Parenting Trends

Struggles are our greatest teachers.  This is also true with day-to-day struggles such as parenting and educating young children. Every day brings a new set of opportunities for learning. My children and their young friends in Gan are constantly keeping me on my toes as I attempt to understand the best tools to use each moment, the best mindset to have. 

My earliest memories about early childhood education philosophies are listening in to the conversations at my family Shabbat table as a young teenager during the annual weekend of the Conference of Chabad Women leaders (Shluchos).  My aunts and other family members, many of whom direct Jewish Day Schools, preschools, or centers for youth in their respective communities, passionately discussed the different philosophies, models and mentors of the time. Whether it was Reggio, Montessori or Waldorf, Love and Logic or Gentle Parenting, they discussed and debated these theories and tools intensely. Which method was more effective, which philosophy was more aligned with Jewish values, which would best help them educate their children and students to be healthy, confident, and good people. 

 When I became a parent and early childhood educator myself, I marveled how parenting and education theories seem to follow certain trends. In the early 2000s it seemed like the thought leaders and authors tried to find the best method to get cooperation from children. Dr. Fay’s Love and Logic or Adele Faber's “How to Talk…” all give mostly effective tools on getting kids to cooperate, listen, and “do as we say.” More recently though, the methods and goals have changed.

Dr. Becky Bailey’s Conscious Discipline focuses on building a connection between the parents or educators with the  children and children with each other, focusing more on their emotions and general emotional well-being. Dr. Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside, as her book title states, focuses on the inherent goodness inside all of us and all of our children, understanding the reasons for their behaviors, building empathy for our children and raising empathetic children. It’s fascinating to watch this generational shift and it's exciting to see how it aligns with Judaism and the Jewish view on education. 

It occurred to me recently though, that there is still at least one core pillar of Jewish education that I have yet to see strongly reflected in any of the popular philosophies, books, or parenting gurus. 

Growing up, I would learn about and watch replays of the children's rallies in 770. The Rebbe led gatherings for Jewish children, often coinciding with a Jewish holiday. The children recited Torah passages in Hebrew, sang Jewish songs, enjoyed some entertainment, and heard an address from the Rebbe. During his talks to the children, the Rebbe often focused on a certain theme, using words and terms children relate to. He often spoke of a core teaching of Tanya, Jewish mysticism, that every person, including each child, has a Good Inclination - Yetzer Tov, and a Bad Inclination - a Yetzer Harah. One voice inside them encourages them to make good choices, and another voice encourages them to make bad choices. It’s the child’s mission to strengthen the good inclination, to allow the good voice to become the dominant and louder voice. How? By listening to it and following its lead.

This is such an empowering message for our youth. It gives them agency. It reminds our children and ourselves, that yes, we all have our urges, thoughts, ideas, feelings, and wishes, but not all of them should be acted upon! The voice of the evil inclination (our ego and self preserving inclination) may be very loud, but there is also a good voice, and if we allow it to speak, even if it is a very quiet voice, we can understand the right thing to do. Ultimately it is up to the child to make the right decision.

I try to remind my 3 year old Levi that there is a little voice inside him that might tell him to do the unhelpful, hurtful, or unsafe thing. It might tell him to say something unkind to a friend in his Gan, to say an untruth, or do something that he knows is wrong, but he should pause and think, what does my Good Voice say? What would Hashem want me to do now? And though the other voice might be louder, more exciting, or appealing, which voice does he want to strengthen, which voice does he want to win? Levi loves to win, and I hope he always allows his Good Voice to do the winning. 


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