Dear Partners with Parents,

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for my son’s Bar Mitzvah. Planning an event like this is mystifying, especially when trying to meet everyone’s needs and address each age group.  I just can’t tell you how amazing your team was. Your coordinator was so lovely.  She and our ceremony leader helped me with every aspect, from start to finish. The cantorial student you provided fit in perfectly as well.  She, too, was warm and totally tuned into our specific needs.  Every generation and people from all backgrounds felt welcome and included and thoroughly enjoyed the occasion.

The speeches were a huge surprise. Normally, I would be concerned about leaving them “to fate” but I totally trusted the team, especially our tutor who led the service.  She came so well prepared and was so professional in her communication with everyone involved.  Her talk during the service was beautiful.  She totally understands my son and values him the way I do.  She’s like part of our family.  My son’s speech was amazing.  It was funny, on point, and in his own voice.  She promised me good grammar, my one requirement, and she came through!  I had no fear about what would happen on the big day because I so trusted her judgment.

Most important, my son loved this experience, and it was meaningful for HIM. He was so happy to work with his tutor that he now wants to continue his Jewish education because he finds it fun and interesting!

I just have to tell you and anyone else who wants to know, it was a fantastic process and a beautiful result. The service was intimate and memorable, everything my family and I wanted.

Thank you so much,

Linda Bicks

Each student has a different set of conditions under which he performs his best.  Each of us needs to be a scientist, making and testing hypotheses about our ideal study conditions.  Spend a number of weeks experimenting and finding out the answers to the questions below.  Remember what works the best for you is not necessarily what feels the best or most comfortable. The ultimate goal is finding what makes you most effective.

• What room in your apartment is best for homework and studying?

Do you have a dedicated area where you can go when you need to do work?  Are there some types of assignments that you can do in a more public place, like the living room, while some require more seclusion?  If you live in a “zoo,” consider the library.

• What position is best?

Sitting at a desk?  In a comfortable chair?  Lying on the floor?  Do you have access to everything you need?  Do you benefit from getting up and moving around periodically?  Does it vary based on the type of assignment?

• What kinds of noise are distracting?

Music?  Parents talking?  Siblings playing?  All of the above?  Are there places in the apartment/house where you can get away and have comparative silence?  Again, if a Yankee-Red Sox game seems like a quiet retreat, consider finding a place outside your home.

• What time of day are you most effective?

Are you a “day” person or a “night” person?  Are there certain times of day when, no matter how hard you try, you can’t absorb information?  You don’t want to wait until you’re 30 to find out that you get more accomplished from 6:00-8:00am than during the entire rest of the day.

• How often do you need to takes breaks?

Can you realistically concentrate for 5 hours without interruption?  Would five 1 hour blocks serve you better?  Three 100 minute blocks?  How long a break does it take to refuel your battery?  What can you do to reward yourself during your break (if you’ve earned it)?

• How do amount of sleep and level of hunger affect you?

How many hours of sleep do you need to be at your best?  Would a half hour nap at some point make a difference in your ability to apply yourself?  Are you able to work effectively after having a full meal?  What about when you’ve had two candy bars and a can of soda?  Do you need a (healthy) snack for energy before starting your homework?

• Do you work well under pressure?

If you know that you don’t, you’d better not save things until the last minute.  As soon as you know the assignment or test date, schedule the tasks you are going to accomplish each day (or week) to ensure that you have plenty of time to complete your work.

• Do you learn well in a group?

Would a study partner enhance or detract from your productivity?  Perhaps certain subjects yes, some no.  Certainly, who you choose as a study partner is vital; try to find a classmate who is equally committed to academic success.

Let the answers to these questions guide where, when, and how you approach your work.  Of course, you will never be able to work under your ideal conditions 100% of the time.  Moreover, the answers to these questions will likely vary depending on the type and complexity of the assignment (memorization, research, reading, writing, problem solving, etc.) as well as your level of interest.  Discovering your brain’s likes and dislikes at least gives you the opportunity to structure your schedule and set up your physical study environment to enhance your chance of success.

In times of stress, we tend to stay up later to “get things done,” we sleep fitfully when we do get to bed, and then we wake up prematurely with that cool burning sense of worry over getting things handled.  It may feel restful to spend time in the simulated unconsciousness of chatting online or staring at the television until late hours, but maximizing your actual sleep hours is critical.  It seems a small thing, but inadequate sleep only adds to one’s level of anxiety and diminishes performance across the board.  Especially with a book-bag full of new syllabi weighing heavily on their shoulders, students need extra rest to handle the stress and stay well both physically and academically.

So, get to bed!

Processing death is a little different from our other parental duties and the regualar disruptions to our familial stases.  It’s a bit richer, as parenting challenges go, existing as it does at a confluence of emotional and spiritual avenues of unparalleled magnitude.  Bring together a touch of gut-wrenching sorrow, add some deep-seated fear of the unknowable, shake them together with even mildly differing parenting inclinations, and you’ve got quite a paralyzing cocktail.  It’s no wonder wincing parents want to sidestep the issue of death, for the sake of their own comfort and that of their young ones.  It’s awkward, challenging material, which for many of us is worse than simple sadness.  We just don’t know the truth about death, and we don’t want to mess this up.

You would think that given the frequency and inevitability of death we might all be sharing a clearer pool of collective wisdom on presenting it to our children.  Part of the confusion, the hesitation, we experience when confronted by these dicey topics in our children’s rapidly changing lives is that the windows of application are so brief.  I’m only going to have to deal with a major first-love scenario once for each of my two daughters, right?  You talk to a preschooler differently from an elementary-age kid about a new pregnancy in the family, right?  The landscape of child development changes so dramatically and so rapidly, we are left with only our instincts and reflexes to guide us through perpetually uncharted territory.  And then, of course, there’s the fact that none of us actually knows anything about this topic, the far side of death.

Adding to the complexity of death’s presence in our lives, the collective American marketplace is not much for pain and sorrow.  Our beauty-failures receive their fair share of advertisers’ attention, but for the most part we are informed that we are good enough, that we “deserve a break today,” and “why ask why?”  We have innumerable opportunities to consume products that will make us more “happy,” or at least numb our discomfort.  So pervasive are these pathways to happiness, that we can experience an acute sense of failure if our children are not happy – if their “needs” are not met, even for a moment. “Quick, get a toy!  No, honey, get one that makes noises!”  Confronting death is just hard emotional work, without the quick fixes we see portrayed in the world around us.

On occasion when I’m out with my kids on the street and one of them happens to be crying because she didn’t get the color gumball she had her heart set on or she smashed her finger, strangers will approach her and say things like “Don’t cry.  You’re so young.  You should be happy.”  That’s a pressure, and a false way of living, that I don’t want my kids to have to manage.  Life, even for a child, isn’t just joy joy joy, and if a person can’t bear for a child to feel some sadness or disappointment in life then it’s for that person’s own sake, not the child’s.  Our overprotection cripples our kids, not helps them.  They are young humans, and to grow up to be well-sorted older humans they need to have real experiences and to have age appropriate answers to difficult questions so they can get to know their feelings.  The answer to their sadness is not to eat a “happy” meal.  Their sadness IS the very encouraging answer to the question “Are you alive and perceiving?”

Death remains a part of every single life cycle, regardless of its duration. Just as it’s important to allow our growing toddlers experiences with balancing and falling down to build their resilience, insight, and coordination, they need to practice experiencing the complexity of empathy, rage, and grief.  So, get your kid a pet if you’re willing – he needs the practice. Our pets give our children small, meaningful doses of death practice in a world in which our technologies have limited the omnipresence of death and pushed it to the periphery.   Only a few decades ago, even in our rapidly advancing American society, fairly rarely did anyone reach adulthood without losing a sibling, or at least a cousin.  So, thanks, pets, for being there for our emotional enrichment, and doing the dirty work.

Most important, honestly tell your kid the mix of thoughts and feelings YOU experience when death presents itself–he needs the modeling.  When we experience death and loss, it is a sad, uncomfortable time for us.  Let’s not pretend to our children that we are “fine,” or that our families never have to visit the stone forest, or that this important, quiet place does not exist.  Just as having children gives rise to the exhilarating status “with” that defines our lives, death and loss gives birth to the inevitable status “without” to define them as well.  Let’s prepare our children for that, and lead them through the process genuinely.  How dishonest it would be never to acknowledge the hope and expectation each of us parents carries soberly, silently within us: long before our children pass on, we want go take our places in the stone forest first, leaving them to grieve and carry on without us there to guide them.

Our first instinct is to overprotect them.  Obviously, we are ethically obligated to feed and shelter our children, not to mention treat them with a certain amount of kindness.  By extension, doesn’t that mean we must do everything in our power to ensure that their feet never touch sand that’s too hot, and their words never fall short of a college entrance board’s standards?  We’re supposed to shield them from the pains and disappointments they will no doubt face as they grow, right?

Well, no.   We know that trial and error is a critical element of any learning process.  We put the kids on teams so they can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  We know their lives will be filled with more romantic relationships that end in misery than will work out, but we send them off into the hormonal mosh-pit of schools nevertheless.  We know they must learn to fend for themselves.

We all have seen the results of oblivious parenting that allows self-destruction to run unchecked.  And we’ve seen overprotective parenting that prevents ease and true self-reliance from being developed and asserted.   Finding the line between protecting and guiding, on the one hand, and stifling and inhibiting on the other, is a game of trial and error itself.  Each parent and child must find ways to communicate with each other.   Parents must make their expectations clear and follow through consistently, while maintaining a context of love and support.  Children must be able to express their fears, make mistakes and know that they have a safe environment to grow and develop.

Complicating the situation is that just as our adolescents’ capacity for decision-making and self-management is swinging into high gear, their capacity for significant crashes picks up right along with it–romances ending in heartbreak, indelible marks on academic transcripts, social ostracism, and the like.  Couple this with the fact that teens tend to resist whatever measures we take in their predictable process of identity formation and individuation, and we are navigating in murky waters.

My dad modeled a parenting technique with me that I will no doubt try when my children reach adolescence.  Whenever he felt he had to rein in my forays into recklessness, he would remind me that it was not me he didn’t trust, it was the rest of the teenage world around me.  Even then, I found that soothing, and I ran with the trust my parents DID grant me to make my own choices that, for the most part, gave them further reasons to trust me.  That said, when Dad imposed rules and limitations, he spoke with me clearly about where he was drawing a line and why, without robbing me of my own sense of dignity and volition.  And it was only negotiable when it was negotiable.

Ultimately, the message is this: If you want to help your kids grow to be independent, self-managing problem-solvers who will listen to your best advice, start practicing NOW – not because they need the practice, but because you do.  Bite your tongue as your little girl dresses herself with articles of clothing that you’d never combine, even though you worry she’ll be ridiculed.  Make that boy of yours order his own meals at restaurants, but have to live with his choices.  If she can give good reasons, let her register for a class she believes is right for her, even though you feel it does not optimize her learning in these fleeting school years.  Let him delay registering for that major exam by one more administration because he just doesn’t feel ready yet–he might be right.  But for everyone’s sake, let your child know that, whoever is in the driver’s seat of a given choice, what you’re interested in most is not her performance, it’s her.