{"id":58747,"date":"2017-11-16T10:27:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T15:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=58747"},"modified":"2017-11-19T03:43:39","modified_gmt":"2017-11-19T08:43:39","slug":"push-kids-daven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/parenting\/push-kids-daven\/","title":{"rendered":"Should I Push My Kids to Daven?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Sunday morning and I am engaging in the same internal battle that many <\/span>frum<\/span><\/i> parents experience:<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the one \u201cday off\u201d of the week. Whereas every day, I need to wrest my kids\u2019 soft cheeks from their cozy sleeping state and urge everyone to get dressed quickly before we make our mad dash out of the house with bags of cereal in hand, on Sunday there\u2019s nowhere to run to. My kids can sleep late, take their time walking around in pajamas, make fancy breakfasts. The hour is getting late but what\u2019s the rush?<\/span><\/p>\n

At some point, I call this happy, lazy scene to an end as I remind my kids to get dressed so they can <\/span>daven<\/span><\/i>. They do as they\u2019re told but there are those days when I am greeted by a suffering look and me, the tough Mom who rarely gives in to my kids\u2019 complaints, wonders whether I am doing the right thing by pushing them to <\/span>daven<\/span><\/i>. On one hand, this is our family value; there is no day off from religious observance and I hope that the act of davening will become as habitual to them as brushing their teeth. On the other hand, when I see that look of annoyance, I worry about turning them off.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s every <\/span>frum<\/span><\/i> parent\u2019s- truly every Jewish parent\u2019s quandary. What is the balance between pushing too much that we turn our children off vs. pushing too little, to the point that our children see our religious values as not very important? I see this struggle play out in many ways across our community: Should a parent who wants their child to marry Jewish make a fuss when their child wants to date a non-Jewish classmate? It\u2019s just high school after all, and what are the chances they will marry this boy? Won\u2019t it turn them off from Judaism altogether if they make this a battle? Should a parent wake their teenage son for <\/span>Shabbat<\/span><\/i> morning <\/span>minyan <\/span><\/i>or will that turn him off to Judaism because he will come to resent going to <\/span>shul<\/span><\/i>? Should a child who is on break from <\/span>yeshiva<\/span><\/i> be woken up early to attend <\/span>minyan<\/span><\/i>? Maybe they should let him sleep late now that he\u2019s home on vacation, after all, he\u2019s tired and works so hard throughout the year. <\/span><\/p>\n

These are not easy questions. While I certainly hear the concern of making Judaism appear onerous, there is an equal and opposite question of what message are we sending our children, when we look the other way about religious values that are important to our family? Do our children see it as we do that we are \u201cchoosing our battles\u201d or do they see it as, \u201cit can\u2019t be very important if my parents aren\u2019t raising an issue?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This question was raised recently in a moving blog post written by Shira Pasternak Be\u2019eri, a mother in Israel who has two children who went \u201coff the <\/span>derech\u201d<\/span><\/i> or, in her words, embarked on \u201ca new <\/span>derech.<\/span><\/i>\u201d \u00a0In this Times of Israel piece,<\/span> http:\/\/blogs.timesofisrael.com\/when-your-child-embarks-on-a-new-derech\/<\/span><\/a>, she questions the following about how she raised her children: \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn trying to make observance fun and avoid making religion onerous, did I somehow unbind my children and condone being lax?… And if nothing else, did I not inoculate them with a healthy enough dose of Jewish guilt?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Although my children are younger and in a different place in life than hers, I found many of the questions she asked to be thought-provoking as a parent. Not because G-d forbid, I believe her parenting is the cause for her children\u2019s decisions; the love this mother feels for her children and the pain she expresses stands out above anything she writes. But as a parent, I think it\u2019s worth asking myself these questions that she\u2019s asking herself looking back, as I parent my young children, looking forward. If there\u2019s anything to be learned at seeing how many kids go off the <\/span>derech<\/span><\/i>, it is that it can happen to anyone. It happens to the best of families, to families who accept their children as they are, to families across the <\/span>hashkafic<\/span><\/i> spectrum and to people who parent in all sorts of different ways. No one is immune to the threat and it seems there are no easy answers as to how we can prevent it. However, in an age where this phenomenon is becoming all too common, I do think it is a worthwhile exercise for parents to read the questions she penned, realizing this <\/span>could<\/span><\/i> happen to our own children, and try our best to question our parenting decisions (including the schools we send our children to, which partner in our parenting) each step of the way. To parent with eyes wide open and to constantly ask ourselves if we are making the best decisions for each of our children.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, to return to my current challenge at hand, should we make our children daven? I don\u2019t have an answer for you but after careful thought, here\u2019s what we decided to do in my family. We make <\/span>tefilla<\/span><\/i> part of the expected routine but ask my daughters to recite the minimum required for women by the <\/span>Mishna Brura<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, <\/span>tefilla<\/span><\/i> is not something too difficult so that my children should resent it. My daughters are not <\/span>halachically<\/span><\/i> required to <\/span>daven<\/span><\/i> yet, as none are yet <\/span>Bat Mitzvah<\/span><\/i> (although one is two months away) but we do this to habituate them in the hopes that it doesn\u2019t become an issue of rebellion as they get older.<\/span><\/p>\n

My husband and I try to model by showing our children that both Abba and Imma <\/span>daven<\/span><\/i> every day, to the point that sometimes I <\/span>daven<\/span><\/i> in the living room, in the middle of the chaos to make this point (this does not lead to great <\/span>kavana<\/span><\/i>). We also try to include the why\u2019s, rather than just instruct the what\u2019s by trying to have conversations with my kids about <\/span>tefilla<\/span><\/i> (and other such topics) at random, casual moments- on <\/span>Shabbat<\/span><\/i> morning while they eat their <\/span>Shabbat<\/span><\/i> cereal, on the car ride to school, or sometimes when we are lying in bed together on a school night, talking about the day\u2019s events. I tell them why I find meaning and strength in making time for <\/span>davening<\/span><\/i>, I share stories I learned when I was at school about <\/span>tefillah<\/span><\/i> and why we live a more meaningful life by making room for <\/span>Hashem<\/span><\/i> in our day, even if we would rather be doing something else.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am under no illusions that we are approaching this correctly or that we have nothing to worry about down the line. Parenting is the ultimate lesson in humility: We don\u2019t really know the answers but all we can do is try our best. I anticipate that, like every parent, we have our struggles ahead and I <\/span>daven<\/span><\/i> that <\/span>Hashem<\/span><\/i> gives me the strength and intuition to deal with each situation in the right way. But if there\u2019s anything I gained from reading the sad account of a mother who has experienced one of my biggest fears, it is to parent with eyes wide open.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Sunday morning and I am engaging in the same internal battle that many frum parents experience: It\u2019s the one \u201cday off\u201d of the week. Whereas every day, I need to wrest my kids\u2019 soft cheeks from their cozy sleeping state and urge everyone to get dressed quickly before we make our mad dash out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133465,"featured_media":58751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\nShould I Push My Kids to Daven? - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What message are we sending our children when we look the other way about religious values such as davening that are important to our family?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/parenting\/push-kids-daven\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should I Push My Kids to Daven? 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