The Blessing of a Skinned Knee

Using Jewish teachings to raise self-reliant children

Wendy Mogel

Wendy Mogel, who practiced as a child psychologist in Beverly Hills for fifteen years, became concerned about the number of children who who were being brought to her by anxious parents because they seemed chronically unhappy and lost. Indeed it seemed to her as if both the parents and the children were miserable and frustrated most of the time. Somehow the children’s symptoms did not fit into Mogel’s diagnostic manual and she found it increasingly difficult to locate the problem and to help these troubled youngsters.

So she decided to search for a different approach to counselling. She asked questions, and found her answer in the teachings of Judaism. The understanding she has developed from this has a much wider application, so that this is a book for any parent - and grandparent too - for we can all benefit from her careful thinking and explanation about what is wrong with so many children today.

She pinpoints many traits which influence parents in the way they bring up their children. Maybe the parents have unhappy memories of their own childhood. Often in an eagerness to do right by their children parents overindulge them materially and emotionally. Often by overvaluing a child’s need for self-expression a household is turned into a democracy. However, this often sends the message to the children that their parents are not firmly in charge. And if parents don’t become authority figures, Mogel believes parents don’t empower their children, they make them insecure. So she suggests ways of establishing authority.

Moreover, if children live in a hothouse society they may well receive plenty of attention and worldly goods, but they pay a price for it. They have to be ‘good at everything and cheerful all the time because they are emblems of their parents’ success.’ These children, according to Mogel, find a way of rebelling against their parents’ unrealistic expectations; they take back some control, and resist being worshipped like idols with the result that they get sick or fail to excel. Just as, I believe, that children of divorced parents carry an especially heavy load as well.

Of course, this book is not a foolproof formula for parenting, but it will help you to look again at your family and at the interaction between you all. What signals do you really give your child about respect, values, kindness, and self-control?

I found Mogel’s views on why so many of our children have eating fads and disorders most illuminating. Think about the mixed messages we give, and how children latch onto this as one way to control their parents and seize power. Mogel: ‘Eating disorders are in part spiritual disorders, because the sufferer is battling with the source of life’. Those words had quite an impact upon me. Mogel links her suggestions with Jewish teaching and suggests ways of making a family meal a special occasion; the chapter on ‘The Blessing of Food’ alone, makes this a book which 'must be read'.

Above all, Mogel urges loving, sensitive parents not to measure their children’s mettle by their moods, their grades, or their social standing. Look for your children’s capacity for reverence, for gratitude and for compassion. As all parents know, building a self-reliant child takes time, thought, planning and discipline. It doesn’t just ‘happen’- parents have a responsibility to make it happen. Mogel found a way to bring this about in her family by the legacy of the Jewish tradition - she passes on her own discoveries and begs parents to plan the curriculum for their children’s spiritual education as thoughtfully as they plan their academic education.

© Jill Curtis 2002

A wonderful book for all parents.

Scribner     $25    $37  £17.50   ISBN 0684862972

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