Practical Chinuch in Our Turbulent
Times- by Rabbi Dov Brezak Principal and Director, Talmud Torah Ezrat Torah, Yerushalayim
Last week we wrote:
"Criticism ranks very high on the list of impulsive reactions parents have in their attempts to "fix up" a situation. But impulsive criticism
doesn’t help; in fact it can be most damaging. Criticism highlights faults, and shows a child that he is incompetent.
No matter what parents say, their children tend to believe them. If parents tell a child consistently that he is incapable, the child comes to believe himself to be incapable, and it follows that he becomes incapable. One author expressed this thought concisely when he said, "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right."
Rabbi Yechiel Yaakovson (a renowned educator here in Israel) cited a collection of letters from a girl and her mother. The girl had serious emotional problems. She had absorbed her mother’s many criticisms only too well.
When the mother was told that her criticism was damaging to her daughter’s emotional state, the mother responded, "I’m surprised at your comments regarding my ‘criticism’ of my daughter. I criticize her to help make her better – not because I’ve given up hope on her, and certainly not because I wish to cause her to despair. Besides, I don’t really criticize. I just sort of laugh at her failures with lighthearted humor. I don’t think this can cause damage. She herself smiles when I joke about her failures.
The daughter, on the other hand, saw her mother’s criticism in an altogether different light, and wrote at length one small example to illustrate her feelings:
A parent might counter, "Do you mean that I can’t even criticize my own children?" In fact, there are healthy ways of expressing criticism that is necessary for children to hear. It is beyond the scope of these articles to delineate what one "can" or "cannot" do; our purpose is rather to present some guidelines to make parents aware of what will help and what will hurt. Experience has shown just how harmful impulsive criticism can be. (It is important for us all to bear in mind that we are all human and all make mistakes from time to time. Our mistakes do not necessarily destroy our ability to influence our children in beneficial ways. It is the consistent repetition of these mistakes, coupled with our refusal to recognize or to accept that we may have made a mistake that can cause irreparable damage.)
One very harmful type of criticism is ‘labeling’. One should refrain at all costs from labeling one’s child negatively. Under no circumstances should a parent resort to name-calling, such as calling his child a "fool," "liar," "slob," "good-for-nothing," or any of countless other labels a frustrated parent may be tempted to use. One fine talmid chacham I know of, had to contend with serious emotional problems as an adult, as a result of something his mother once said to him when he was young. "You’re tamei (impure)!" she had told him.
We cannot underestimate damage a label can cause. Precisely because children generally believe their parents, a label can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Rabbi Yaakovson cited the case of a kindergarten rebbi who was teaching his class about sheker. He was explaining to them that someone who lies is not accepted by his peers, and he is considered despicable even in the eyes of Hashem. The rebbi noticed that one of the children in his class seemed to be staring at him intensely. Fearing that something was wrong, he moved inconspicuously closer to that child as he was addressing the class. When he was standing near him, he noticed that the child had turned pale and was shuddering.
"Are you feeling okay?" asked the rebbi. At this, the child put his head down on the table and began to cry hysterically. The rebbi immediately sent the other children to the yard for a recess break. He then sat down next to the boy and waited until he calmed down a bit. Then he asked the child, "Why are you crying?"
"I’m a liar! Hashem hates me! I won’t be mekabel p’nei hashechinah!" he blurted out.
"What do you mean, you’re ‘a liar’?" asked the rebbi. "Do you tell many lies?"
"Y-y-yes," stammered the boy in response.
"You’re not so sure you lie a lot, right?" asked the rebbi. The child nodded that this was true. "So how do you know you’re a liar? Who told you?"
"My father and mother," said the boy.
"But even if you’ve been a liar until now, there’s still no reason to cry," said the rebbi. "You can just stop lying."
"I can’t stop lying," said the boy, trying hard to make his rebbe understand his situation. "I’m a liar!"
As we stated previously, "We cannot underestimate damage a label can cause. Precisely because children generally believe their parents, a label can become a self-fulfilling prophecy."
With sincere wishes for your hatzlachah and siyata diShemaya,
Rabbi Dov Brezak