Teaching Your Kids the Word “NO”

As frum jews, chinuch habonim requires us to tell our children NO. “NO, you cannot rent DVDs.” “NO, we don’t go to baseball games.” “NO, you can’t wear that skirt. NO, we don’t eat that hechsher.” “NO, you can’t take my credit card and go with your friends to the mall.”

The disappointment on the child’s face is tough to bear, but it is also a great learning experience for the child.
This is our chance to teach them the beauty of Yiddeshkeit, and hopefully it will rub off on them for when they grow up and raise their own families.

But our children are smart, and they can sense the true reason behind your decisions. Most kollel families, especially if their children are already grown, are in dire financial straits. If the child feels reason for the NO is truly because you don’t feel its appropriate for them, they will gain from the experience. But if the reason for the no is because you don’t have the money for it – and you never have the money for anything they want – the only thing they learn from the refusal to grant them what they want will be a resentment of the lifestyle in which they were brought up.

Perhaps as a matter of chinuch we have to ensure that money is not the primary factor behind every parenting decision we make. However, for kollel families on one income, money is almost always the issue. How can the children possibly learn the truth when the only message they hear is, “NO – we can’t afford that.”

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Filed Under: Escape Kollel

Tags: afford • chinuch habonim • income