Parenting Our Children

Had I been told a year ago that in a short amount of time my husband and I would have all of our children living with us under one roof, I would have thought it was a joke. Although my husband and I had been working toward this goal for all the years of our marriage, with each passing year it seemed less and less of a possibility.

You see a small plastic bottle of Visine or other brands of eye drops in the room of your teen son or daughter. He/she seems to have lingering colds and reddish eyes. You must have misplaced some cash in the house (several times, in fact) over the past few months. Your adolescent son or daughter begs off family simchahs, and his/her last report card was a disaster. Obviously, any one or two of these factors could be completely harmless. But in the aggregate, they are often signs of impending substance abuse issues. Parents of at-risk adolescents need to become more knowledgeable about these symptoms.

Imagine going for a walk one winter morning and finding your neighbor sitting in his car vigorously turning the steering wheel while the engine is shut off. When you ask him why he doesn't start the car, he responds that his battery died, and he will soon get jumper cables to give it a boost. However, before he does that, he would like to turn the front wheels away from the curb so that he can instantly be able to pull out of the parking space once his automobile starts.

Recently, my two children from my first marriage visited with their father after three and-a-half years of not seeing him. Even though I was faced with some opposition from friends and relatives that lived through my divorce and its aftermath with me, I actually supported the idea.

In the first two Jewish Press columns in this series - published on June 15 and June 22, 2007 - we discussed, "Understanding Tefillos" and "Building Spirituality" in response to the questions posted by two parents asking how to better motivate their children (a 12-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy) to improve their davening. In this column, we will address the following issues: · A feeling of connection to Hashem and the faith that our tefillos are answered; and · Age-appropriate settings and expectations for tefillos.

"Eichah yashvah vadad - Alas; she sits in solitude" (Eicha 1:1). The haunting words of Megilas Eichah resonate in our hearts and minds as we prepare to sit on the ground this coming Tisha B'Av and commemorate the destruction of the second Beis Hamikdash 1,939 years ago.

In last week’s column, two parents asked how to better motivate their children (a 12-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy) to improve their davening. In the response, we discussed four prerequisites for inspired tefillah – for adults – and some of the ramifications as they pertain to the chinuch of our children.

Dear Rabbi Horowitz: My 12-year-old daughter is, B”H, a well-rounded, hardworking Bais Yaakov girl. She takes her schoolwork seriously and has a nice circle of friends. Recently, I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend. On Shabbos and Sunday morning, when she does not have school, she has begun to sleep in unusually late and often does not daven Shacharis. Even when she wakes up with enough time to daven, she seems to be procrastinating and looking for excuses to avoid having time to daven. This is particularly disturbing to me as her mother, due to the fact that I’ve always made a great effort to daven every day – despite the challenges it entails. How do I get my daughter to appreciate the chashivus and beauty of tefillah without making her feel that yiddishkeit is a burden? Yocheved