Practical Parenting - Motivation (Part 1)

2:26 But the child. If he figures out that there's nothing really his parents can do to him So then The child is gonna say as soon as the parents are gone, or even if the parents are there, since I don't want to do this, I'm not going to accept this mission upon myself. And that's when a child decides to go off the derech, so to speak. What that means is I don't value this mission. This is not what I want for myself. This is not what I want for my life. And because it's not what they want for themselves or for their life, we've failed in imparting the entire goal of parenting to begin with, which is to make sure that this child will continue the Jewish mission. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So having said that, Daniel, get to you in a second. There are going to be different ways that we are going to choose to motivate our children.

3:29 So when we speak about motivation, we need to be very clear on what the goal of motivation is, because not all motivation is going to get us to that goal, which is the will to act. As we'll see in a moment, there's going to be negative motivation and positive motivation, and we're going to unpack whether or not negative motivation is going to be capable of getting a child to actually fulfill the mission. Or perhaps positive motivation, and if we do go with positive motivation, we really need to define the exact nature of the positive motivation that we're trying to create. Daniel, what was your question? My question is, is it a little harsh to say the parents would have failed if their kids decided they don't buy into the mission? When I say failed, I want to be clear. I'm not saying it in a judgmental way. But more in like you either made the sale or you didn't, right? And as if I'm tasked, let's say I have a job and I have to make a sale, and I didn't make the sale for a myriad of reasons. Maybe they just didn't want to buy.

4:35 So that's not necessarily my fault, but I didn't fulfill the mission. As parents, our mission is that the child should take upon themselves this mission. That's what we're trying to do here. We're not just trying to raise happy children. We're not just trying to raise wealthy children. We're trying to raise Jewish children, and to be raised as a Jew means that you've been mekabel on yourself that mission. So if we employ parenting techniques that don't get us to that end So then we didn't succeed. Any other questions? Elon. Can you clarify what? Excellent. That's exactly the next thing I wanted to discuss. So when we speak about motivation, there's going to be negative motivation and there's going to be positive motivation. Let's first speak about negative motivation. First of all, negative methods. They may be in the short term. It may look like you're successful, but as we'll see in a moment, it's not true motivation. And here's why

5:54 Because if I use negative techniques in order to make someone do something, then I failed in the very premise of what it is that we were trying to achieve. Let's go back and get our definition straight because this is a deep point. It's not so hard, but it's a deep point. Remember that motivation is about will. So as the parent, we want to tap into the child's will. That's our goal. So if we use a negative technique So that the child will perform We have failed in our basic mission of tapping into the child's will. Does that make sense? If I tap into the inner will of a child, then there are enduring effects. Because basically, what we're looking to do is invest in a particular will that goes with them. That goes with them wherever they go. Negative motivation is not going to do that. And here's why.

7:06 Let's take the following case. The child is given a task to do. And they ignore the task. Let's pick on someone here for a second. Let's say Arya Weber. Are you with me? Let's say Arya Weber's parents tell him that we expect that in school he's going to get at least a ninety on the Regents. And Arya basically ignores his parents. He doesn't take school seriously. He doesn't do his homework. He doesn't study. His parents have hired him a tutor. He doesn't take the tutor seriously, and as a result, he gets a seventy-five on the test. So Arya has not paid attention to the mission that his parents have set out for him. How have they responded? How do the parents respond? So as I see it, there are three approaches. Approach number one is do nothing. Don't respond at all. Do nothing. And here the hope. In this approach, the child will ultimately figure this out on their own.

8:21 The child will figure it out on their own. Time will go by. The child will grow up. Eventually, he'll outgrow this way of being, and then, God willing, he'll be successful. At first glance, that may seem like a good idea. But there's something fundamentally wrong with that. And that is this: every interaction between a parent and a child is a learning opportunity for the child. What does the child learn when the parent says this is the goal? And then the child absolutely ignores the goal? What does the child learn? The child learns to disregard the parents. The child learns that they can act defiantly and that there'll be no consequence. So it may very well be true that when that kid goes to college, he will take it seriously. It may be true, but there have been other lessons, very negative lessons, that have been learned along the way. And this is true in high school, but it's certainly true as a child.

9:28 Children are constantly learning, and when a child misbehaves, a parent goes, I've done what I can. So then, the child learns that they can act defiantly. They don't have to listen to rules. They don't have to be obedient, and nothing will happen. There will be no consequences. That is a very dangerous thing to teach a child, especially when we're trying to raise Jewish children, because as Jewish children, we have goals. We have things that we're looking to succeed in. And that's going to require a level of performance. If you learn that you can act defiantly, you can act defiantly towards your parents, your teachers, and certainly towards God. Does it make sense, Rabosei? Any questions Gabriel? This is clear. Okay. Price is clear. You got this. Okay. Besayer, so what's your other option? Let's look at the second option here. Elon, this is where we start getting into heavy negative consequences.

10:42 We call it negative motivation, but it's not actually negative motivation. It's actually In fact, quite the opposite. Here's the idea. I can fight my child. And here are some of the things that we may use to fight the child: mental pressure Coercion. Physical force. There are parents that do this. I'll give you an example. Again, we're not speaking about anything abusive. Chas v'shalom. We'll speak about that in a moment. Let's speak about physical coercion. Let's say I am in the supermarket with my four year old child, and we walk down an aisle. The child sees that the parent has accidentally turned into the cookie aisle. See in Eretz Yisrael we don't have a cookie aisle, but in America Baruch Hashem there are cookie aisles, entire aisles that are dedicated for the various types of cookies that Baruch Hashem we have today in our kosher world.

11:50 And the child looks up at you in wonderment, and he says, "Dad, look what we have discovered. We have discovered the cookie aisle." And the child looks at you, and you know what's coming. The kid says, "Please, Dad, please, can I have a cookie?" And you start to negotiate with the child, like a foolish parent. You start to negotiate, and you say, "Now Little Ruven Little Shimon, whatever you've named your child We had a cookie when we first got here. And we're gonna have a cookie bays or Hashem When you get into the car, we're not gonna have any cookies. The child looks up at you and begins to laugh because they know that they hold all the power. And so what do they do? What do they do? Rabo says they throw a temper tantrum. In the middle of the supermarket, and there you are, and it's Friday, you're shopping for Shabbos, and your four year old child is sitting on the floor of the supermarket, banging his hands and stamping his feet and screaming, "I want a cookie!"

13:02 So option number one is to give the kid a cookie because you're being embarrassed in front of the Jewish community, and if you're embarrassed in front of the Jewish community, your children may never get a shidduch. That might be the end of your life. People will talk about it in shul. Did you see what Baker's kid was doing in Gourmet Glat? Did you see what was going on over there? So option number one is just give him the cookie. If you give him the cookie, you reinforce the behavior. Option number two. Pick the kid up. You just physically lift the child up. Now that doesn't sound so crazy to you guys. Because it's like the kid is having a temper tantrum. He is little. I am big. This is the advantage of being a parent over a four-year-old. You lift the kid up. And you put him back in the car, and you say to the kid with a very stern face. Now you're not getting anything.

14:00 And you point And you're very aggressive, mentally coercing the child into silence. First of all, it may very well be a game that you lose. The child may scream anyway. But let's say that you were successful. Let's say the child is actually now docile and quiet in the shopping mart while you're now shopping. And the child gets no cookies. What is the negative impact of the physical coercion and the mental pressure that you've exerted on the child? So number one, obviously it goes without saying, but of course we have to say this because if we don't say it, then chas v'shalom somebody might misconstrue here. If we're speaking about physical abuse, right? If we're speaking about physical abuse The impact on the child will be exceptionally deleterious. First of all, abuse destroys children. It destroys their self-esteem. As they get older, it doesn't allow them to be capable of being in healthy relationships. They develop nervous habits. They stutter. They bedwet. They don't know how to. They don't have the confidence to engage in friendships. Physical abuse is a terrible Terrible evil choice. You are a parent. You are in a position of power. The child is in a vulnerable position. Physical abuse is a terrible choice. We're going to assume for the purposes of this year that none of you are going to grow up to be physically abusive. Having said that, there are other

15:34 Other problems with this negative form of fighting the child, exerting that mental pressure, that coercion, using physical force. Our goal is not that a child should perform out of fear. We do not remember what's the whole goal of motivation. Go back to that initial definition. I told you it's going to come up over and over again. Motivation is the will to act. That's what motivation is. It's the will to act. So if I force the child to do something, and now the child does it out of fear, they're sitting in that shopping cart and they're totally docile, but they're not doing it because they've chosen to. They're not doing it because they want to. They're doing it because they're terrified of their father, who just yanked them up off the floor and put them in the shopping cart. So you failed at the fundamental mission that you were trying to succeed. The goal here was to be motivational.

16:29 To get the child to a point where they want to do it. If you've coerced the child into doing it, you've failed at what you were trying to do. And therefore, what happens when you remove that fear from the child? The child now grows up, and they don't have a fear of their parent because they're no longer four years old. They're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, and the child has realized, hey, there's nothing that my dad can do to me. He can't pick me up. He can't. He could scream at me all he wants, but honestly, I don't care. The child will simply relinquish their obedience because honestly, the only reason I was ever doing it was out of fear. And by the way, we see this a lot. People are growing up. The only reason they're serving God is some misplaced sense of fear. Now they've grown up; they get a little smarter and they go "I don't know if I need to fear like that childish fear that I had when I was little." And then they start asking themselves the question, "Do I really want this?" And the answer to that question may very well be, "No, I don't want this." And since they don't want it They're not going to perform. That's number one. These negative interactions with your children fail in the basic mission to get your child to want this and claim it as their own.

17:49 Another one, the child will learn not to value your goals. If the child sees that the relationship with the parent is built on the parent having to coerce them into doing something, then that's probably not a child that's going to ultimately grow up and say these are the things I want to do. Why would I value the goals of such a person? Another problem. You won the battle and you lost the war. Because what you've taught the child now is that coercion is an acceptable tool. So now what does the child learn? You coerce me. Now I'm going to coerce you And now you've entered into a power struggle with your children. Here's the thing you must know. You as a parent You will lose that power struggle. Because you will have to go to exceptionally horrific methods in order to win that power struggle. And as the children get older, you have less and less control, and therefore your methods of coercion need to become more and more draconian. So take for example the kid who's chutzpahdik to his parents. Which it goes without saying, a child should never be chutzpahdik to their parents. They should have tremendous gratitude for everything that the parents have done.

19:15 Let's say a child is chutzpahed. When they're little, you can send them to their room. That's a method. There's a negative consequence here. There's a coercion. There's a level of coercion. Now the child gets bigger. What are you gonna do? At some point, you're gonna start taking things away from the child, and now these methods become not only draconian; they become foolish. You were chutzpahic. Now taking away your phone. You were chutzpahic. Now I'm taking away your laptop. The child gets a little bit older. You were chutzpahic. You can no longer live in my house. Get out of my house. They lock the door on the child. The kid is outside. What exactly is the end goal here? What do you think is going to happen at some point? You are going to lose your relationship with your child. It's just a matter of time until that child learns. If you want to be coercive with me, I'll be coercive with you, and the kids are smart enough to know that they will win a power struggle. The child will lose terribly, also because now what's going to happen is that child is going to grow up and do the same thing to the people that are in their lives. So even though as a parent you may have won that particular battle.

20:26 Ultimately you will lose the war. Your child will become someone who engages in power struggles. Here's another one. If you teach your children. That level of intolerance and disrespect, what do you think your kids are going to grow up to do? So now let's say this kid who grew up in an environment where there was constantly these negative interactions. Now the kid grows up. He's eighteen years old and he comes to Mivaseret for the year. I'll tell you what it looks like. In the dorms He can't live with other people. Nobody wants to be around him. He's constantly getting angry and yelling and getting upset when things don't go his way. He's verbally abusive and he shuts off his roommates. Nobody can speak to him. The madrichim are brought in, the avvayit is brought in. Eventually, it comes to me. These kids grow up, and very often they are going to display those same tactics that they saw their parents do to them.

21:26 They're going to do it to the people around them, and this is going to get in the way of them developing meaningful relationships. Last but not least To preserve pride and identity The child develops a protective shell. Every single person needs to have an identity. That's the fundamental challenge that we're all engaged in. We need an identity. So when our identity is attacked, and make no mistake about it. When a parent is doing that physical and mental type of coercion, the child feels under attack, and so the child will develop a protective shell because it's really painful to be in a situation where you as the child feel you're under attack, and so you have no basic pride. And so what happens is that the children will develop a protective shell, and that will look like different things to different people.

22:34 That might, for example, mean that the child becomes self-centered, totally narcissistic, because they don't know how to take for themselves in an appropriate way. It may be that the child develops anger management issues. It may be that the child becomes a loner and they're not capable of being with other people. A child may turn to food. A child could turn to drugs. A million things a child will do to protect their identity and their integrity. So even though you can win the battle with what we'll call these negative motivational methods. Even though they're not truly motivational, as we pointed out, ultimately you're going to lose a lot more than you gain. Let's pause here for some questions because that was just a long haul. So let's say as a parent, you find yourself starting to see there is a power struggle starting and developing. Is there a way you could get out of it, or once you're already developing that kind of power struggle where it's you against your kid?

23:40 It's kind of like you're already in it now. You just gotta fight through it. Don't double down on your mistakes. If you're in a power struggle with the kid, don't say, 'Well, now I've got to win.' Because the more you win, the more your child loses. It's many years ago when my wife was in seminary. One of the teachers in her seminary told her a great line. They said you could get into a fight with your husband and you could win, but then you'll be married to a loser. And nobody wants to be married to a loser. The same thing is true when it comes to parenting. Kalakavod, you could win the battle. You could come out as the winner. We got into a power struggle. Now I have to win. Then your kid is a loser, so that doesn't help. What we can do is we can, and it's as difficult, no doubt, but we can, with great focus and attention, we can change the dance And that might be really weird for the kid at first because he's so used to that negative motivation, and the kid doesn't know what to do with himself. He's like all of a sudden his parents have this different way of being.

24:43 But depending on the kid's age, you may even be able to have a great dialogue with the kid about exactly this point about we felt were entering into a power struggle with you, and that wasn't a healthy thing. We own that, and we're really trying to do things differently. Of course, with a younger child, they won't understand that. But if you change the dance, and we're going to talk a lot about what that looks like over the next twenty minutes, if you change the dance, then absolutely, you could You could have a phenomenal impact on the relationship. Is that I feel like that could also show the kid some sort of like oh my parents are surrendering because they don't want to have to deal with me I think that could pack fire like as nature like I might think that if that happened in my case and so that might be the short term loss right because the kid may say hey it was a power struggle and I won but then over the course of the next years as in you're planting all of those positives that we're gonna speak about. I think I would hope that the child would ultimately give up that paradigm and recognize

25:51 Especially as they get older. My parents have a different way of being now. They're no longer doing that yelling, threatening, all those negative. And I'm not saying there should never be negative consequences, but the negative consequences have to come in a totally different way. There is an appropriate time to say, "Hey, that was a negative behavior, and here's the negative consequence." But if it comes from a place of coercion, then that's not going to work. So when things are like a very rebellious kid So in those kind of things, if a kid is going out and getting drunk every single night and going to parties and doing things. I feel like with those kind of kids specifically There automatically is a power struggle because those kids. Most likely, aren't you just gonna if you go to them and say, "Hey, listen, you gotta stop doing that." They're not gonna be like, "Oh yeah, you're right, I'll stop."

26:48 You're right about that. Exactly. But if you start punishing them, it automatically becomes a power struggle. Who's gonna fight back harder? And your punishment is probably not gonna work at that stage anyway. Because the kid is seventeen years old. He's going out every night. He's drinking. He's partying. He's going crazy. The parents say, 'Don't do that,' and he goes. What are you gonna do to me now? And he walks out the door. So now, literally, this is what the father is gonna be left with. I changed the locks and I'm not letting him in. You had to go that draconian. What else did you have? I'm no longer letting you have the keys to my car. I don't need the keys to your car. I'll call my friend. I'm taking away your phone. At some point, this becomes ridiculous. I'll pay for my own phone. Where are you gonna get money? I'm gonna drop out of school. I'm gonna go work at Chickie's so that I could have a job, so that I could pay that money, so I could have the phone, so I could call my friend to get to the party that I wanted to go to begin with. In this power struggle, the parents will lose only if the child realizes that he is more powerful than the parents. And even if he doesn't realize that, let's say at 17 or 18 years old, he's gonna realize it at 21.

27:56 22, 23. And when the child says, "You know what?" I don't really want this, and they leave the parents' house. Then they're gonna do all those things anyway. And so, how do you like get out of that? My kid that's bothering his siblings, those kind of things that cause problems in the house. Fine, he can sit down with them and be like, hey, listen, all these kind of things, and say let's try to change things. But when this kid literally just doesn't care about any, there is no parental power at all. That's right. That's right. So how do you work your way out of that, or is it one of those situations where it's lose? No. I think you can work your way out of it. In fact, I have here A whole section on obedience and the challenge of children who are incapable of obedience and what you do in that situation. We're going to get there.

28:50 I do think that there are meaningful ways to respond. It's an important issue. Aaron, thank you for bringing it up. Ellie Shifshleta. Um. How would you recommend handling that situation in the supermarket? Good. We're gonna get there. That's we'll be there in a couple of minutes. But I'll tell you one thing, Ellie. I could say that to you right now. The motivating factor in that decision of what to do with the child in the supermarket is not going to be based on the looks that we're getting as people are walking by us in the supermarket. Because we have to have enough of a sense of self to be able to say My kid's having a temper tantrum, and that's normal, and that's human. You, as a parent, might be sitting there judging me. Your kid also did this, and it's not because your kid is better. We're not going to make the decision from the fact that it's weird to be looked at as that person. We can agree to that.

29:54 We're gonna focus on what the child needs in that moment. That's gonna be our focus. Any other questions? Besaid there. Moving on. So now. Sorry Here's a quick question. David. How does one balance that power struggle? I'm the parent, yet I'm also. You can't give in every time. And you can't not give in. I don't know. Again, the point here is not a question of giving in or not giving in. It's a very important point that David is bringing up. The topic is not should we give in or should we not give in. The topic is what is our approach towards motivating the child to getting them to accept this as they want. Doesn't mean that we have to give in. But there's a general approach of how we're motivating our children. So it's an excellent point that you're bringing up, David. Let's go further because I think things are going to become a little bit clearer. Somebody else had a question.

31:07 Beseder, let's go on because I think things will become a little bit clearer as we move on. Let's talk about positive motivation for a second. As we said, motivation means the will to act. And this requires us to tap into that inner will, as we said. Negative motivation doesn't really tap into that inner will. When a person taps into that inner will, there are enduring effects. Here's what I mean when I say enduring effects. That's where we left off before. What does it mean? To have an enduring impact, remember that the pasuk says, 'Chanoch l'nar al pidarko.' Educate the child according to his ways. "Gam ki yazkin lo yasur mimenah," right? Educate the child according to his ways so that even when he gets older, he will continue on this path. So when you tap into the inner will of a child and you say. And you're able to get there and say, this is what you want, and the kid has now accepted that in the future. So then in the future they'll be able to call upon that inner drive and be able to say, this is what I want.

32:31 That makes sense. So how do we do that? So let's speak about a teenager for a second, even though this is not necessarily always the case. Let's speak about a teenager for a second. Let's take the following example. Imagine for a moment that you're the CEO of a major company And as the CEO of a major company Most of the people in upper management They're with you. They're highly paid. They've become upper management for a reason. So they're capable of motivation, so to speak. They're there. They're with you. They're not going to be unmotivated. Then you have your middle managers. Your middle managers are more or less motivated too. They more or less get it. Again, they're climbing the ladder. They want to get to that upper management spot. They have their jobs. They do it well. What do you do with the guys in the warehouse? How do you motivate them? They're minimum wage guys. They're doing their job, but they're not exactly motivated. They're not working at maximum capacity.

33:40 What do you do to get those people? The lowest people on the totem pole. What do you get those people to be motivated? Here's the classic thing. Let's create an incentive program. If you can do X amount of work and X amount of hours over X amount of days and X amount of weeks, then you're going to have an employee of the month award. You're going to win employee of the month. You're going to get a twenty-five dollar gift card to Amazon, and it's going to be amazing. So even if you made the incentive program really good, ultimately, what would happen? Ultimately, what would happen? Rabosei, what would happen? What do you think? It's not caring at a certain point. And it's gonna be a little ridiculous. It seems to me it's gonna be a little ridiculous. It's not really gonna last. Right? Because you up the prize every month.

34:35 Good. So now what's so? What are you left with? You're left with these guys are used to getting now ten thousand dollar a month bonuses. That's not going to work for the company. So really, what we need to be doing, and this is a hard thing to do, but really, what we need to be doing is we need to We need to explain to everybody in the company why the company exists. Right. For example. If you're working in a warehouse and you're just shipping boxes, it doesn't really matter to you what you do. You're just shipping boxes, but if you knew, for example, that you were shipping medical devices that were going to a third world country that were going to be saving lives So that might be a different experience for you. Now you're not just shipping boxes. What are you doing, Rabo? Say you're saving lives. You're a part of a process. So what can we do to motivate people?

35:37 Motivation comes with understanding the mission of why I'm doing this to begin with. Teenagers will tell you this. They'll be very honest with you. They'll say, 'I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know what I'm doing here. What's the value of me being here?' What we need to do is recognize that different kids are at different levels. I'm just taking teenagers because it's an easy one. When it comes to tapping into a kid's will, they need to know why they're doing it. They need to know what the mission is. If you want a kid in their inner will to accept upon themselves the mission of Judaism, you have to be prepared to teach them what the mission of Judaism is. So if you're only teaching halacha And you're not teaching hashkafa Don't be upset when the child turns around and says, 'I don't know why I'm doing any of these things.' So what we do when we teach halacha without teaching hashkafa, guys. That's like coming to a restaurant, showing someone a menu and saying, 'Isn't this delicious?' And the kid would say, 'I don't know if it's delicious or not. I know what's on the menu, but I don't know if it's delicious because I haven't tasted the sweetness of it.' You have to have the experience of actually eating the food to say if this is a delicious or not a delicious restaurant.

37:01 So if we want to motivate a kid, let's say a teenager, we have to give them an experience that they understand the mission and that the experience is a valuable one. It has to occur on two levels. Number one When a kid asks, "Why am I doing this?" We have to be prepared to educate our children to know why they're involved in this mission. And you have to be able to clearly articulate that, guys, and of course, it's going to be at different levels. You will see that sometimes a smart kid, even when they're very young, even maybe nine or ten years old, will say, 'Does God really care if I keep Shabbos?' You might get that question, and you have to know how to be age appropriate and to answer that question. Different levels for different kids, so that's really important. The experience of actually living their Judaism should be one that's in consonance with that mission.

38:01 In other words Let's say I'm teaching my kids Hilchah Shabbos, and now I'm not just teaching them Hilchah Shabbos, but I'm also teaching them why we keep Shabbos. What's the value of keeping Shabbos? What did the Rebbeim Shlom want with us keeping Shabbos? So you have to have first of all good answers to those questions, because if your answer is something like this: Shabbos is a beautiful time for a family get together. Your kid may wake up one day and say, 'Gentiles can get together also, and they don't need to not keep stay off their phone for twenty five hours to sit together and have a family meal.' I know plenty of Gentiles that get together and have a family meal. So you have to have good answers. But if you have good answers, which is great, but your Shabbos table is not a motivating experience. It's not an enjoyable experience. You may have taught them about Shabbos, which no doubt is great. But why would that child be motivated to keep Shabbos?

38:58 But if a child sees what Shabbos could really look like, that's amazing, right? If they experience the awesomeness, the power of a Shabbos, who wouldn't want to participate in that? And by the way, so many tell me when they come to yeshiva, and they go to their rabbis' homes for Shabbos, and they see not just their rabbis, but they see different homes throughout Israel. And they see these beautiful Shabbos tables that are filled with zmiros and divrei Torah and the sense of warmth. And not just any warmth, but like a Shabbos-like warmth. And there's something really special happening at the Shabbos table—a level of connectivity. The kids come back to yeshiva. We see it every year. They come back to yeshiva on Sunday morning. How was your Shabbos? The guys go, it was amazing. I never had a Shabbos experience like that before. I never tasted that sweetness of Shabbos. I would want my Shabbos table to look like that. That's what I want my Shabbos table to look like. They didn't hear a she'er about Shabbos; they experienced it for themselves. If we want to motivate our kids, we have to tap into that inner will. Sometimes it's going to be intellectually, and sometimes it's going to be experientially. David Perlman Shliya.

40:09 Does Rabbi have a Shabbos Hachkafas Sefer that he recommends that we read at the Shabbos table? Yes. The Shabbos hashgufa safer you should read at your Shabbos table is Which one? Which ever one your family needs. So I'll tell you exactly what I mean. We might not know what we need. You will because you're going to be paying attention. Right? You're gonna you're gonna be paying. He is on a swing set. You're gonna be. It's a long story. You're gonna be. I'm watching my sister. Good shkayach. So you're gonna be paying attention to your kids, so you're gonna know what they need. For example, my wife and I were paying attention to our kids, and we realized that there was a lot of lashon hara going on in the house, and so we chose for a year to go through Hilchos Lashon Hara every single Shabbos, just a couple of minutes at the Shabbos table. That was a beautiful way of teaching our kids avos yisrael. But I'll tell you a story I heard many years ago. I won't say the name of the gadol, but there was a particular gadol whose child did not follow in his ways.

41:15 And far from it. And he was a very well-known gadol v'Torah. In fact, he was certainly one of the gadolei ador, and so his child really didn't follow in his ways. And years later, he was asked about running a Shabbos table, and he said a very powerful thing. I was I read it in the Sefer that he said it, and if it's true, I'm shocked to hear that he was that vulnerable. The mistake that I made at my Shabbos table is I learned Rambams at my Shabbos table. Because this was such a gadol b'torah that what he enjoyed was a good pilpel and a Rambam. If you have a Rambam that contradicts another Rambam, and you're a brisker, then that's like the greatest thing in the world. And so he was trying to bring the excitement to his Shabbos table by bringing up a difficulty in a Rambam.

42:02 But what he needed to be doing, this gadol b'torah said, is he should have been singing Shabbos miros, and he should have been telling stories of tzaddikim, and he should have made it a warm environment rather than making it an intellectual environment. And so you have to know what your kids need to have that experience. And by the way, we see that it's true. A kid could be in school all day long. He could be learning all the halachas, all the gemaras. He could be learning all that stuff. But what gets him excited when he comes to NCSY Kollel for the summer, and he has an unbelievable summer with unbelievable madrichim. And all of a sudden he's motivated in his Judaism. What changed? The experience changed him. A guy comes to yeshiva in Eretz Israel for the year. And now Torah is not just a subject, but he sees it's kihem chayeno, and he gets accustomed to sitting in a bais medrash. It's a motivating type of experience.

42:52 I will say any questions. Shlomo Sakani Shlita. Shlomo, unfortunately, I can't hear you. Yes. Shlomo, unfortunately, it's breaking up, and I'm not capable of hearing you. I'm sorry. Want to take one last shot at it? Anybody else? Any last questions? Shlomo, it looked like it was going to be a good question. I'm sure it was going to be a good question. Shlomo, you want to write it on the chat real quick, or is it too long? Rabose Rabosei Let's stop here for today. Be'ezr Hashem, we'll pick it up next week, Wednesday. Rabosei, have a wonderful Shabbos.