church. They know that they are different. The caller was insisting that I need to make being Jewish special, or it will be too late, and they will be not religious.

Once I got off the phone, I started thinking: do I really need to pull out Uncle Moishy "I am so happy to be a Jew" to increase  my kids' positive feelings about Judaism? Is being Jewish to them all just about restrictions and differences and not fitting in?

Then I thought about the reasons I am homeschooling. One of them, from the outset, was to make Judaism not just something that we do because everyone else is doing it, but to bring meaning and logic to it. When I learn Chumash with 8 yo, I try to stick to the p'shat, and show him how many wonderful lessons we can learn. When we talk about davening, I explain how it builds our relationship with Hashem. When we talk about halacha, I mention the underlying logic. When Israel comes up, it is a holy place, our land, with a long and storied history. When we go to a rally, it is about showing our support for other Jews. Somehow, I hope, my kids get the idea that being Jewish is different and special.

Since this question was still bugging me, I asked the boys during dinner what they thought about being Jewish. In hindsight, it is quite brave, because it is not like they have a choice. 8 yo immediately gave it thumbs-up. 6 yo was more nuanced, he said being Jewish is sometimes good and sometimes bad. I asked him to elaborate. His answer: "It is good because we know about the true G-d, and it is bad because we don't get to do everything." 8 yo changed his mind, and sided with his brother's answer. He added that being Jewish is good when you can say Shema and think about Hashem protecting you. It is bad when you cannot drum on Shabbos, or watch Pokemon.

And that was it, no dwelling on missing out, no confusion over what it means to be Jewish.

So, for now, I think we are OK.

When we were in Houston, an old rabbi gave a d'var torah in which he said an amazing thing. He said that he was not guaranteed that his kids will stay religious, but now, that he sees that his grandchildren are frum, he feels assured that he has a legacy. Think about it: he waited till his grandchildren to see how his children will turn out. There are no guarantees. Nobody knows what will happen. You do your best, and hope for the best. And you think about these things, not just assume that because the kids are getting a Jewish education, or you keep mitzvot, that everything will turn out fine.

What do you do to make sure that your kids feel special about being Jewish?

surviving doctors' appointments

This past Friday, I had two doctor's appointments back to back; one was prenatal visit and one for the chiropractor. I scheduled them like this because the offices are very close to each other and are quite a distance from our house, so it makes sense to load everyone in the car once instead of twice, especially now that I have to be getting more of those prenatal visits.

I brought all three kids with me--there weren't many volunteers offering to watch them for me. Over the years, I had my share of doctor visits, and most of them were not routine. The only upside to all of this is that I come prepared now. Oh, and my kids know exactly what to expect.

So here are my steps to a sane visit:

• Inform the kids the night before about the visit. First of all, they need to know what to expect. Second, it will be less scary if they know it is not an emergency. It also allows for them to assimilate the information and ask any questions. Tell them what kind of doctor visit is planned, if it's routine, and if there is blood or shot.
• if you have any specific questions to ask the doctor, write them down! Chances are, even if you mulled them over while driving, nothing distracts you like trying to keep your kids quiet.
• bring non-crumbly snacks: cheese sticks, apple slices. Even if you just fed them breakfast or lunch, you might be waiting for a while, and nothing brings on the munchies like waiting around for an unknown amount of time
• bring books to browse/read/color. Some offices will ave kids' books and toys, others won't. I try to pick practitioners who welcome or tolerate kids, especially if you will have to come back often.
• bring snack cups for toddlers, and an umbrella stroller. This way, you can strap your kid in as you are getting examined or having blood drawn. Cheerios from snack cups tend to make a mess, so reserve them just for the time that the doctor is in the room.
• explain what is going on. Point out the scale, tell how the blood pressure cuff squeezes but does not hurt, talk about anatomical models (if it's not obstetrics, chances are it's a model of an ear or a nose), show the cool features of the exam table
• make a "chicken": take an exam glove ( most exam rooms have boxes and boxes of the,. blow it up and tie at the wrist. The thumb becomes the beak and the fingers are the comb. Hand it over and some time will pass in play
• bring a pen with you, and doodle on the exam table paper. Let the kids take turns drawing or writing. 
• when the kids are older, let them choose whether to come with you to the exam room or to stay in the waiting area. This only works if you know that your kids will not leave and know where to find you. Ask office staff if they are OK with this.
• also, teach your kids about privacy. I expected my boys to stay outside while I am getting undressed/dressed and for any internal exams. Luckily, 2 yo seems to follow their lead and wait with her brothers. 
• reward good behavior with a mint at the end of the visit. This meant that my kids got candy, twice, before 10 am, but this also means that my sanity was preserved.

While all of these have the potential to make a visit bearable, if you can have someone watch the kids while you go, take that offer!

Aren't you glad you are homeschooling?

In light of the recent massacre, and the amount of friends who had a particularly hard time letting their kids go back to school on Monday, this idea kept coming up. Aren't you glad that your kids are not in school? Aren't you glad that you do not have to drop them off at a place which seemed safe and, all of a sudden, isn't?

These ideas were peppered with plenty other finger-pointing and blaming. It's the guns. It's the lack of guns in schools. Every teacher should pack heat. Let's station armed guards at every school. It's mental illness. It's the lack of mental institutions. It's the lack of oversight. It's the permissive violent culture. It's the video games and movies. I am probably just scratching the surface here of all the different things which could be the contributing factors. as to why this happened and what needs to be done to prevent future violence.

I am a fatalist, and I do believe there is such thing as evil. There is no protection from it. If a bunch of armed thugs want to break into my house and really harm us, there is very little I would be able to do to defend myself and my kids, guns, krav maga and 911 included. If somebody decides to shoot up random cars (remember DC sniper?), there is no protection. Similarly, if someone plants a bomb, or stabs people, or shoots up a mall, or just decides that we trespassed on his lawn, what can we do?

As a child, growing up in Moldova, I happened to live there during the local civil war when Transnistria tried to secede from Moldova. This was just a short distance away. I remember playing outside with some friends, when down the street rolled an armored vehicle. The top was down, and a young soldier, with his chest puffed up, had a gun pointed right at us, kids, street level. There was no war in town, so he was probably an 18 year old punk, showing off. Pray tell me, what prevented him from pulling a trigger and producing more war casualties? And chances are, you probably never even heard of this teeny civil war.

When I was in Stern College in Manhattan, Sept. 11th happened. We saw the towers, we smelled the smoke, we witnessed the removal of debris from Ground Zero. I was an RA on duty when there was a bomb scare in Empire State Building two days later. One of the dorms was evacuated, the girls ran into the lounge, hysterical. I was told... to serve shabbos party food: nibs, pretzels, candy. The guards were talking about abandoning their posts and running. If there was actually a bomb, what would those nibs do?

Later, we lived in Far Rockaway. Remember the tsunami of 2004? We were in a flood zone, first floor apartment. I just had my oldest. I remember thinking that if there is a tsunami here, we will be licked clean, and I will not make it up the stairs with the baby.

Still later, I taught in Chabad school. The horrible shooting in Mumbai happened. Our school talked about beefing up security, being aware of strangers, and letting the secretary at the front desk decide what to do with visitors. We talked about code red and code yellow and where to evacuate the kids. Preparedness, yes; realism, no, not so much. I cannot fathom evacuating 40 preschoolers and hoisting them over the fence to safety if a terrorist is inside the building...

So ask yourself: realistically, is my child's school any more unsafe than it was before?  And are the safety measures that the schools are bound to undertake to calm jittery parents really making us safe, or are they there to quell our fears and make us feel that we are doing something?

Just in case you are considering homeschooling due to the recent events, I can guide you to an excellent article as to why you shouldn't make a rash decision. Yes, I am glad that we are homeschooling, but not for the reasons of fear.