I don’t like “why” questions. I don’t like them because when you ask one, you put
the recipient on the defensive, whether you intended to or not.

When a child does something that you don’t like, or doesn’t do something you had
asked him to do, you would do better to ask ‘what happened” rather than “why did
you” or “why didn’t you.” Ha’ksav v’Hakabala (Vayikra 19:17) writes that when you
want to give admonition, you should not say “why did you do that?” You should
instead describe what you observed the person saying or doing, and then ask them
what happened.

Children are usually pretty good at describing what happened, at least from their
point of view. Your best choice is usually to go with their point of view and then ask
them another question: “what were you trying to accomplish with what you did,
what did you want?”

How often do you know what you want?

You may have heard the expression, “begin with the end in mind.” It means to
have kavana, to think about what you could say or do that would bring you closer
to what you want. It’s a great idea. The problem is that it’s predicated on the
assumption that you know what you want, and you, and your child, often don’t
know.

I don’t have any formal statistics on the matter, but I would estimate that more
than 90% of the time when you ask a child, “what did you wish would happen when
you did what you did,” the answer is, “I don’t know.” When parents tell me that
they repeatedly scream at their child, I ask the same question, “what were you
hoping to accomplish, what was the end you had in mind?” They very often say the
same thing: “I don’t know.”

But they do know. They wanted their child to stop what she was doing, and she
did. She stopped. They knew that screaming at her would startle her and scare
her into stopping what she was doing.

I don’t know what to do anymore! I can’t tell you how many times have I seen
out of the corner of my eye, my four-year-old went over to her baby brother and
poked him or pulled on him or touched near his eye. How many times do I have to
scream at her before she realizes that she could hurt him? As soon as I yell, she
pulls her hand away, so yes I do know that yelling at her gets her to stop. But it
seems like no time at all before she does the same thing again! I’ve explained to

her that he is very little, and that she is much bigger and that she could hurt him.
I’ve been over this with her many times, and I’ve asked her, “do you understand?”
She either nods her head silently or she frowns at me and says yes. I wish I could
get her to remember what I have explained to her so many times.

And therein lies the problem; this very sincere and concerned mother is not wishing
well. She wishes her daughter would understand that she has been hurting her
little brother. That wish already came true. I believe her daughter when her
daughter says that she understands what her mother explained to her.

A better wish for mom to have for her daughter would be one that begins with the
end in mind. What does mom want? So far, it sounds like the only thing mom
wants is for her four-year-old daughter to stop hurting her baby brother. If mom
were wishing well, she’d be wishing for her daughter to play with her baby brother
in a way that is appropriate, in a way that both of them would enjoy.

I offered this suggestion to the mom. I asked her how she could help her daughter
come up with ways to play with the baby that would be gentle and pleasant. I
found out that that was not the end that mom had in mind. She could not imagine
it happening.

For over three years, Rachel Bina was the baby of the family and she has had a
very hard time relinquishing that position to Shmuel Dovid. And it’s not like he’s
so demanding. He’s a very easy baby, but Rachel Bina is jealous of any amount of
attention I give him. I think she wants to hurt him, and I don’t know how to get
her to stop and not do it again as soon as I turn around.

Mom’s wish, I now understood, was that Rachel Bina would relinquish her role as
baby of the family. My wish was to help mom understand that Rachel Bina would
be more likely to relinquish her role as baby of the family when she had a new role
to fill. The role of “not hurting her baby brother” was not enough.

I guess that’s why she frowns at me when she says she understands that I don’t
want her to hurt the baby. She understands that she did something I don’t like,
but she doesn’t know what I wish she would do instead. Now that I think about it,
she’s in a vicious circle. She doesn’t like the baby, she’s jealous of him, and then
I yell at her because of something she did to the baby, she sees it as the baby got
her in trouble so she likes him even less. How do I stop it?

When something is happening that we don’t like, we are rarely able to stop it for
very long. Most of the time when we stop ourselves or someone else from doing
something, it starts again unless we replace it with something else. Call it a habit,
a pattern, a vicious circle, call it whatever you like. If you just wish it would stop,
you are not wishing well.

This mom came to wish she could create a new role for Rachel Bina.

She made time to spend one on one with her, and she taught Rachel Bina how to
help her with the baby. It wasn’t always easy.

But it was worth the effort to think about what she and Rachel Bina really wanted,
and work towards it.

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with
specialties in marriage, relationships, and parenting. He works with parents and
educators, and conducts parenting seminars for shuls and organizations. He can be
reached at 718-344-6575.