Dear Pele Yoetz,
I want to thank you for your informative and inspirational articles throughout the last two months of pandemic. They were invaluable in helping me and many others deal with the challenges and handle our children at home. Yasher koach!
Now that everyone is either back to school or on the way there, I want to ask if you have any special guidance in how to go about it. Thank you!
M., Yerushalayim
Harav Dovid Levy shli”ta replies:
I was delighted to read that you found the recent articles helpful, and I wish you a smooth and pleasant transition back to regular life.
With your permission, I’d like to expand slightly on your question: Throughout the past two months of coronavirus, we’ve witnessed how—whether deliberately or by force of reality—academic pressure and even general pressures vastly declined. Learning on the phone or with workbooks was enough to occupy our children and adolescents for several hours a day at best, while the majority of time was filled with play, leisure or less constructive activities.
Bedtime was nonexistent; wakeup for some stretched until noon… The prevailing atmosphere was one of long-term vacation with no particular schedule or regiment. Now that we’re on the verge of returning full time to a steady framework and schedule, it may seem daunting, unfeasible or overwhelming.
How can we make the transition from bare minimum to full-time school complete with benchmarks, expectations and tests?
Even parents are struggling to return to an effective working schedule—to get the kids up, prepare meals, and send everyone off to school at the right time. How can we expect our kids to do any better?
Bottom line: How can we all get back to life effectively and successfully?
***
The answer is rooted in the undisputable fact that, deep down, every person wants to succeed.
I once met with a mashgiach of a top-notch yeshivah, who shared that parents sometimes complain that he makes unrealistic and excessive demands on the bachurim. The mashgiach agreed that his yeshivah sets exceedingly high standards, but “that’s exactly why bachurim choose our yeshivah. This is precisely why they and their parents fight tooth and nail to get accepted, because they know that these are the standards that produce excellence.”
Challenges, and even adversities, shouldn’t be daunting. We all know the rule of “Yagata u’matzata ta’amin.” Hard work, diligence and perseverance are the ingredients for success; success breeds fulfillment; and everyone wants to succeed and feel fulfilled.
In this particular situation, one of the challenges is that we’ve been out of routine for so long, and routine is one of the things that usually mitigates a challenge—so now we’re essentially facing a double challenge.
Our duty now as parents is to help our kids get back on track. Now is not the time to loosen the reins, but to tighten them. We must insist that our children go to sleep on time, get up on time and stick to a schedule. We must make it absolutely clear that the last two months were a phase that is now over, and that it’s time to return to a regular constructive schedule, with all the demands, accomplishments and fulfillment that come along with it.
Similarly, in homes where parents allowed children to use computers or other technology, this is also the time to put an immediate stop to it. Explain that there was a time and place for everything, but now the universal return to normalcy includes eliminating computer time, as well, so our minds can be free for avodas Hashem.
To sum it up, our duty now is to recognize the challenge of returning to normalcy while motivating our children with frequent reminders of the satisfaction they’ll feel once they get there. Kids have to know that hard work pays off and that there’s no greater feeling than accomplishment!
Above all, we must remember to daven for our kids, and daven with our kids, that they should possess the motivation and strength to work hard and succeed!
May Hashem grant us all renewed strength and vigor, simchah and bitachon as we return to blessed routine!
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