29 Aug DO YOU CARE MORE ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN BEING HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL OR BEING KIND?

If your child or
grandchild ask you –
do you care more
about my being
happy and successful
or my being kind –
what would you

answer?
Our Parsha tells the story of the
rebellious son. Our Rabbis teach us that
the criteria to qualify for this label have
never been and will never be met and
that such a child exists only theoretically.
Yet a series of pesukim are dedicated to
this subject because there is so much to
learn and glean about parenting and
education nonetheless.
Rashi tells us the term soreir comes
from sar, he has drifted from the path, he
is not meeting our expectations and
hopes. The Torah tells us he does not
and cannot hear kol aviv u’kol imo, the
voice of his father and the voice of his
mother. The Torah never wastes a word
and yet it could have said b’kol aviv
v’imo, he doesn’t listen to the voice of
his father and mother. It must be that the
second use of kol, voice, is not redundant
or extraneous at all. Rather, there is in
fact a separate kol aviv, a message and
values of the father, and a kol imo, a
message and values of the mother.
When children receive mixed messages,
inconsistent and contradictory values,
everything becomes incoherent. They
then stop paying attention and begin to
be soreir, drift, until it ultimately leads to
moreh, rebellion. It is not only parents
that influence and raise a child but it is
the grandparents, the school, the shul,
and all the adults in the community to
whom they turn for modeling and for
inspiration. We must be on the same
page and project a consistent message of
what our values are, what we are all
about, and what we expect from them.
The Ohr HaChaim Ha’Kadosh, Rav
Chaim ben Attar, notes that the pasuk
does not say eino sho’meiah but einenu
sho’mei. There is a big difference
between the two. Eino means he doesn’t,
einenu means he can’t, there is a
blockage preventing the message from
penetrating. Our children and
grandchildren literally cannot hear what
we say when our contradictory actions
are much louder.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,

“What you do speaks so loudly that I
cannot hear what you say.” When we
say one thing and communicate a
different message through our actions,
priorities, and values, we drown out our
own voices. There is no instrument
more finely calibrated to detect hypocrisy
and duplicity than a child.
If your child or grandchild ask you – do
you care more about my being happy
and successful or my being kind – what
would you answer? I would hope they
would hear us answer being kind. And
yet, though our voices may be saying
that, we are clearly articulating another
message. According to a study done by
researchers at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education, when asked if their
parents care more about achievement
and happiness or if they were kind to
others, 80 percent of children said their
parents care more about achievement or
happiness. In the same study, children
were far more likely to rank “hard work”
above fairness.
The study concludes: “But when youth
do not prioritize caring and fairness over
these aspects of personal success — and
when they view their peers as even less
likely to prioritize these ethical values
— they are at greater risk of many forms
of harmful behavior, including being
cruel, disrespectful, and dishonest. These
forms of harm are far too commonplace.
Half of high school students admit to
cheating on a test and nearly 75% admit
to copying someone else’s homework.
Nearly 30% of middle and high school
students reported being bullied during
the 2010-2011 school year.
“At the root of this problem may be a
rhetoric/reality gap, a gap between what
parents and other adults say are their top
priorities and the real messages they
convey in their behavior day to day…
And here’s the irony: the focus on
happiness, and the focus on achievement
in affluent communities, doesn’t appear
to increase either children’s achievement
or their happiness.”
Dr. Richard Weissbourd, one of the
authors of the studies, states, “We should
work to cultivate children’s concern for
others because it’s fundamentally the
right thing to do, and also because when
children can empathize with and take
responsibility for others, they’re likely to
be happier and more successful, they’ll
have better relationships their entire

lives, and strong relationships are a key
ingredient of happiness.”
Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch notes
that the Torah describes the ben sorer
u’moreh not only as a rebellious child,
but as one who is zoleil v’sovei,
gluttonous and indulgent in meat and
wine. Rav Hirsch explains that the
inappropriate emphasis in the home on
food and drink, success and indulgence,
leads to rebelliousness.
Parents, he says, must be much more
concerned with their child’s values,
behavior, sensitivity, and kindness than
with the quantity and quality of the food
their child is eating. We focus on our
children being well-fed, well-dressed,
and happy, all of which are important.
But we must focus even more on who
they are and how they behave than on
their happiness. They need to know that
we care more about their concern for the
happiness of others than for their own
happiness.
Weissbourd provides four
recommendations to raise and cultivate
kinder children:
1. Children and youth need ongoing
opportunities to practice caring
and helpfulness, sometimes with
guidance from adults. Learning to
be caring is like learning to play an
instrument – it needs daily
repetition. Encourage your
children to help a friend with
homework, pitch in around the
house without a connection to a
reward (like allowance), and to
volunteer in some capacity. When
you speak to your child or
grandchild at the end of the day,
don’t just ask how they are doing
on their grades and tests but ask
them if they did anything kind that
day for someone else.
2. Children and youth need to learn to
zoom in and zoom out. They need
to listen closely and attend to those
in their immediate circle like
family and friends, but they also
have to learn to zoom out and look
for those who are too often
invisible like a new kid in the class,
or the school custodian who is
largely ignored and feeling
isolated.
3. Children and youth need strong
role models. Veshinantem

levanecha v’dibarta bam,
b’shivtecha b’veisecha
u’velechtecha baderech… The
Torah obligates us to teach our
children and we usually assume it
is fulfilled with v’dibarta bam, by
articulating and verbally
communicating our values.
However, the truth is they learn
much more from b’shivtecha
b’veisecha, how we carry ourselves
at home, the type of conversations
we have, and activities we engage
in. They learn from b’lechtecha
ba’derech, what we do on the road.
We should seek opportunities to
share moments in our day when we
were kind to another or when we
were the recipients of the kindness
of another and how it made us feel.
If our deeds match our words our
ideals will come across loud and
clear.
4. Children need to be guided in
managing destructive feelings.
Anger, shame, envy and other
negative feelings arise and we need
to teach children that those feelings
are ok but must be dealt with
constructively if they are to be
resolved and not overwhelm their
ability to care for others.
As our parsha emphasizes, Hashem
cares about our behaving with
righteousness, justice, and kindness as
He does about our observing His laws.
The best gift we can give our children is
not making them believe the world is
about them, but helping them learn the
world is about helping others.
A Jewish education provides
tremendous information, knowledge,
and lessons. But ultimately our children
are molded most by what they think that
we, their parents and grandparents, value
most. When our children are asked if
their parents care more about
achievement and happiness or being
kind, let us do all we can to ensure that
they know the right answer.