Rabbi Y. Yaakovson (renowned educator and lecturer here in Israel) made this amazing statement: "We have never come across a case in which encouragement did not improve the situation. Even if a child does not seem to react positively to encouragement, one should not conclude that encouragement is not the answer, but rather that it was not given properly." Encouragement (properly administered) is the answer.

Encouragement proved a lifesaver for one extremely difficult boy in our school (we’ll call him Shimshon). His chutzpah was often hard to believe, as can be seen in an incident that occurred one year on Israel’s Memorial Day. On that day, an air-raid siren is set off at precisely 11:00 a.m., and for a period of two minutes all traffic stops. Many drivers get out of their cars and stand at attention. For obvious reasons, we keep our students inside the building at that time, but Shimshon wasn’t interested in school policy; he wanted to see all the traffic come to a standstill. He ran out to the Shmuel Hanavi / Bar Ilan Street intersection. Much to our consternation, he caught the attention of some television reporters, who began to interview him.

"Don’t you stand at attention?" they asked.

"No," the boy answered.

"Don’t you care about the soldiers who were killed?"

"No."

"Is this what they teach you in your charedi schools?"

"Yes," he responded, unruffled.

"You mean that your teachers don’t care at all about the soldiers who were killed?"

"That’s right," he answered proudly. (This is certainly not what we ever taught Shimshon or any other student who has ever studied in our school.) That night, this "newsworthy" interview was broadcast nationwide (although it is illegal for the media to interview a child under 18 without parental consent).

Anyone would consider Shimshon to be quite a difficult case, with little self-control and no concern for others. We worked with him patiently, using encouragement as our main approach. When Shimshon graduated from our school, he continued his studies in a fine yeshivah. Several years later, I came across him one night after a fast. He was still in shul twenty minutes after he should have broken his fast. I asked him what he was doing there, and he was loath to tell me, but after I asked him several times, he finally admitted that he was waiting until the zman of Rabbeinu Tam (72 min after sunset) to break his fast. More recently, Shimshon called me to say that he wanted to send money to our school to cover the costs of the minor damages he had made to the building when he attended our school years earlier, before his turnabout!

In his new book, Kindness: Changing People’s Lives for the Better (Artscroll), Rabbi Zelig Pliskin relates the following story, but he does not reveal who the story is about: "I used to view myself as being uncreative. I remember the day a prominent neighbor told me that I was creative. ‘Yes, I did a couple of things that might seem creative, I argued against my own best interests. But I’m not really creative. And what I did wasn’t totally original.’

" ‘Look at it objectively,’ I was told. ‘You have to admit that there were elements of creativity in what you did.’ He was correct. There were creative aspects in what I had done. And from then on I have viewed myself as creative. This has made a major impact on my entire life. I now feel an obligation to help other people discover their strengths the same way someone helped me find mine."

Rabbi Pliskin is my friend and I consult with him often. He informed me (and gave me permission to repeat) that in this story he was describing himself and the change that was wrought in his life as a result of the encouragement he received. Before this brief conversation took place, he had published two books. Afterwards, he went on to write eleven more books, which have benefited the lives of thousands of people. I myself never cease to be amazed at his creativity. And it still amazes me that a short few sentences of encouragement can reap benefits for thousands of people.

Quite a few years ago, a student entered my class at the beginning of the school year with a 60% grade average. We encouraged him, and by the end of the year he had brought his average up into the high 90’s. Just recently he presented me with a gift of a sefer that he himself authored. I keep it on my desk to encourage me to encourage others.

Twice in my teaching career, I made a major "mistake" in judging a student. Since as a matter of policy I do not look over students’ records from previous years, I must draw my own conclusions about each student’s abilities. On each of these two occasions, I had the mistaken impression that a certain boy was one of the best in the class. In fact, both boys had been major troublemakers the year before. Nevertheless, each of them rose to the head of the class, undoubtedly riding on my "mistake."

Actually, these two children had been outstanding all along, yet no one ever treated them as such, so they had not been living up to their potential. Every Jewish child – including yours – is outstanding. In fact, he’s a diamond! With belief in yourself and in them, with sincere encouragement of yourself and of them, and with consistent, sincere tefillot, you will have true nachat from them.

With sincere wishes for your success and siyata diShemaya,