Celebrating Hanukkah

There is only a week and half until Hanukkah. Over the next week, I will share history, ideas and recipes to make Hanukkah more special.

In The Moment Parenting

Yesterday I had one of those “In The Moment” Parenting decisions that had to be made. “In The Moment” parenting is when your child says or does something and in that moment you have choose carefuly what you say and/or how you react to get the outcome you want.

My 10 year old son while playing hockey broke our garage window. He came in and summoned me away from his father. I could see he was clearly shaken and upset and I automatically thought something had happened to his sister who was outside playing with him. As he explained to me what had happened my mind reeled on how to handle the situation. I could scream and rant on about how many times I have told him to be careful, making him feel worse than I could already see he was or I could turn this into a learning moment for him in character.

I looked at him and said “it’s okay”. I expected something like this would happen because we live in the city and places to play are limited to the driveway and our yard. I said “let’s go see what happened”. As I surveyed the window, I prayed silently for G-d to give me the right response to the situation. I turned to him and said ” I’m really proud of you. It took a lot of courage for you to come in and tell me the truth and take responsibility for what you did instead of sending your sister in to tell me. Thank you.” To say he looked surprised was an understatement.

I had him help me sweep and clean up the glass and we went to Home Depot to get some plexiglass to put in the window. As we walked in the parking lot towards the store, he took my hand and said “Mom, I really am sorry.” I looked at him and said it’s okay to make mistakes but we have to learn from every mistake we make to become better people. What did you learn from all this?”

He thought for a moment and said ” To be more careful and to always tell the truth and take responsibility for my actions no matter how scared I am.”

I thought “We did well.” He learned to that no matter how scared he is to always tell the truth and I learned that it pays to think very carefully about how to react to a situation and that there are teachable moments in everything.