In the previous article we asked:

What then is the correct way to influence our children? How can we successfully instill in them a love for Hashem and his Torah? How can we guide them toward greatness?

The most essential ingredient for success in influencing our children – without it, no influence will succeed – is for us to make sure that their experiences in religious areas are positive experiences. They must be experiences that the children themselves view as positive and pleasurable. It is only such experiences that will instill in children – or in anyone – a love for Torah and mitzvot, and that will keep them strong and growing in the long run.

This goal must be our guide in every interaction on a spiritual level that we have with our children. If we will focus on this goal, we may well find that so many other concerns and goals fade into insignificance. This applies constantly in the everyday flow of life with our children.

Learning Torah with a child, for example, should be a pleasant experience. The child will not benefit from such learning if the atmosphere is charged with tension. This is not the time for the parent to act out the role of examiner; it is a time for both parent and child to enjoy learning with one another. The father would do well to focus on that portion of the material that his son knows well, and to encourage his child by expressing his satisfaction at the child’s efforts. Putting his arm around his child while they are learning together will make the session even more effective.

As we have stated, our main concern is that the child must see the experience as a positive one, for it is this that will truly influence him. Even if the child is finding his learning to be very difficult, when we review with him we can express to him how much we enjoy learning with him, and how we love to help him. In this way we give him the opportunity to take pleasure in the joy he gives us, making the learning itself more pleasurable. It is these and similar actions that will make learning with our children an altogether positive experience.

A parent might argue that he is obliged to address other goals. He must be able to monitor his son’s progress; he must know how his son is doing in school. Indeed this is an important goal, but it pales in significance when set against the goal of helping our children grow with a love of Torah (rather than with resentment for it, chas veshalom). Yet the fact is that if you learn with your child in the manner we have recommended here, creating a pleasant, loving atmosphere, you will be able to assess how much he knows – but at the same time you will have given him a desire, even an eagerness to learn more.

This is not untested theory by any means. Where these recommendations have been implemented in countless real-life situations, they have led to major, successful changes in the lives of parents and children.

Our great rabbis in generations past knew of these principals. It is related that one zaddik had a very wild nephew who was not willing to learn in the conventional system. This rabbi advised the parents to hire a special melamed (teacher) who would teach the child while the child was sitting up in a tree, the melamed standing at the foot of the tree. The parents followed his advice, and this child grew up to be one of the gedolei hador (great rabbis of the generation) zt"l.

The Gaon of Vilna, zt"l certainly knew this. In Iggeres HaGra he wrote regarding his own children: "Do not pressure them unnecessarily; guide them only with gentleness, for learning is instilled within a person only through an approach of serenity and gentleness."

Even the Vilna Gaon felt that the only way for children to succeed in their learning is through an approach of "serenity and gentleness."

Praying too should be viewed as a positive experience by our children. We must make this goal our highest priority when we take our children to shul. We can insist that our child come to the beit haknesset and sit near us – but we should not try to force him to daven. In an earlier article, we cited the halachic ruling of Rabbi Eliashiv shlita, of Jerusalem, that if a child daydreams during davening we should leave him alone, allowing him to dream, as is normal for most children (and even for some adults).

There are many things related to the shul experience that a child will enjoy naturally, such as the singing, the various things going on, the presence of his friends, and the general atmosphere that pervades the davening. We can make the time he spends in shul an even more pleasurable experience for our child by smiling at him now and then during the course of the davening. This will demonstrate to him how much we love him, how much we like being with him and how much we appreciate his davening; it will certainly contribute to making our child view praying in shul as a positive experience.

Another factor that can play a major role in inspiring our children to daven well is the role model we represent. Rav Hutner zt"l described two fathers. One of them made it a habit to scold and reprimand his children constantly during davening. It is obvious, Rav Hutner explained, that the father himself could not manage to daven properly, however he consoled himself with the notion that he was being mechanech his children in davening. The result of his educational approach was that when his children grew up and became fathers themselves, they acted in the same way toward their own children, constantly scolding and reprimanding, "making sure" that their children would daven properly. This trend continued within this family for generation after generation.

The second father would have his children sit with him in shul, but would make no comments to them whatsoever regarding their davening. Instead, he would concentrate on his own davening, trying his best to daven with great kavanah. His sons observed their father’s example, and eventually began themselves to daven with great kavanah, and when they became fathers, they related to their sons the same way in which their father had related to them. This second father raised generations of fathers who davened with great kavanah and who taught their sons to do likewise, while the first father raised generations of fathers who couldn’t bring themselves to daven well – and who would instead try to get their children to daven.

It is crucial, however, to note that the role model a father represents will have a positive effect only if the child views praying on the whole as a positive experience.

With sincere wishes for your hatzlachah and siyata diShemaya,