Jewish Life Digital Edition October 2015 | Page 53

and persuasive impression on your children than what you actually do for them
directly, like discipline.
The most important leverage you have on
your child is learned from the story of Joseph, when he was about to be seduced by
the wife of Potifar. What held him back was
a vision of his father, Jacob. We can learn
from this episode a child’s deep yearning
and desire for a parent’s validation and approval. Children are much more fearful of a
parent’s disapproval or disappointment
than they are of a parent’s wrath.
In order to leverage your child’s fear of
your disapproval and disappointment,
you first have to win a child’s trust, respect, and admiration. If your child does
not hold you in high esteem or perceive
you as having moral authority because
your conduct is not acceptable, then the
child will not be moved by your disapproval or disappointment. In order to win
your child’s respect and approval, you
have to become a person your child looks
up to and admires. You need to be a role
model your child aspires to emulate.
If you win the child’s regard in this way,
then the child will see himself as the
progeny of a special parent. A child’s identity and sense of self is founded on the
sense of his heritage and origin. If he is
proud and honoured to be born to special
parents then he will aspire to be careful in
his behaviour because his own honour is
tied up with the dignity of his parents. He
will be embarrassed or ashamed to compromise the stature of his parents because he implicitly feels and understands
that this harms his own standing.
If your children are proud of you then
they will also be grateful to you for the
legacy that, through your standing, you
provide them.
Gratitude is the other important factor
to use as leverage with your children. If
your children are grateful to you for what
you have done for them, then they will
feel a sense of reciprocal obligation. Gratitude and appreciation have to be taught.
One of the ways to teach gratitude is obviously to teach children to acknowledge
the good done for them and to express
gratitude through simply saying ‘please’

Children learn most from what they see
and experience – the way you speak to and
interact with others makes a more lasting
and persuasive impression on your children
than what you actually do for them directly,
like discipline.
and ‘thank you’. You have to teach them
to notice any good that is done for them
in order that they do not take the kindness of others for granted or develop any
sense of entitlement.
Sometimes it takes withholding certain
things in order for a child to understand
that the good doesn’t just come automatically. Some good has to come from effort
and investment, for example, being challenged to save money in order to buy
something special.
Another important lesson is that good
sometimes flows from showing reciprocal
responsibilities, like doing chores. Children should be taught to recognise the
good you do for them comes from kindness and because you really love them.
They should not grow up to believe that
what you do for them is merely a fulfilment your parental obligation.
The necessity of teaching the child appreciation is not because you necessarily
need the appreciation. Rather, it flows
from the fact that your child needs to
learn to appreciate goodness in order to
have successful relationships and be a
happy and contented person.
It is very important for parents to realise you are part of your children not only
in the sense of having contributed to their
genetic material, but also each parent is
psychologically and spiritually a part of
their children. In other words, the parents
are, in many ways, like two halves of a
child’s sense of identity and inner being.
When parents love each other and
treat each other with respect and with
positive regard, then a child can feel at
peace with himself because the two people that make up the child are in harmony with each other. When parents treat
each other badly, or are at loggerheads

with each other, that war between the
parents rages inside the heart and spirit
of the child, creating a split within the
psyche of the child. Practically, this is because the child implicitly feels the need
to ad