PARSHAS BEHA’ALOSCHA 5776

“RABBI’S MUSINGS (&
AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh
Parshas Beha’aloscha
Pirkei Avos perek 2
18 Sivan 5776/ June 25,
2016
In the middle of the summer two years ago, I
traveled from Camp Dora Golding in East Stroudsburg, PA, to New Windsor, NY to
meet with the Rosh Yeshiva and Menahel of Mesivta Ohr Naftoli to interview to
become the yeshiva’s General Studies Principal. The meeting went well b’h and
we agreed to meet again. I left the yeshiva happily and began the long trip
back to camp immersed in my thoughts. I failed to notice that there was a speed
trap, where the speed limit suddenly dropped as the highway passed through the
village of Highland, NY. The cop who was waiting for me didn’t make the same
mistake I did.
I tried to explain to the officer that it
was my first time driving through the area and it was an honest mistake.
Surprisingly he was unmoved by my eloquence and he issued me a ticket. A few
weeks later I found myself back in that village to plead my case.
The Town Hall was in the middle of the
block on the second floor of the building. The prosecutor offered a plea of
parking at a fire hydrant, which would mean no points and a reduced fine (which
coincidentally just happened to go to the village and not the state). When I entered
the court room I realized that almost everyone in the room had agreed to the
same plea. I am pretty convinced that the whole village only had one fire
hydrant, so we must have all lined up waiting for the opportunity to park in
front of it.
The judge accepted the plea and I turned
to the clerk to pay the fine. When I handed her my paper, I was in for an utter
shock – she was cordial and pleasant! I was under the impression that to be a
court clerk you had to be nasty and impatient. Yet here was a clerk who smiled,
was affable, and said thank you and wished me a good day when I handed her my
payment. When I told her how appreciative I was for her pleasant demeanor, she
replied that I wasn’t the first person who told her the same thing that day,
but that she didn’t understand why she should be thanked for it. I assured her
that if I was ever going to speed again, I would make sure to come to Highland,
NY, to do so.   
When it comes to parenting/teaching
we don’t like to watch children make mistakes. We also don’t like having to
take the time and energy to enforce the consequences of those mistakes. So
instead, we scream and threaten, and hope it “works”. In other words, we hope
our screaming forces them to behave the way we want them to. When it doesn’t
(which is usually), we scream some more—and then our screaming becomes the consequence itself.
So what is the better option?
The Love and Logic program[1] espouses that the best idea
is to “Let the consequences do the teaching”. We do this by getting our
emotional anxiety out of the way in order to let the consequences do their job. When our children require disciplining we can
calmly tell them that there will have to be a consequence for what they did.
[We need not tell them immediately what the consequence will be, as doing so
usually causes us to exaggerate and then make the tragic mistake of
back-pedaling and not following through.]
When
we present the consequence – at a time and in a way planned beforehand that we
know we can follow through – the biggest mistake we can make is to l
ecture, threaten, warn, or become angry. When we do so the child’s focus
is no longer on what he/she did but upon our emotional response, which often
leads to a power struggle. But when we are able to keep our emotions out of it
by having confidence that the consequence we carefully imposed will do the
teaching, the child’s focus will remain on his/her own foolish decision.
Normally when people walk out of a courthouse
they are focused on the judge, clerk, or cop, and on what terrible people they
are (not that I would know, but people have told me…) When I walked out of that
courthouse in Highland however, I wasn’t angry at all. What’s more – the next
time I drove through the town, I wasn’t even resentful when I slowed down. And
I didn’t park next to the fire hydrant! 
Shabbat Shalom &
Good Shabbos,
      R’ Dani and Chani Staum           



[1] I am a
Love and Logic Parenting facilitator

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