Back To School Jitters- For Parents!

 

A survey reported in the New York Post said that 60% of parents are so anxious about coming back to school that they lose sleep. Of the 2000  parents surveyed 57% said it is the most stressful time of year for them.  The top worries of most parents are: Whether their child will have good teachers (50%), whether their child eats healthy foods at school (44%), the cost of buying school supplies (42%), their child’s safety at school (40%), and whether their child will make friends at school (40%).

I always used to share with others that vacation to me is not a trip to an exotic far-away land. Vacation for me is simply when my children are off from school. No oversight of homework. No lunches. No carpools. No early morning wake-ups. That is vacation. No wonder we parents often have that feeling in the pit of our stomachs the first days of school.  

Of course, as parents, we are also worried about our children’s back to school anxiety. As Dr. Rachel Busman writes in her article “Back to School Anxiety” the first step to calm down your child is: “taking your own temperature to make sure you’re not passing on stress to your kids. And to enable you to manage your own stress, she says, it’s important not to take on more commitments than the family can handle comfortably. “I think there’s a contagion effect that we have to be careful of,” she adds.  As much as we can, focus on the positives and not share our anxieties with our children. 

Attending back to school night is a great way to calm our own  back to school jitters. 

1. Get a sense of the classroom environment.  How is the classroom set up? How far is one classroom from the next? What does my child’s locker look like? You can then better envision what the physical environment your child is in each day and some of the challenges he/she may face when it comes to managing his/her materials and schedule. Once you have this information you can have more meaningful conversations about their daily lives with them. 

2. What is the teacher’s personality like? What will the vibe of the classroom be? Again, when your child talks about a teacher you can truly understand what he/she is saying. 

3. It builds a relationship and rapport with the teacher. Once you meet someone in person (and not wait until parent-teacher conferences to do so) when you receive an email, or hear about the teacher from your child, it is easier to connect. Make an effort to introduce yourself before or after the teacher’s presentation. The teacher is then not simply a name. And, by going you relay to the teacher that you value your child’s educational experience. We are all so busy, but when we take the time to come to back to school night we show that we are “all in” and partnering with the teacher. 

4. It is a great time for you to uncover each teacher’s methods- what is their homework policy? Are their quizzes? Check-ins? What materials should my child be bringing to class?  The less “unknown” there is the more you can help your child and the less anxious you are! 

5. It is an opportunity to meet other parents. Network. We are all in this together. 

By reaping all these benefits of back to school night along with knowing your child, you will have a sense of how much support your child will need at the start. Mostly, it will reassure you that this year will be a wonderful experience!  As Scholastic writes in their Back To School Night article for parents:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then visiting in person must equal about a million. That's why most schools host back-to-school nights shortly after the beginning of the year. Take advantage of this opportunity to see the world your child inhabits every day and meet the people in charge. It's one of the best ways to begin to build that all-important home-school connection.

And, of course, by going to back to school night we are relaying the message to our children that we care about their education.  Additionally, when you come home that night or the next day, discuss back to school night with your child. Tell them what you learned about each teacher. Show them how excited you are about their opportunities this year, which can only impact positively on their attitude.  It is a perfect way to begin an open dialogue with your child about school. When you share, ask them what they think.  

And, while the beginning of the year often starts with anxiety, we need to remind ourselves that it is normal and it need not be eliminated totally. In Dr. David Rosmarin’s book Thriving With Anxiety  he explains in his introduction why we are so uncomfortable with anxiety today:

…Our culture is obsessed with control.  Today we have predictions for everything, from financial markets, political elections, and flu epidemics to professional sports outcomes and the weather…our culture cannot tolerate uncertainty.” The beginning of the school year is full of uncertainty- for our children and ourselves. But, let’s recall that some anxiety is good for us as it  does motivate us to put our all into the start of the year. 

We experience similar beginning of the year anxiety each year as we approach the Yamim Noraim (beginning in Elul). As Chani Gottleib aptly writes in her article “My Fear of Fear” 

It’s that time of year again. Elul. Like a boisterous school boy willing August to stretch beyond its 31 days, I suspect I’m not alone in wishing to hold  on to the last moments of summer and disregard Elul’s urgent message to shape up. Elul spells fear of Divine Judgment and retribution, and that fear makes me nervous and uncomfortable. I have been here before, wishing to skip the tense month of Elul with its call for self-scrutiny, demand to dig up wrongdoings I’d rather forget, and burden of guilt. Wouldn’t a gentle August to September transition be a happier way to celebrate the Jewish New Year? 

It’s that beginning of the year jitters that we experience in our religious lives too! She writes that her strategy has always been to only focus on the joyful parts of the holiday season. And, yet, that is not at all accurate.  The season is meant to have some “fear” as we know we say in tefillah of the Yamim Noraim-ובכן תן פחדך ה’ אלקינו על כל מעשיך ואימתך על כל מה שבראת. 

And so grant it that Your fear/awe, Hashem, will be upon all Your works. And Your dread upon all You have created.”

She shares a section from On Repentance by Rav Y.D. Solovetichik, that 

“an eminent psychiatrist, acutely aware of the unhealthy mental toll fear has on mankind, once suggested to Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt”l that if he had the authority, he would omit this tefillah. Why should we pray for fear when fear, or anxiety, is one of the major causes of mental illness?

“Everyone seems to be beset with fears of all kinds,” the Rav replied. “Some are afraid that they won’t be able to succeed in their careers, others fear losing their wealth or status or that they will fail to attain sufficient prominence. Many people are afraid of sickness and bodily weakness. In generations past, fear of leprosy engulfed the world; today people live in fear of a cancerous growth. Many people don’t go to see a doctor even when they have pains, lest he diagnose them with the dreaded disease.

“I’m not a psychiatrist, but I do know that one major source of fear can wipe out all of these lesser fears. What fear can overtake man, thereby uprooting all other fears, such as that of failure, of poverty, of old age, of rejection or of disease? Only the fear of the L-rd! That’s the reason behind the expression in the High Holy Day prayer, “Cast [Your] fear, O L-rd our G-d, upon all [Your] handiwork and [Your] awe upon all that [You have] created.” We pray that this great fear will free us from those other ones which lurk everywhere, upsetting our lives” (On Repentance, p. 223).

What is this “fear” that the Rav is referring to? I maintain it is really emunah- faith. It is the belief that no matter what happens to me, G-d is with me and supporting me. That is why one of the famous acronyms for the month of Elul, when judgment begins is from  שיר השירים ו:ג- 

אֲנִ֤י לְדוֹדִי֙ וְדוֹדִ֣י לִ֔י

“I am to my beloved as my beloved is to me.”

This pasuk describes the love relationship between Hashem and Bnai Yisrael.  But, I thought this month is full of fear? What does love have to do with anything? And, why is this love so essential for Teshuva? Sorah Esther Crispe in her article “The Jewish Heart- The Secret of Elul”  notes that true love is that the person you love and who loves you never turns his back on you. No matter what we do, or how we turn our back on Him, because Hashem loves us- He is always there for us- and we can always turn around and repent. He is always waiting for us. That is what true “יראת שמים” (fear of Heaven) and Emunah is all about. In essence, it is comforting and brings us closer to change. 

Gottleib adds:

A fear-free life isn’t an attainable goal. Nor is it even desirable. We’re hard-wired to experience fear. We need fear. It keeps us from harm. It protects us from walking off a cliff. From getting burned. From entering a place of mortal danger. It’s a survival instinct, a gift from Hashem. Yet like any one other emotion, it has to be balanced to allow us to function well.

And, just like we attend back to school night to manage our anxiety at the start of the year, there are Elul and Tishrei endeavors we can engage in to help us with that anxiety and help us grow. 

As so, as we start the school year and the Jewish year, a small dose of anxiety is good for us to start the year off right. But, there are things we can do to contain that anxiety to help us grow. See you tomorrow night at back to school night! 

Advisory Update:

Sixth Grade: Students continued their “getting to know you” and getting to know Advisory activities.

Seventh Graders:  Students connected their “changing the world” this year in Advisory to first focusing on self-improvement

Eighth Grade:  Students finished discussing what they will gain from Advisory this year. 

A Year of Nachat!

Remember when your child was in the younger grades and you sent him/her to school with a nachat note? She shared the parasha beautifully at the Shabbat table.  He cleaned his room without being asked. Gone are the days of those nachat notes, but I maintain we need to still compose “nachat notes” for our middle school students- even if only metaphorical ones.  

The obvious reason is that it makes them feel good when we notice the good they are doing. In Hebrew the word for “gratitude” is הכרת הטוב- which literally means recognizing or noticing the good. When we notice or recognize when our children do something well, it gives us as parents a sense of accomplishment too. 

A family therapist Rabbi Shmuel Ackerman writes about an idea called a Nachat Notebook. There a parent recognizes and writes down when a child does something good. He lists three benefits to keeping such a notebook

1. When our children inevitably do something that disappoints us (after all, they are human), we can glance at that notebook and remember the wonderful things they do. As parents, we sometimes get down on ourselves and think any less than positive behavior of our children reflects poorly on our parenting. This notebook reminds us that our parenting is pretty good much of the time!

2. Writing things down makes a “big deal” of what your child has just done. By making a big deal about his successes, he will come to feel even more proud. Reviewing the nachat notebook with her every so often- he says even weekly-  is a wonderful way to reinforce how proud you are of your child. 

3. Parents will “gradually and steadily become better at noticing and acknowledging success.” You thereby model the quality of  being מכיר  the   טוב (recognizing the good) in your lives. And, “Over time, you will introduce a new pattern of conversation in your home, a pattern of yishuv hadaas (peace of mind) , that comes from realizing that even though you wish things were better, they are already, more often than you have realized, pretty good.”

Rabbi Ackerman maintains that one should put at least four nachat notes in your nachat notebook weekly. Each “nachat note” should have two components: 

1. What your child did that you considered to be wonderful. Write down specifically what you saw.

2. What you said to her that acknowledged her success. Write down specifically what you said when you saw the nachat. 

Rabbi Ackerman adds that nachat notes often help children who underperform in certain areas, (never set the table the right way, sloppily do their homework) as they see through this notebook that  “that good performance is worthy of acknowledgement and excellent performance is even better. “ 

Tzvi Freeman writes in his article “10 Tips The Parenting Books Won’t Tell You”- about “Nachas (not the chips)”-”If you want nachas from your kids, the best way to get it is by getting nachas from your kids…That means letting slide the stupid little things that kids do, and getting a kick out of the cute, smart and beautiful little things they do. Let them see your smile.For every “No!” there’s got to be at least five hugs, kisses, pats on the back, cheek-pinching, and just plain loving smiles. Kids thrive on your enjoyment of them. As the anthropologist Ashley Montagu pointed out, no culture provides attention and affection to their kids as do Jews. In English, we don’t even have a word for nachas!”

One can never underestimate the impact of noticing the good our children are doing. Dr. Gary Smalley said “Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child’s life and it’s like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.” 

I recently read an article by Rachel Macy Stafford “How To Notice The Good In Children”  as she describes as a parent she finally realized that she was criticizing her children too often -to help them improve. One day her daughter was playing violin and she was critiquing her and her daughter stopped playing and said “I just want to be good.” From that moment on she worked on noticing the good.  They worked out a prize system for doing good, but then she realized that the prize really didn’t matter.  “...the children were ‘doing good’ and I was ‘noticing good.’  Once again, the powerful awareness lightened the entire atmosphere of our home and made us all more helpful and kind.  When it comes to positive affirmation–the prize doesn’t matter. Because being affirmed is the prize. Because having someone notice and celebrate your good work is the prize. Because seeing the smile on your parent’s face because of something you did is the prize.  But wait. Here’s the real prize … When you fill up a child, her eyes become brighter. Her head is held higher. Her dreams come closer. And suddenly, life is full of possibilities for the most precious prize of all: your child.”

The power of noticing and telling a child the good they are doing cannot be underestimated.  Rabbi Yissochor Frand notes that in Parashat Noach Hashem told Noach in Bereishit 7:1 

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ה֙ לְנֹ֔חַ בֹּֽא־אַתָּ֥ה וכל־בֵּיתְךָ֖ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה כִּֽי־אֹתְךָ֥ רָאִ֛יתִי צַדִּ֥יק לְפָנַ֖י בַּדּ֥וֹר הַזֶּֽה׃

Then G-d said to Noah, “Go into the ark, with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation.

Hashem directly compliments Noach- gives him a “nachat note” in this pasuk. It could in fact be that this  ‘“compliment” of the Almighty to Noach was the key to Noach’s salvation. …Because”, Noach says, “You told me that ‘You I have found to be righteous before me in this generation’, I was motivated to be righteous.” “What made me change,” says Noach, “is that You, Almighty, complimented me. That is why I changed — because of the ‘partial praise’ I heard You say before me.”  Noach needed Hashem to notice his accomplishments. 

The bottom-line- you never outgrow the need for a nachat note from your parents!  

The concept of the Nachat Notebook brought to mind another article I once read by Rebecca Steier called “The Nachas Call.” She writes about the importance of reaching out to call someone (or email) who has done something for you. She writes ”My inspiration for making nachas calls came from my mother. I can vividly recall her sitting at her desk and writing thank-you cards for any act of kindness someone had done toward her. The delightful phone calls and exuberant hugs she got from the lucky recipients of her beautifully written notes made a lasting impression on me.”  And, a nachat note written to a person’s supervisor, spouse, or even children, even as an adult, makes an impact. 

Coincidentally, Rabbi Penn and I had a conversation on Thursday about my father, Rabbi Steven Dworken, a”h whom Rabbi Penn knew well.  He had shared with one of the Yavneh faculty members the story about how my father would commute to Yeshiva University every day, and daily he would make an effort to go through the same tollbooth, and in a friendly manner chat with the toll collector. He decided to write a letter to her supervisor about the wonderful job she did each day.  One day, he drove through the tolls (she was not there), and he saw her running towards him waving a paper. She said, “This is the letter you wrote about me complimenting me to my supervisor and because of this letter I was promoted, and no longer need to work at a tollbooth as I am now working in headquarters. “  A person is never too old to receive a nachat note,  and never too old to have others who are important to him know how amazing he is. 

As we start the new year, realize how meaningful it is to teachers to receive nachat notes from you, the parents. If you feel that your child had a wonderful experience in a class or a teacher really helped and supported your child, take a moment to write a nachat note to the teacher. We as educators save those notes forever, as they are so meaningful to us and help us realize we are making a difference. 

So, this year, as parents we need to write lots of nachat notes- about our children and to those who make a difference in our lives and in the lives of our children. 

But, there is one more focus on nachat we need to have as the year begins. As we enter the month of Elul and prepare for the Yamim Noraim, and we as Jews are focusing on spiritual growth,  I think about something I once read that it says in the Tanya, “What could we possibly give to G-d?” We can give Him nachat.  During this time period we should be thinking about how to give nachat to Hashem as well. 

Wishing you all a school year full of nachat! 

Advisory Update:

Sixth Grade:  During this abridged week half of our students learned about what Advisory in middle school is about and got to learn more about their Advisors and the students in their Advisory class. 

Seventh Grade: Students were introduced to the theme of their 7th Grade Advisory year- Prepare Yourself to Change the World- how they will learn life skills to make a difference. 

Eighth Grade: During this abridged week only some of 8th grade groups met and they were introduced to the theme of 8th grade Advisory- “Preparing For Life After Yavneh.”