The power to listen

We have a new family member. His name is Yaari. Well, he is not actually our family member - he is a new kid in my older son's class. But as much as I keep hearing about him in recent days, he might as well move in with us.

- Yaari had a D on his test again today.

- I don't care about the grades of other kids. I only care about yours. And so should you.

- But he is the worst student in class. He never answers any questions. He only draws. And he is not even good at that.

- I don't care. You should not pay attention to what other kids do in class.

- But they always put me with him, and he always asks me questions.

- If he is distracting, you should talk to the teacher.

- He never does anything when our team does a project, and then takes credit for it.

- You should resolve it with the teacher. If you can't, I can talk to the teacher for you.

- No! I don't want to be a cry-baby.

- Ok, then I won't hear more about Yaari.

Next day, the Yaari conversation begins again. Finally, yesterday I've had enough. "If I hear one more word about Yaari, I am writing a note to the teacher and solving this problem," - I snap. "No! I won't talk about him anymore, I promise," - my son replies.

That was a mistake. I only realized it today. I shut off my son's ability to vent about a problem that is obviously bothering him.

How many times do we come home from work and complain to our spouse about a nasty boss, a lazy coworker, a nosy friend? We know our partner can't help, and we don't want any help. All we want is a sympathetic ear and an ability to vent. We often feel that if we keep our problem to ourselves, we would explode. So we need to let it out. All we need from a spouse, a friend, or a parent, is to listen. No help. No advise. No judgement. Just patient listening. And when we let off steam, we feel grateful, and we feel better.

Why, then, when our kids come to us with a problem, we feel a strong desire to interfere? They have a problem, so they must need an advise, or help, or a note to a teacher, or a tutor. They need our help in some way. Is it a parent's instinct to always rush to the rescue? When they are little, and they have a problem, most of the time they do need your help. But the more they grow up, the more situations arise when you can't help. And even if you can, you shouldn't. "Helicopter parenting" only makes problems worse.

When a child comes to you with a problem, make time to listen. Stop what you are doing or suggest another more convenient time when you can give him your full attention. Listen and think if he really needs you to interfere, or he simply wants to let off steam. Depending on the situation, offer help or suggest how your child can solve the problem himself. And if he refuses your suggestion, don't immediately rush with another one. He may not have wanted a suggestion. He may simply have wanted a sympathetic ear, or a shoulder to cry on. If he feels better after talking to you, your job is done.

I now know how hard it can be to listen to the same problem over and over again and not being able to do anything about it. But it is important to recognize when you have to listen, and do so. Afterall, we don't appreciate it when we come to our spouse with our problems, and he looks bored, or uninterested, or simply cuts us off because it's a 100th time he listens to the same problem and he can't help. I need to reassess the Yaari situation. Shutting my son out is not a good solution, no matter how irritating it is to listen to the same complains every day.

My first Bar Mitzvah

Today I attended my first Bar Mitzvah. And not a minute too soon, considering that my older son will be having one in a little over a year. Bar Mitzvah ceremony is so important it's often referred to by the Jews as a "wedding". I needed to see how it was done, and I've never even been at one before until today.

We've known Jonathan's parents for a while. My husband took college classes with his father, Avi. When my husband introduced me to him and his wife, Marcia, I liked them immediately, which is saying a lot because I am usually slow to warm up to new people. Marcia is a delightful woman. She always has a lot to say, to share, or to add to the conversation. Even our social differences - her being somewhat liberal, and me being a lot more conservative - do not take away from the pleasure of communicating with her. She is 10 years older then me, which made me even more proud to be considered her friend. Before, I've never had a friend who was so much older (and wiser).

When Marcia got pregnant, she decided not to find out the sex of the baby before its birth. Her husband did want to know, so they decided that he would find out and not tell her. It did not work out very well because at the end she did find out. After she knew she was having a boy, whenever we saw them, we discussed the baby names, and her heart was set on Jonathan.

We first met Jonathan at our wedding, where he arrived in the hands of his father (my husband's best man), being 1-month old. When our first-born was having a bris, the rabbi asked what his Hebrew name was. Being terribly ignorant of Jewish tradition, we did not even know we were supposed to pick a Hebrew name for our son! We picked the only one we knew - Avishai, Jonathan's father's name. So far we love it, and it even starts with the same letter as his secular name, but it was totally spontaneous.

I was sitting in the synagogue listening to Jonathan deliver his speech, but even more attentively listening to his parents speak. Boy, do I need to start working on my speech. It's so important, and I am a terrible public speaker. I am already nervous. But Jonathan's parents do a great job, and so does he. He is growing up into a wonderful young man. Mazal Tov, Jonathan. Grow healthy, and make your parents proud.

Serious business

I am now a mother of a middle-schooler. This is a serious business.

We have to buy our own school supplies (which I know most people do starting from Kindergarten, but we've never actually done it before). And this is serious. Everything has to be just right - binders, notebooks, pencils.

We also now have to deal with the lockers, learning how to open them, get the right stuff out, close them and get into the right classroom, all in 3 minutes. Then there is this business of remembering which classroom we have to be in.

And this is just academic stuff. There is more.

There is the fact that most of the classmates now have cell phones, and even though they are not allowed until classes are over, the minute they are over the phones are out and texting begins. This was such a problem in the first few school days that parents started a debate whether 6th-graders should be even allowed to have cell phones. It was serious.

And most importantly: "There was a revolution today. 3 boys went and sat with the girls during recess. No dares or anything, they just went and sat there." Revolution. That was the exact word that was used. Of course my son was not a part of the "revolution", but I had to tell him a secret - in a few months, he probably will be.

Last night, it was Back-to-school night for middle-school parents. Since it was my first time as a middle-school mom, I, along with other first time middle-school parents, felt exactly like our kids felt at their first middle school day. We were all given a schedule of which room we have to be in at what time to meet with a teacher, and bewildered parents run all over the school started. Each teacher was given exactly 7 minutes to say whatever the hell she wanted to say, which meant that as soon as a teacher got to the 3d sentence a polite voice from above told us that this particular conference is over and we need to move to the next room. Needless to say there was no time for questions, remarks or concerns. But there sure was a lot of running around. By the end of the night I felt like I just run a marathon, and I didn't have an opportunity to ask why middle-schoolers are not learning geography. This was not a good way to conduct a Back-to-school night. I don't know exactly how it might have been done differently, but I definitely know that wasn't it.

Most 6th-grade parents are scared and concerned, especially those for whom it's their first child entering middle school. How is their little offspring handling it? Does he know what he needs for each particular subject? Does he know what room he is supposed to be in at any given moment? Does he have time to get there? (There is a penalty for tardiness).

I don't worry so much. When I was in school, our middle school format began not in 6th, but in 4th grade. We also had a lot more subjects. We didn't just have science. We had physics, chemistry, and biology, all in different rooms, all with a different teacher. We also had geography. We had grammar and literature, separately. We also had a foreign language. That's a lot of subjects. And a lot of homework.

Yesterday, my son's advisor was concerned about homework. "Be sure to record how much a child spends doing homework, and be sure to let us know if it's more than an hour and a half, because that's too much." Yeah, I wish my teachers were that concerned. I did my homework for at least 2 hours every day, and I was a straight A student, it was easy for me. There was just a lot of it. So far, I have not seen my son spending more than 15 minutes doing his homework. Something must be wrong there, it's middle school. Am I not paying attention? This is serious.

Only now do I understand how easy it was to be a parent in elementary school. There was only one teacher (or rather 2 working as a team) to deal with, only one set of rules. I had no idea when my child did his homework, but I knew that it was done. I was also quite sure that by the end of 3rd grade he knew all his elementary school curriculum, and although it was not such a good thing, I didn't have to worry about him falling behind. Now, it's different. I have to pay more attention to what he is studying and when. Every day I need to check what he is doing in each subject. I need to worry about grades - but I don't, at least for now. I need to worry about long-term projects. And most importantly, I have to worry about the revolution. That is very serious.