Raising Resilient Kids

We map a practical path for raising confident, kind, independent kids while protecting the bond that matters most. From toddler tantrums to teen choices, we show how options, fences, and consistent love build resilience without nagging or power struggles.

• defining success as children who choose well and want a relationship
• roles shifting from director to supervisor to consultant
• using choices to defuse tantrums and increase agency
• modeling habits like mindful eating and consistent rules
• negotiating with “is it possible” instead of ultimatums
• building fences through environment and community
• the parenting paradox of independence and connection
• making each child feel like your favorite with tailored support
• replacing nagging with small, specific requests
• loving action over empty words to keep influence

“After class, join the WhatsApp group for upcoming books and events”

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Parenting Needs A Playbook
• 2:30 Defining Success As A Parent
• 6:20 Roles: Director, Supervisor, Consultant
• 10:20 Tantrums And The Power Of Choices
• 17:30 Make Parenting Hard Work Fun
• 21:30 Modeling Habits And Mindful Eating
• 26:30 Nuance, Negotiation, And “Their Idea”
• 33:30 Respect, Attention, And Marital Dynamics
• 39:00 Torah As Instruction Manual
• 43:00 Fences, Environment, And Influence

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I asked my children what's one piece of advice I should give my students, parenting advice that they should, you know, that teaching learn. They said, give them chocolate, be nice to them, but not too nice, and but really take them to the beach and be patient. So we all struggle as parents. I got them parents of five. But if you have some foundational wisdom, you'll get back on track. And what's the ultimate prize of raising children after you know 20, 30 years? Grandchildren. That's that's the ultimate prize. And just like all my classes on dating and marriage, I want you to have a passionate relationship with one person the rest of your life. I want you to have strong self-esteem. I want you to have great friends and family, understand how to manage relationships. You have to have wisdom in being a parent. Because you walk in. Am I allowed to stand up, Rabbi?

unknown: 0:41

That's pretty complicated.

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

Okay, I'm sitting down. So I walk side to side. I walk, you go, you go to a hospital, you have a baby, or like my wife does. We have we have their babies at home. A little crazy. Anyway, so we you go to the hospital, they hand you a baby. What are they? What's the one question they ask? They ask you one question. It's all they care about, nothing else. What's that one question? Do you have a car seat? Do you say that? Is it hell they might? Do you have a car seat? That's all they care about. They hand you the baby. I'm like, what is the instruction manual? What am I supposed to do? Like, and you can go to Hoss Have B. There's no, there's no test you have to take, just like getting married. There's no test you have to take, class you have to study in order to have a passionate relationship. And this way, 90% of relationships fail because you have no idea what you're doing. And I'm gonna give you clues today, I'm gonna give you tips today, practical advice on how to be a great parent. And the reason why this is such an impactful class is because there are a lot of things in here that you can use as a parent that you can use in negotiating a contract, getting a job, negotiating rent, getting married, different things that are gonna help you in all aspects of your life. So, what's the outcome of this class? How do you how do you determine if if you're gonna become a parent and you want to become a parent, God willing you all have a lot of children someday, all main, right? What do you consider success? How do you consider yourself yourself a successful parent? If your kids are happy, you just said hope open health relationship. You just give the answer. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

Your kids don't turn out like you're just no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00: 2:13

For some people, sure that's the case, right? So I'm gonna give you some of my answers. So, number one, success is when children make decisions based on your thinking. If you're a healthy thinker and are emotionally healthy and make proper decisions in life, without realizing it, they're gonna go into the world and they're gonna have to make decisions in life in their 20s and 30s, and you're not gonna be there for them. And they're making decisions based, they're not thinking to myself, oh, what would my dad do? What would my mom do? No, they're not thinking that. It comes internal, it comes from their soul, it comes from their essence of who they are. When they want to spend time with you, especially when you're older, uh, an example I'm gonna give you last summer, I was eating lunch with my wife on our beautiful uh balcony overlooking Jerusalem, and uh I'm sitting with my wife, you know, it's around 12 o'clock, and my daughter, who's 16 at the time, is eating lunch in the kitchen, picks up her plate of food, walks outside, and sits with us on the porch. Now, to me, I said to my wife, see, this is success. My daughter, who's 16 years old, you know, 16 years is a little crazy, right? And she wants to eat with us. That's success. When you hear from your friends about what a men's your children are, obviously, if you're a parent here, if there's any parents, we have some parents here, I think, right? Every parent, every parent, right? And you clean up, hey, everyone cleaned up for your bot dinner and they do nothing. But when they go to your friend's house, you hear about, oh my gosh, Moshi was such a ment. She cleaned up the tape and was so nice and was polite. But you hear about it from your friends. Not at home, not the same thing, right? When they're independent thinkers, when they're resilient, when they're not afraid to take risks, but not foolish ones, when they have a successful marriage, and as you said, when they're happy, but ultimately there's only one thing you really want from your kids. I'm not gonna go to my son Liam, who just turned 20, turning 21 in a few months. Liam, it's been great raising you. Here's your bill:$385,000. Pay me over the next 10 years interest-free. I'm not giving my son a bill for raising him. Why? What do I want from him? I want a relationship. That's it, and a healthy relationship. That's all I want in this thing. So, how do we raise children to basically, and it's a given, you want your kids to be you know, richer, happier marriage, you know, taller, more money, everything you want, obviously. We can say these things, but really ultimately you want a relationship. So this class is gonna be based on four different parts. Number one is what's called recognize your role as a parent because it changes as the kids get older. Number two, make a fence for your children. Number three, understanding parenting, the great parenting paradox, and it is a paradox. And number four, be a hugger, not a bugger. So, number one, what is your role as a parent? So there's three roles as a parent. One is called the director, number two is called the supervisor, and number three, call the consultant. Because when you're young, you're directing everything they're doing. Everything, who they're gonna play with, who what they're gonna eat, when they're gonna sleep, what's gonna wear. You are a complete director. You get you you're you're setting the scene, you're like a director in Hollywood, you tell the actors where to go and what to say. You control everything. Now, what is the first time as a parent that you're gonna go through a lot of stress? When does that occur?

unknown: 5:18

When they go to school.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

When they go to school, like around four or five? Anyone else? When they start talking, okay. That's not the answer. Well, it could be, but it's probably not, huh? No. You don't think parents have stress before they're trying to get married? How old are you? 18. So when you plan to get married?

unknown: 5:38

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00: 5:39

At least a few years, right? Right. You pay your parents had no stress with you right now, your whole life? 18 years?

SPEAKER_03: 5:45

I feel like I was a perfect child.

SPEAKER_00: 5:47

You might have been, but I can guarantee you there's a time when they had stress. And I'm waiting for the parents, and this that's a definite difficult one. Not the first, not the first one. That's a different thing.

SPEAKER_01: 5:56

I'm serious. The first time they start crying and you realize you can't make them stop.

SPEAKER_00: 6:02

You're pretty much on. But it's not that, because when they're six months old, yes, go ahead.

unknown: 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:12

Well, we want to make sure, obviously, that's a given that we want to show the kid's breathing, of course. But that's not, that's that's more than just stress. That's just distress, right? The first time that you're gonna go through stress as a parent is not when they're six months old and you can't stop them from crying because they're teething or they're tired or want to go to the bathroom. What you do is you you you know, you rock them, you put them in the bathroom, you give them some food. They cry for a number of reasons. One is they're hungry, they have to go to the bathroom, they're teething, or they want to go to sleep. And all those issues you can pretty much take care of. The teething's a little bit harder, but if you rock them to sleep, they'll go to sleep when they're teething. The issue comes when they come, it's called, in my book, it's called the terrible twos. And this is when a baby is around two and a half years old. Because remember, you've been directing everything about this baby. They have no control in life. But around two and a half years old, they start to think to themselves, wait a second, I can make my own choice in life. And I can't. Because my mom and dad are deciding everything that's going on in my life, and I don't like this. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go to the mall and I'm gonna scream on the ground for about 30 minutes without being consoled. Right? And you've been in the mall and you've seen these babies, these two and a half year olds crying on three-year-olds crying on the floor. You know what I'm talking about? I can't be the only one that's seen this, right? No? You guys haven't seen this in the mall? First tantrums. First tantrums, these tantrums are called tantrums. And the reason why they have no control in life. And one of the worst things we get as a as an adult that we have is we have no control. Imagine you work at a job you hate, but you have to have the paycheck to pay the rent and pay the food, and you're stuck in this dead-end job, and you're trying hard in this works job, you can't quit, but you have to have that paycheck. You are stuck, and it stinks. But again, you're an adult. You can control your emotions. You're not gonna lie on the floor crying for 30 minutes like a two and a half year old. The example I like to use, I used to fly from uh Dulles to LAX in LA a lot, like every other month. I used to take the early morning flight, and we always land like almost an hour early. We land an hour early, and the pilot gets on the on the intercom system. Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we did great. We landed an hour early, but unfortunately, our gate's not ready. So we're gonna sit in the time act for about 55 minutes, and you feel stuck. You're there, you're in LA, you see the mountains, you see the sun, like I'm here, I made it. I can't get off the plane. A two-year-old feels the same way, they have no control in life. And this lesson I'm gonna give you is a game changer in life. If you've learned nothing else from my classes, this is a game changer. Here's how you do it. My daughter, Mainoa, she's a sweetie pie, she was about three years old. And I would, when I lived back in Rockefeller, but first of all, I moved to Israel about six years ago from the DC area. And uh just because some of you are new, you don't know me, but I was not raised in a religious home, very secular home. Became religious at about 45 years old. And uh when my youngest was born in Mayanoa, we were all religious, but my first two three kids, we were like transitioning, you know, that transition. So some of my kids are Valchusa, some of my kids are you know from birth, whatever. So uh I give her her pajamas, she's about three years old, and she starts to throw a fit, and she's screaming, no, no, no, no, no, of course. That's what I do. I take away the pajamas, I put them away, I get out two other pairs of pajamas, and I say to her, Do you want the pink balloon pajamas or do you want the red fireman pajamas? You know what she does? She grabs one, she runs in the bathroom, and she changes no more, no more crying. Do you know why? Because I gave her the options. You should be teaching this class. You got every answer right. She, I gave her options in life, and this is a key as a parent. Give your child options. Another example, my son. Huh? By the way, this is this is this is is a it's not always going to work. I'm being honest with you, but it works a lot. Yes, it works for teenagers, it works for negotiating contracts. I just am in the middle of negotiating a release of my property in Bethesda, and I'm trying to negotiate with this bank, and she gave me an idea, and I came back with two options for her, and she picked an option. And it made it much easier because I gave her a choice. So she feels like she's in control, even though I made those choices. Do you get it? It changes the whole dynamics of a relationship. Because we're gonna learn that when you start to say no to your children a lot, you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna stop listening to you. When you say no, they're gonna say yes just because they start to spite you. Parents that say no all the time are ruining the relationship to their kids. And I've learned to not say no. I give choices. So my other example I was used when Shia, my other son, was he was in a high chair eating his breakfast, I don't eat his food, whatever. And he grabbed on the dinner table, he grabbed a dinner knife. Not a sharp knife, not like one's really sharp knife, but like a dinner knife, which is not, you know, it's hard to cut yourself. Of course, I don't want Shia playing with a dinner knife, so what do I do? What do I do? I couldn't, there's my choices that most parents would do. First choice is grab the knife out of his hand, and what's gonna happen? He's gonna cry. So what do I do? I show him a fork and spoon. You know what I showed him? I showed him a set of jangling keys, like toy keys, and I showed him a little dolly, like a little dog. Show him. Hey, which one of these do you want to play with? He puts down the knife and he takes the keys, and I take the knife away, and there's no argument. Do you understand what I just did? I took the power out of my hands and put it into his hands, even though I'm controlling the power. And this is a game changer in restaurants. And that is basically a director. And that's how you direct a child. Obviously, when they're six years old, six months old, and they're crying nonstop, you have to give them a breast or a bottle or put them to sleep. Those are things, and obviously it's hard work. I'm being honest with you. And this is the same with marriage. If you want to be a great parent, if you want to be a great spouse, a great spouse, it takes hard work. I had to get up at three in the morning, my wife couldn't console the baby because they're done breastfeeding and they're done, uh they're just crying. You take the baby, I go into a different room, I turn on jazz music back, and I start dancing for 20 minutes. And I did this every night. And I looked forward to doing it because I get to put my kids to sleep. Is it hard work? Yes. But just like in a marriage and relationship, if you make love fun and make it into a game, you want to play it, make parenting fun. And so I look forward to listening to jazz music at three in the morning. I had to make it fun. That you have to do sometimes. My first child, he would wake up at 4 or 5, 4:30 in the morning, completely wide awake. Like once they go play. Thank God my other kids didn't do this. And so I had to get up with a kid and I put him into a I'd feed him some breakfast. This is a really serious story. I put him to a sling and I go take a walk for about an hour, and I come back, and by then he falls asleep. I give him to my wife, or he grass feeds and goes to sleep, and I'd sleep in the morning. I sleep three hours in the morning. And sometimes you do that. You have to adjust your schedule for the kids. If I sit and five, if you know, and some kids, some parents are gonna take that kid at 4:30 in the morning, put him to the crib, and let him cry it out. And you know what happens? That makes kids have no understanding that their parents have their back. People call it cry it out, and I'm totally against this. Because that kid's feeling my parents are not there for me. Even though they're six months old, a year old, two young, it sits with them the rest of their life. And this is one of the reasons there's so much anxiety and depression. Because people don't have the ability to, they feel like their parents don't have their back. And it could, and this, and if you if I don't know if any of you guys have been met my kids, if you some of you have, you know I have very independent kids. Because this is how we raise our kids. Once you pass the director, then you become a supervisor. A good supervisor is a leader who can inspire their children to make the right decisions and get them to think it's their idea. This is when your kids get to be six, seven, eight, nine years old. Obviously, you're not directing anymore. You're there to supervise them, they play, they pick their own games out. And it's really important to understand that kids do what you do, not what you say. You can say something all the time, but if you don't do it, it means nothing to them. Nothing to them. One of the examples I give in my house that we have a rule, it's called no mindless eating. I I was at someone's house one time, and and he gives this kid, I guess this kid was like five or six years old, he gives this kid, welcome, he gives his kid a bowl of cereal. And he puts the kid in front of a TV, like three, like two feet in front of a TV, a giant TV, and the kid's like this, eating cereal, watching TV. Can someone tell me, is that healthy or not? Why isn't that healthy? I call it mindless eating. And I'm sure we've all done this. You've been in a party and there's a and and there's a you know a thing of nuts there. Peanuts, you sit in the party, talk to your friend like this. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I love that movie. Oh yeah, the game was great. And you're sitting like, you know what happens? You become an unhealthy eater because it's called mindless eating. God put food on here on this earth for us to enjoy and get pleasure from, not eat it mindlessly. And so I have a rule in my house, which I enforce, but not too strictly, that when my kids are gonna eat, they cannot watch any video time. Which means no movies, no videos, right? It's easy to do. And so I have to hold by it. I don't do it. I do not watch anything while I'm eating. I let them read. That's fine. My kids are average reader, but I do not let them watch any TV. Now, my older son, for a while, okay, he started playing chess online. He's very good and very smart. I I I let us I tell him Leon, you know, there's a rule in the house, no videos watched. Eating goes, yeah, I know. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna start a fight over it. He's smart. He's smart. It's not like he's watching some cartoon, right? He's playing chess, he's using his brain. So obviously, there's time just to give in on certain things. So, how to get your kids to think it's their idea. So, when we lived in Rockville, Maryland, we had three rooms for our. I had five kids at the time. I still have five kids, thank God. At least the ones I know about. Anyway, so that's a joke. It's a joke, come on. That'd be funny, right? I I don't expect anything else, but you never know. I mean, it's whatever. Like I said, I wasn't raised observant, so like, you know, this is why I teach about passionate relationships because I mean I I dated a lot. I dated I met my wife at 34, got married at 36, and I dated a ton, and I learned a lot about dating. This is why my dating marriage classes are so popular, because I have clarity. I say I say all the things that people think, but don't come out and say it. Anyway, so uh what are we talking about? What are you talking about? Oh, oh, so my I had three rooms, and three of the girls were in one room, and two of the boys in the other room, and the other third room was considered the playroom. We call it the lounge, had a beanbag chair, had toys and stuff. So my girls are now getting older. They're not instead of three, you know, five, six, seven, they're now 10, 11, 12. And the boys' room had all the closets. For some reason, I don't know how it happened, whatever. So my daughter says to me, Abba, I want to go into the boys' room. I want to switch rooms. Now, my oldest at the time was maybe 14 or 15. And I said to my daughter, you know, if you ask to switch rooms, he's going to say no. Because that's what brothers do. They're gonna say no. So I said to her, You have to outsmart him. I said, Pretend you want to go into the lounge. Tell everyone, hey, we want to move into the lounge. And that's exactly what she did. You know what happened? My older son said, No, I want to move into the lounge. There's a reason why I had better views and stuff, like I had some things about it that were better. And he goes, No, I want to move into the lounge. And so they thought about it for two days, and finally my daughter gave in and said, Okay, Liam, you can move to the lounge. He moved his room to the lounge, and she just quietly snuck in and moved her stuff into his room, and she had her closets. Because I got her to think make sure that it was someone else, it was their own idea, right? Do you get my point? And sometimes in relationships, you have to use nuance situations. You have to use nuances. Huh? Manipulation will lead to capitulation, which means it'll lead to a happy home. A happy home. You will sometimes you have to do things in life in order to have a happy home. Just like I'll go to my wife sometimes and I'll say, I was like, I'm not manipulation. This is manipulation in a way that's good. So, for example, I'll go to my wife, yeah. I made a cup of coffee for you. I want some sex. I'm saying that's a joke, but like you you do it, you do it, and you start to make coffee every single day, and next thing you know, you're just making her coffee. And so it's normal for me to make her coffee. So my wife for the same. I do it for her, I do it for her. I want to have a I I do everything to protect the marriage and make sure I have a great relationship. Let me give you an example. Either my class or my dating. Transactional. Okay, we're switching the words now. Now it sounds healthy. Right?

SPEAKER_04: 18:54

It's not the point is not the word, the point is what it actually means because a person gets used to good, which they can start to have.

SPEAKER_00: 18:59

Let me give you an example. So in my dating marriage class, you know about respect, right? We talk about that love means different things to different people. Love for women means attention, affection, appreciation, awareness. And for a man, it means to be respected, right? Now, a man will respect is when a man shows his wife those four A's, that respect is going to follow for a fact, right? My point is the trick that I tell the women, what is what's the trick? Do you know the trick? When a man comes home from work or learning and he walks into his house, the wife should be on the phone and loudly say, Hey Sarah, I have to go in. My husband just walked in. Click, hi honey, game changer. Do you know why? Because a wife, the husband walks in and thinks he is, whether he's king of the house or not, his wife is making believe that he is the king of the house and he feels respected. And that's more important than running up and hugging him, kissing him, which by the way does not last after one week of marriage, right? Most of the time, more important, more important is to feel respected, right? And a man feels respected when his wife does it. Is that manipulation, by the way? Does it all the time and she doesn't talk on the phone? You know what? She's faking it, and I know she's faking it, and she knows I know she's faking it, and I don't care. Let her manipulate me, it makes me feel great. Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 20:10

Also, when you're like, Oh, let me ask my husband, even though like let's say for Shabbos meals, every time my mother wants to hold someone, she's like, Let me ask my husband. He doesn't even know what we're doing for Shabbos.

SPEAKER_00: 20:21

I do the same thing with my wife. Right. Because people ask me all the time. I'm the one that does the cooking and the shopping. So people ask me, Can I come for Shabbos? And sometimes I'm like, let me ask my wife. And I ask her, but like, usually I'm the one that gives the answer. She just wants to know what's going on, right? She's okay. She'll get okay, that's it. No more. No, we're we're closed, we're closed, we're full. And then like a good friend asks, I'm like, what about, you know, what about Moshe? Like, okay, we'll take Moshe. What about the two students at class that come every day to my essentials class? Like, okay, they can come too. Next thing you're right, 20 people, right? Go ahead, Radli.

SPEAKER_01: 20:49

This second example, I think, is it's ordering in check, like a borderline check error. Whereas the first one, I understand, is is is the right thing is that the daughter should have the room. Yeah. So therefore, if we have to manipulate or maneuver, that's a nice word. So it's just right because it's leading to the MS. What the MS is what's right. Here, a phony cowboat is just phony. I don't see the two.

SPEAKER_00: 21:12

Let me tell you something. When a husband walks in the room and a wife recognizes he's walking into the house, she has to stop and think, Oh, my husband's coming home. I want to make sure he feels respected. And this is the trick that I teach.

SPEAKER_01: 21:25

If she doesn't respect him, she's not gonna do it. You say underneath this superficial level. Yeah, if she's and it's okay, sometimes you do things in a way which she's not even on the phone, really.

SPEAKER_00: 21:33

I mean, that's she's not, and by the way, if you do things for the wrong reasons sometimes, you'll come to doing for the right reasons.

SPEAKER_01: 21:39

Okay, but that itself is a compromise. I think that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00: 21:42

Do you know why I came to orthodox rule for the first time?

SPEAKER_01: 21:48

But it is for a three-year-old. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_03: 21:50

For a three-year-old, does it look like daddy? Does it look like daddy? No. I hear, I hear.

SPEAKER_01: 22:01

I hear I I'm not trying to come an office or anything, but I hear however a three-year-old that did something to show to daddy before daddy, it's it's a beautiful. There's no real shack here there. She didn't see our capabilities. This is this is a thing. I think I just don't want to go one person, good. I hear, I'm sorry, I'm in part of the case.

SPEAKER_00: 22:21

That's okay. I I just want to create passion living relationship that lasts a lifetime. That's all I'm doing, and I'll do anything I have to to make them.

SPEAKER_01: 22:28

And she needs it.

SPEAKER_00: 22:29

No, no, this is this is easier. This is easier because sometimes we don't want to talk on the phone. The husband hasn't talked, or obviously, I teach the husband to come in and ask his wife three questions for sure. I tell him to show her wife attention. That's a part of a relationship. And when he comes home, because we we come home as guys, no offense. If you guys are, there's no guys who are like older than no, but like when you come home from work, if you're working all day, you want to come home, you really want to grab a beer, sit on the couch, and watch ESPN highlights. You're not interested in talking to your wife. You're just not. Because we don't have that connection, we don't have that need to sit there and give you attention. We want to be by ourselves. My father used to come home from work, play in the garden, take a take a nap, play in the pool, and you talk to my mom at 7:30, 8 o'clock at night. Of course, they did not have a great relationship. Because he didn't, I wasn't there teaching my father when I was five years old, because I didn't have this class in my head, right? I didn't write the book, Sunscreen Love, by then. I wish I could have taught my parents because they didn't, no one has the tools. You spend more time getting your driver's license than you spend learning how to be in a relationship. Right? And that's why most relationships fail. You had a question?

SPEAKER_03: 23:27

Well, I learned that I have designed baking and you make it.

SPEAKER_00: 23:32

Oh yeah, I should send that. Yeah, yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 23:33

Show it until you know it.

SPEAKER_00: 23:35

Huh?

SPEAKER_04: 23:37

Show it till you know it.

SPEAKER_00: 23:40

When I when I started my Jewish journey, I was in my 40s, and I'd go to Aisha Torah in Rockville, Maryland. It was run by the time Lori and Jakob Lotnik, Ale Platnik. And they used to have a veggie chillant. And I had never heard, I'd never heard the word chillant before in my life. And they had great kiddish. And I used to go for the kiddish. And that's fine.

SPEAKER_01: 23:59

It's a mixture.

SPEAKER_00: 24:00

I used to go for kiddish. I used to drive in, you know, get there at 11:30, listen to a sheer by Lori or something, and stay for kiddish. And I came for the kiddish. And I faked it. And in fact, when I before that, I used to go to this conservative show in DC called Odysseus Israel. It's the biggest conservative show in DC. And they started this egalitarian minion with people who I would call more like conservadox. It was a very, I had never seen this before. It was a lot of young people who grew up like modern or very strong from conservative Jews. And they had this own minions, lay-led, men and women. And they give Devar Torahs. It was mostly in Hebrew. And it was really nice. And they used to have a separate kiddie from the main show. This is the biggest conservative show in DC, so a lot of people, it's thousands of people. So I'd go for the kiddish because it was a meat market. I mean, I'd come because of the girls. I mean, it got me there. Like there's all these single girls, they're all Jewish, right? So I'd go, I'd come at show up at quarter of 12, right before I don't alone, right, in Elena, and I stand in the back with the other young people, and I sit in a kiddish. And then I started coming at 12:30, and then 11:15. And next thing you know, I'm showing 8:30 from Bitzuk Zimra. So I came for the wrong reasons, but it got me to start gobbling and learning how to dodge, and that's when I was able to go to Asia Torah and Rockville once I got married because I was already now getting used to this idea of daubing on the shop this morning. Of course, I came for the chilling, and I came, it was clearly quickly I came. Obviously, after a few weeks of just chilling, I came really for the classes in the morning. And that's what started my Jewish journey. So I did it for the wrong reasons, but I came to do it for the right reasons. Okay, enough of that. Huh? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:35

Okay, so we talked about director, supervisor. Uh we talked about mindless eating, switching the rooms, getting this thing as their idea. Another parenting hack is get teaching your kids to say, is it possible? So let's say, for example, your kids are watching a video at night and it's time for bed. It's nine o'clock. Oh, it's time to go to bed now. No, no, no. Can we watch it? And they want to watch them for another half an hour or whatever. Teach them to say, is it possible? Because it changes the dynamic of the relationship. When they say, Ah, but is it possible you can watch for 10 more minutes? I go, it is possible, but have it five minutes. And you negotiate with them. But when they say is it possible, they're not screaming, no, no, no, no, no. It changes the dynamics. Uh and then as a consultant, once your child reaches a certain age, you can't supervise them anymore. This is like when you get to be, you know, 14, 15, 16, 17, you can't tell them what to do anymore. They're making their own decisions in life. But you turn to consultant, but a good consultant needs to have wisdom in their toolbox. The average Fortune 500 company in America spends$150 million on consultants. Why? Because they make more money because of it. It helps the bottom line. When do people who are married get consultants? When things are falling apart. And by then it's already too late. And again, this is a common example when I see when I see relationships with failed. She's gonna say, well, he stopped paying attention to me, and I'm gonna, or she's gonna he's she doesn't respect me, she abuses me, she, you know, it's really it's it's it's it's usually the truth, there's his story, there's her story, and the truth is somewhere in the middle. Because when you got married and you walk down the aisle and you're going to the whole place and you're in love, and you think that love is gonna last forever, do you know why? Because it's easier 25 years old. But if you don't want to know how to how to manage this relationship, you don't know how to understand what love is to the person, you're going to have a hard time. And this is what I teach that men need to be respected and women need attention, affection, appreciation, and awareness. A new appliance, you buy, I bought an air fryer last year. You guys know what an air fryer is? You know, ninja. Ninja has great products, don't they? Great products. So we bought this air fryer. We didn't want to get it because we you know we don't have so much space in our room. It's not like we live in America, we have like, you know, garage we can put throw stuff in. So I I I researched it, I thought about it, okay, we're gonna get it. So I got this air fryer and it has an instruction manual. Do you think I read it? Of course not. And if an air fryer comes with an instruction manual, do you think God's gonna make us without an instruction manual? Do you think it's possible God's gonna create a human from the dirt from the ground and his breath of his soul and say, oh, here's a human, have at it, have fun. It's not like going to the hospital and having a baby with a hand of the baby and there's no instruction manual. God gave us an instruction manual. And it's called a Torah. And Torah does not mean it's a bunch of guys walking through sand dunes wearing togas. It's an instruction manual for life. Everything about raising children, we learn what to do, what not to do. We even learned this week, last week, that when when when Yaakov plays a favorite with Joseph, what happened to the brothers? Creates animosity. We're gonna get into this in a second. If you had a consultant, if you were a parent, if you can go back, or if you were, you know, I gotta tell you something. I was on, I've been on a number of podcasts in the last few weeks. I'm I'm I'm promoting my new book, Emotional Vampires. By the way, this is my book, Sunscreen Love. It's free. I have copies here. The four phases to find the love you want. You have it already? Oh, yeah, a lot of people have it already. And I have another book I've been giving away called Never Feeling Loved Again. Symptoms and Strategies to Cure Low Self-Esteem. I'm almost out of those. I give away a thousand copies. I have another thousand copies of these coming. And then uh Emotional Vampires is coming out in a few weeks. I actually might have copies here for sale. My manager said I cannot get them away anymore. I have to sell them. And then if you want to, after class, you get a WhatsApp group. I post my upcoming books. I have a lot of books coming out in the next few years, and all my events here in America that I do. I don't bombard you with stuff. You can get off if you want to, but if you want to hear about my stuff, that's the easiest way to find out. Anyway, I was talking about if you had a consultant in life going into a relationship, how much better off would you have been? So I was on these podcasts, and these women say to me they're in their 50s and they're all PhD in psychology and they're all divorced, and I'm and I'm hogging them, and like, and it's funny because I'm I'm not an expert, I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy who teaches and whatever, and they have no idea. Like I said, so how do you define love? They can't define love, they don't define love and marriage. I'm like, well, what happened? They go, well, I didn't know back when I was 20. I'm like, I'm like, of course. You have no idea what you're doing, you have no idea what you're doing. And most people have no idea what they're doing, and this is what I teach. That as you age, as your kid age, you play a different role, and understanding those roles helps you to navigate the children better. I want to learn why. Second part of this class is called Make a Fence to Your Children. Is that clock right? There's no way it's quarter to two. Are you serious? Did I talk so much? Oh my. Maybe. Okay, let me hurry up. Make a fence to your children. The first mission in Pyrrhia Vos, Ethics or Father, says make a fence for the Torah. Why a fence? What is the fence made for? Protection. Keep things out, keep things in, right? You have a fence in your backyard, keep out the keep out the foxes or the deers, and keeping the kids and the dogs, right? As a supervisor, you can't control them, you can do a decent job of keeping bad things out. And the most the first decision you're gonna make in your life, the biggest decision is who you're gonna marry. The second biggest decision is where you're going to live. Why? Because your children become a part of their environment. This is why I say, even when I go to Tel Aviv and I see, you know, it's very telling very secular, but like I mean it's amazing. Like if you're living in, you know, Detroit, you have a, you know, bless you, there's a 28% chance you'll marry a Jew. I mean you're most likely gonna marry out if you're not observant, right? At least in Tel Aviv you have a fighting chance. Most likely 98% chance you're gonna marry a Jew, right? You have a fighting chance, you're putting yourself at least in the right environment. But if you want to be great, you have to rat hang around people that are greater than you. And this is why a lot of you we talked yesterday about Isaac, uh, Jacob, the fact the three partiaux are called, and he went and he sent and he settled. That sometimes you have to get out, you have to leave your environment that you think is good for you because it's comfortable and it's nice. You have to come to a place like Jerusalem, right, and come classes where your parents aren't here and your friends aren't here, and you can think for yourself. Like I say to all my students on foundations, I bet you guys, your parents said you're gonna get brainwashed. They go, Coach, you were completely right. You said my mom said me get brainwashed. And I said, you know why they tell you that? Because they're completely correct. Your brain needs washing. You gotta get rid of all the schmutz, open your brain up, allow things that are good for you, and keep things that are bad for you. And every community has some negative influences. There's no perfect place. Even a start from community is gonna have negative influence. It's if you put your kid in the in the in the right community, you have a fighting chance, right? And this is why married men stay away from strict clubs and people in AA don't hang out at bars, and a person on the diet isn't going to an all-you-can-eat cheesecake restaurant, right? Because you can't control yourself when you go to these places. You stay out of them. We don't put milk on the table when we're serving meat, right? Because we have to show that they we don't, there's things that happen.

unknown: 32:53

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 32:53

And if you're gonna put non-dairy cream on the table or almond milk, you have to announce this is almond milk, I'm putting it on the meat table, but it's not milk. We have to protect ourselves. Pierkeavos initially it says, I'm sorry, Mishnah 1, chapter 7 says, Distance yourself from a bad neighbor and do not associate with a wicked person. Now, they sound like the same thing. Don't associate with a bad neighbor and and don't distance yourself from a bad neighbor and don't associate with a wicked person. Now, it's obvious not to associate with the wicked person, but who cares what your neighbor is like? Why should that matter? And the reason why it's so important. The missionary answers this in a very, very profound way. If you're in a corrupt environment where you live next door to a bad neighbor, you may lose your sensitivity to what is good and bad. You may not recognize that our bad neighbor is bad anymore, and then your children start hanging out with the wrong crowd, or right is wrong and wrong is right. It's a very common thing because we lose our sense of what right and wrong is when we don't have something to guide us, and that's what the Torah does. The Torah guides us what's right and wrong. We have something, we know how to live our life. Like I said, it's instruction manual for life. Understand the parenting paradox. This is my rabbi Stephen Barris, he's an H rabbi who lives in Baltimore now. He says, What is the worst thing your child can ever say to you? What I meant- you messed up? Yeah, what's the worst child thing you can say to you? What's the worst thing your child can say to you? Where's your answer? I need your answer. To a parent. What's the worst thing a child can say to a parent? Huh? I hate you is not there. You know why? It means there's a relationship.

unknown: 34:38

I don't respect you.

SPEAKER_00: 34:41

I don't need you anymore. I don't need I'm gonna just give the answer because we're short on time. I don't need you anymore. Why is that a paradox? We said earlier, one of the goals in parenting is our children to become independent and make decisions on their own, smart decisions. We want them to be out on their own, living on their own life, and be independent. But we also want a relationship. We want two things. We want them to be on their own, we want the relationship. The paradox is when they say, When I don't need you anymore. And that's one of the worst things. Your cows today means they don't want a relationship. I mean, you your kid can move to Guangdong, China, never see him again, and you'll survive. Are you gonna be happy? No, you're not gonna be happy. Because ultimately that's all we want from our kids is a healthy relationship. Ellie Wazell quotes from the Torah Michele that the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. When your kids are indifferent to you, you've lost your kids. And this is why it's so important. I'm telling you right now, if your kid is smoking pot behind the junior high school, right, as long as you have a relationship with them, it's okay. If your kid comes to the Shabbos table wearing jeans and a t-shirt, as long as it's a Shabbos table, it's okay. When you start criticizing them, you're going to lose that relationship. It's better your kid washes porn at 15 years old and has relationships, right? You can catch your kid watching porn at 15, right? It's a whole big issue. I have it, it's in my class, kosher climax. The whole idea that you can take away their phones, take a computer, guess what? They're gonna find a way to watch porn. They're gonna go to a friend's house, they're gonna see at school, but you know what's gonna happen? You're gonna lose that kid. Better you have a relationship with that kid and he watches porn than he don't have a relationship with the kid and he watches porn. Because what's gonna happen as they get older, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, they're gonna come back to you as long as you have a healthy relationship. And this is why the most important thing is to just love your children. Love your children. We're gonna understand what that means. Because I said, just like love in the relationship, what does a love mean? I can say, I can say I love you to my wife every day. And if I don't follow it up with her attention and affection, having awareness of her needs, that means absolutely nothing. It means nothing to her. Love is an action word. I am in the act of loving you. It's not a noun. I love you means nothing. I mean, the first time you say it to your girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, it might mean something. But after that, it doesn't mean anything. It has to be backed up with action. Here we go. Here's the key to the class.

SPEAKER_02: 37:08

You ready for this?

SPEAKER_00: 37:11

We talked about one of the other ideas. I said, give your kid choices, make give them the options. That was a game changer. It's a game changer, I'm telling you. Here's the other game changer. My sister said to me after my my father died in 1985, and my mother died in 2009. And I'm the fourth child. Just in those fourth kids, and my brother's three years older, and I have two sisters, 10 and 13 years older. So I'm the baby. Now, if you're a parent here and you have a number of kids, you know the baby is always gonna be the baby. I tell my no, I go, even when you're six years old and a grandmother, you're still my baby. That's a fact of life. Do you understand what I'm talking about? You're the baby. So they're always the baby. They still call you the baby if they're alive, God willing, right? So um my sister said to me, I remember this clearly, she said to me, Who do you think dad's favorite child was? And I said to her, That's the stupidest question anyone's ever asked me. She goes, I go, What are you talking about? Dad took me, the back when I live in Alexandria, Virginia, he took me to the horse races every single month. I used to play the horses. You know, we bet$2 on every race. He took me to all the coin shows and coin clubs all throughout the week on Saturdays and Wednesday nights. He came to all my shows at school where I performed, uh, you know, I played piano, sang and dance. He'd stand in the front row, stand up, when I when I'm done, remember, I'm 15 years old. He'd stand up and go, no, no! He's the only one sitting in the standalogue of ovation. Of course, I'm embarrassed, right? My dad, every night after dinner, we'd take a walk and he'd bring a football and I'd go out on routes and he'd throw footballs to me every every single night. I'd go for routes all night. My dad on Sunday morning, I'd delivered the Washington Star newspapers, an afternoon delivery back in the late 70s. Sunday morning, he goes, make sure you wake me up. And he on Sunday, the papers are heavy, and he pushed the cart. I couldn't put on my bike because they're too heavy. No week, I put on my bike, I just biked to my houses. I had 42 houses. He'd pushed the cart for me every Sunday morning at 6 a.m. So I said to my sister, that's the stupidest question anyone's ever asked. Of course I'm dad's favorite. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? She said to me, we all feel the exact same way. The paradox is how to make multiple children feel like they're your favorite. What is more important than telling your children you love them? If you can tell your kid, like I can tell my son who's 14 now, I love you. Do you think it means a lot to him? I have one daughter, I have one daughter who like loves hugging and kissing as I go to sleep. Every night she does it. She likes to say it. Okay, it makes sense to her. It's important to her. The kids they don't want to if you guys are married here. You can husband can say, I love you every day, and does nothing for you, it means nothing. It's words, it's empty. It's action that matters. Except for a kid, it's totally empty. You know what means more important than saying I love your kid? Number one. What drives, what understanding what drives each child? Because what motivates them, because what motivates one child doesn't motivate the other one. If you ever say to your kids, you should be why don't you like your brother or sister, you're destroying them. You can destroy your kids. Do you know that? This is why words are important. As RavGov says, think twice before you speak once. You have to understand every word you say is important. My wife said to me before we got married, be careful what you say. When you say words like divorce and hate, those words are floating out there. And so I have to be careful what I say to my kids. And number two, knowing you have their back. For them to know that you are there for them in all situations. It doesn't mean you have to always support them. They could be wrong, obviously. But that you have their back for them. They know you're there for them. More important than anything else, saying I love you, you understand what motivates them, and they know you have your back. And that starts to create independent, happy children. And this is why cry it out is not a good way to raise kids. And guess what? It's hard work. You want to have babies that are cute. I have a whole class on uh be a joyju, not a oi ju. And I always say, Is there a joy in having a baby? And there's joy is having a baby. There's no joy in having a baby. Sorry, there's not. Because if I said to you the US government's gonna, or the Israeli government's gonna take away your child after one year at one year old, you never see your child again, would you have a baby? No, you wouldn't, because there's no joy in having a baby. It's a lot of hard work. The joy is future potential happiness. Your life changed. First of all, you gotta, I mean, I don't have to carry around a baby. My wife had to carry around a baby for 10 months, right? She had to push this little eight-pound thing out of her tube. She did it at home in a bathtub with no drugs, no nothing. She, you know, hypnopersing. It's hard work. And it's hard work waking at 3 a.m. to nurse and to nurse and to rock your kids asleep for 20 minutes. But if you want to have great children, if you want to raise superstars, it takes hard work. And don't think of your parent. I I I said recently, I was at a dinner from my son's school here in Jerusalem, and there is a you know, the men and women sat separately at these tables, and there is a guy with a baby and a stroller. And I guess his wife's leaving it aside, and the baby starts to cry. It's going like this at the table like this with a stroller. I'm like, pick the damn baby up. Get out of your seat, pick it up, and start rocking the baby. I want to do it for him. Stop being so lazy. Your kid needs you. He wants you there for them. And when you pick him up, he knows you have his back. That kid's gonna be much more independent and have much more emotional health, much emotionally healthy person, because he knows his parents had his back. And lastly, be a hugger, not a bugger. Do you guys like to be nagged? Do you guys like to be nagged? Why? So do you think nagging your kids is a good idea? Do you think criticizing your kids is a good idea? Do do parents do uh do wives like to be criticized by their husbands and husbands by their wives? So why do we do it? Why do we do it? It makes us feel better. We have low self-esteem. Here's the it's true, I hate to say it's true. Here's the thing for teenagers, everything you tell your children not to do becomes appealing to them. Children become desensitized to the word no. So here's a another parenting life hack. We're almost gonna get done with this class. When you're finished Shabbat dinner and you want your kids to clean up the table, you say, okay, everyone clean the table. You know what happens? Scatter! Bathroom, couch, go downstairs and change clothes, visit a friend. One person will take one or two things in the kitchen and done. No one cleans the table, right? So what I do, I'll say to my kids, I want you all to clean up five things off the table. Kid number one, what he does? He goes to the couch. I'm tired, he goes to sleep. Kid number two picks up two glasses, puts them to the kitchen, leaves the room. Kid number three picks up five things, puts them in the kitchen, finishes. Kid number four says to himself or herself, you know what? My parents are pretty smart. They know if we ask to clean the whole table up, we won't do anything. So asking us to clean five things up. I'm gonna do what my parents really want. I'm gonna clean the whole table. Kid number one, he wants a couch? Let's call him a Russia. He's not a bad person. The word Russia doesn't mean bad, it means incomplete or unfinished. He didn't do his job. Kid number two, Bainoni. In the middle. He picked up two things, didn't what David was supposed to do, we did something. Kid number three, we're gonna call him a sonic. He's a good person, he did what he was supposed to do. But kid number four, what are we gonna call him? We're gonna call him a hussid. Because he did over what he was and beyond what he was asked to do. So how do you raise kids to be hussids? And here's a key. You have to love them and don't antagonize them. Because once you start antagonizing and criticizing them, you're going to lose them. When we moved to Israel six years ago, my son was 14 years old, didn't speak a word of Hebrew, and went to three four different high schools, didn't work out. And we can say you have to go to school, like some, you have to, school at no offense, is meaningless. Especially today's age. You can learn so much online, you can learn so much in other places. School is meaningless. What's more important? That they know you have your back, you know you understand them, and that you're there for them. And so we did, we hired private tutors. He learned Damora twice a day, you know, two hours a day. He learned guitar, he learned things that made him happy. And he started for nine months when he moved here, he had no friends, not one friend. Corona changed it. Because once Corona happened, we have a dog who's really cute, she's adorable, adorable, and we have we had a foosball table. So some of the kids who were not afraid to leave their house, you know, because we lived more than 50 meters away from them during the shutdowns. They came to my house, and so we said he started making friends, and from that he had other friends, and now he's anywhere he goes in Israel, he has friends. He's very he's he's doing an amazing job. Why? Because we had his back. And tell you what, it was not easy. I had to make some decisions I probably wouldn't have made if I was still living in America. But you have to adjust to make sure your kids are happy. So to love them, don't antagonize, although go tattoo their eyes. Love them, don't antagonize, or they'll come to terrorize, love them, don't antagonize, or they'll come to eulogize, love them, don't antagonize, live with happy girls and guys. This is the four parts to raising a child. Understand your role, your supervisor, director, consultant, make offense to your children, understand the parenting paradox, and be a hugger, not a bugger. Just love them, don't antagonize, and you'll raise a family full of superstars. Thank you very much.