Rabbi Peretz Chen | How to set boundaries for children without fighting over them

00:00 Hello, everyone. What do you think is the most important word in the Ten Commandments? A wise man once said that the most important word is one that appears there several times: “not.” “You shall have no other gods,” “You shall not take [Hashem’s name in vain],” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal.” The word “not.” We have to bring “not” into our lives. We have to set boundaries. Not everything is allowed. When it comes to raising our children and running our homes, that “not”—those boundaries—is absolutely essential. So, in today’s class, with Hashem’s help, we’ll first look at whether it’s even possible to set boundaries at home. The children want this and they want that. Are we supposed to fight with them over everything? Who has the energy? Why not just let it go? Is it even possible? We’ll also learn, with Hashem’s help, why it’s so important—why these boundaries matter so much. And we’ll look at how to actually do it: how do we establish boundaries in our homes? I want to begin with a story. About ten years ago, I bought a car from a man—a Jewish man who, boruch Hashem, has a great deal of money and runs a factory. He was selling a fairly new car; it simply no longer suited his wife, so he bought her a new one. We were sitting at a vehicle inspection center in Ashdod, waiting for them to check the car and see what condition it was in. Meanwhile, we got to talking—two Jews sitting together, chatting about this and that. He told me about his son. He said his son was frustrated, that he wasn’t happy. “Look,” he said, “at Toys ‘R’ Us, the toy store, they know to put aside every new toy that arrives

01:56 in the country for him. In my son’s room at home, you won’t find a single toy that’s in the store but not in his room. He has everything—the newest, most expensive, most interesting things, all of it. I keep bringing him things, giving him things, showering him with gifts, and he isn’t happy. He complains; he’s never satisfied.” That father gives and pampers his son endlessly, but in the way they run their home, they don’t put the word “no” into practice. There are no boundaries there, so his son has everything. But as we’ll soon see, when you have everything without boundaries, something very important is missing. That’s why his son isn’t happy either. There have to be boundaries in life. So can we actually establish a boundary? As I said before, children want everything. Who has the energy to start fighting with them over every little thing? Is it realistic, then? Is it practical to expect us to set boundaries at home? The truth is that it’s very, very simple, and it’s very, very clear that we can do it. What’s the proof? Think about walking down the street with your children and needing to cross the road. It’s dangerous; there are cars. We take our child’s hand and cross the road together. Now imagine that five-year-old boy or four-year-old girl saying, “I don’t want to hold your hand, Mommy and Daddy. I want to cross by myself.” Would we agree? Of course we wouldn’t, under any circumstances. There’s no discussion about it. It’s so clear to us that it’s just as clear to them. They know there’s no crossing the road without holding Mommy’s or Daddy’s hand. There are no arguments about it, nothing,

03:53 because it’s so clear to us, and so it’s clear to them. The same goes for wearing a seat belt in the car. Children generally don’t argue about that. Why? Because it’s absolutely clear to us that the car doesn’t move until everyone is buckled up, and that automatically becomes clear to them too. Children at home like to sit at the computer, play games, watch things. Then Shabbos arrives. On Shabbos, there’s no computer in our home. During the week, when we tell them, “Turn off the computer; it’s time to eat,” or “It’s time for bed,” think of all the arguments, the commotion, the tension around it. But Shabbos isn’t just a few hours. It’s more than twenty-four hours without media, and the children don’t ask for it even once. They don’t expect it or demand it. It doesn’t even occur to them. As soon as Shabbos ends, it all comes back. But on Shabbos—why? On a regular day, if I stop them for an hour, say, for dinner, they go wild. How can they accept going without it for an entire Shabbos and see it as so obvious? Because it’s so obvious to us. We know there will be no computer in our home on Shabbos, come what may, even if the world turns upside down. It won’t happen. We keep Shabbos. And that message gets through to the children: there’s no computer on Shabbos. In other words, what’s very clear to us becomes very clear to them. There’s a sweet story about a non-Jewish woman walking through a supermarket in the United States with her daughter. The daughter wants some candy and a certain snack. Her mother, who is clearly not Jewish, tells her, “It’s not kosher.” And the daughter moves on without arguing. A Jewish woman who saw this from the side couldn’t understand it. She’s not even Jewish—what does kosher or not kosher have to do with her?

05:47 She was very curious, so she went over to the non-Jewish woman and said, “Excuse me for asking, ma’am, but I hear you telling your daughter, ‘It’s not kosher, it’s not kosher.’ Are you Jewish?” “No,” she replied, “we’re not Jewish.” “Then why is keeping kosher important to you?” The woman said, “I’ll explain. I’ve noticed in the supermarkets I visit that when you Jewish women are shopping with your children and they want something, you tell them, ‘It’s not kosher.’ It’s like a code: they immediately stop wanting it. There isn’t even a discussion.” So she thought, “Amazing. What an amazing tool.” And from the time her daughter was very little, when there was something she really didn’t want her to eat—because it wasn’t healthy, because it was bad for her teeth, for all sorts of reasons—she would tell her, “It’s not kosher.” For her daughter, “not kosher” became a code. No discussion. And it really is true. For Jews who keep kosher and for whom it’s perfectly clear, there’s no question about it. Their children know it too. There are so many candies, snacks and sweets on the supermarket shelves, right? When they want something and their father says, “It’s not kosher,” they move on to the next snack. There’s no discussion, because that boundary is so clear to us that it’s clear to them too. So can we parents establish boundaries? The answer is an unequivocal yes. Something that’s absolutely clear to us will be absolutely clear to them too. If we don’t want them eating upstairs, in the bedrooms, or on the couch—whatever it may be; every home has its own boundaries—if that’s

07:29 very, very clear to us, with no discussion about it, we’ll suddenly see that it’s clear to them too, without any arguments around it. And why are these boundaries so important? Because a child without boundaries is a child without a sense of security. What do I mean? Imagine a person—a child, anyone—walking around on the roof of a tall building, a skyscraper, with no railing. How would they feel? There’s no railing, nothing between them and, G-d forbid, a fall. How would they feel? Anxious, worried, insecure, because one small distraction at any moment could, G-d forbid, lead to a disaster. Suppose our child eats on the couch one day and we don’t say a word—we even bring him a drink. Another time, when he eats on the couch, we yell at him: “How can you eat on the couch? You’re getting it dirty! What are you doing? Can’t you figure that out for yourself?” The next time, he has no idea: if I eat on the couch, will they be fine with it and pour me a drink, or will they come down on me for what I’ve done? That child becomes a little afraid. Why? Because at home, he never knows what behavior his parents will accept, when they’ll hug and encourage him, and what behavior will make them yell at him. He doesn’t know what to expect. What’s it like to live with that uncertainty? We’re in a war right now. How does someone move through a war zone? What’s it like to drive on roads in areas that are more at risk during a war? How does someone driving there feel? It feels

09:26 When your sense of security is shaken, because who knows what will happen? Where will an alarm suddenly sound? Who knows what’s coming? As human beings, it’s very, very hard to live with that uncertainty. It brings a great deal of insecurity. And it’s the same for a child at home who doesn’t know what the boundaries are: when he’ll get a hug, when someone will get angry with him, what’s allowed and what isn’t, what the rules are. It will drive him crazy. One night he’s on the computer at eleven o’clock and no one says a word; another night, he’s on it at eleven and his parents come in. He doesn’t know—wait, is it allowed or not? Of course, you can make an exception to any rule. Say we’ve decided that computer time ends at eight in the evening. On a particular day, for one reason or another, the parents have gone out and there’s a babysitter. We want to make things easier for her, so we allow the children to use the computer later. Then we say and explain: “Today we’re making an exception to the rule because of this and that.” But it remains clear and orderly. So these boundaries are absolutely critical to children’s development, their peace of mind, and their self-confidence. And yes, we are definitely capable of setting them. That’s a fact! With things that matter to us, we do set boundaries, and that is tremendously important for our children’s development and progress. But how do we do it? Right now, we feel that at home there are no boundaries around this or that, and... First of all, you can’t set boundaries for everything at once. If you try to take on too much, you won’t accomplish it. It won’t work. What we can do is think about which things are critical, which things weigh on us and bother us—whether it’s time spent in front of the computer, eating in every corner of the house and leaving the place looking like it, or anything else that matters to us

11:18 as parents—and set boundaries around those things. So how do we do that? The best approach, as with anything, is simply for Mom and Dad to sit down together in the evening over a cup of coffee, talk, and plan. There’s a reason it says that parents should devote half an hour each day to thinking about their children’s education. So you sit down together over coffee in the evening, when the house is already calm and the children are more or less asleep and quiet, and you decide: “This is something we’re struggling with. We can’t keep arguing about it. Let’s set a boundary. Let’s tell them what it is, show them that it’s the boundary, and believe that we can uphold it.” We can stick to it; we can put it into practice. And when it’s very, very clear to us, we’ll soon see that it becomes very, very clear to the children. It doesn’t have to be over coffee—go out to a restaurant, go out together. As parents, this is our shared task. We can’t have one set of boundaries from Dad and another from Mom. That will confuse the children. It has to be something we think through and plan together. Then we tell the children, “This is the boundary.” We show them, and above all, we truly believe inside that it matters. Just as we know that there’s no computer use on Shabbos and that children don’t cross the street alone, this too needs to be clear to us. With Hashem’s help, that clarity will come across to the children as well. So we’ve understood that we’re capable of this and that it’s possible, just like the other boundaries we already maintain. We’ve also understood why it’s so very important, and that it has to come from a decision we make together, because in life there has to be a “no.” That “no” is healthy; it’s good. It helps life run much more smoothly. Each of us understands that the Torah, with all its restrictions—don’t do this, don’t do

13:27 that—is ultimately for our benefit. When we live by the Torah’s rules and restrictions, our lives are much more protected, and the family unit is much more secure. The home is warmer, more embracing, and far less exposed to the harmful influences blowing through the world. The same is true of how we treat one another. When we live according to the Torah and its boundaries, what is and isn’t allowed between one person and another is very, very clear. So that “no” is a blessing in our lives. It’s a blessing for our lives as Jews, for our spiritual lives, and for our homes. The “no”—the boundaries. With Hashem’s help, may we succeed in this and do it with great joy, knowing that it’s the right thing. Together, with us parents working as a team, it can succeed—and it will succeed, with Hashem’s help. There’s no reason it shouldn’t. If you believe this point is so important, share it. Share it with a friend. If you have any insights about what we’ve discussed—if you want to add a little pepper, a little salt, a little turmeric to what was said here—write them in the comments below. Share your thoughts and the insights you’ve surely gained from your own experience with all of us. And above all, may we merit blessing and success, with Hashem’s help. May the message of this class, this message for the Jewish home, be a merit for the soldiers, those righteous soldiers who protect us. May they return home healthy and whole, with Hashem’s help. And may the hostages return to their families, healthy in body and spirit. May we merit the coming of Moshiach and the resurrection of the dead. May we know only good, with Hashem’s help. Thank you very, very much. Wishing you much success and only good news, with Hashem’s help. All the best.