Dear Aviva,
My husband quit smoking before we ever met, and when we dated I made it very clear that I will not tolerate him picking up the habit again. We're married about 4 years and I've recently been noticing signs that he has gotten into it again. I confronted him, and he fessed up right away, but I am so mad at him! I'm worried that my kids will grow up with a bad role model while they're inhaling second-hand smoke-which is way worse than regular smoking! How do I get him to stop?
-Not Breathing Easy
Dear Not Breathing Easy,
Well, we can just end this article right here if you are looking to get him to stop. There is only one person on earth who can get him to stop. And that is him.
Here's how I see it: he is doing something that he is ashamed of (henceforth he did not tell you that this is what he was doing, you had to discover it and confront him). Now you are enlightened and you both know full well that his Achilles' heel is in need of a cast or a brace or something. You can either pinch the injury by frantically sniffing him every time he walks in the door, or you can flick that heel by following him out to the porch like a mother hen. Or you can randomly use his car to see if there's a lighter or Febreze stashed away. These are all good suggestions to keep you feeling very involved while keeping your husband from ever feeling safe enough to tell you what is actually going on.
Ready for one of the hardest things you've ever done for your marriage? Accept the possibility that your husband may never quit. Ok, so we've caught you up to your husband's reality. Now you can help him try to kick this habit (if he wants to). If you're not playing principal, he will be more likely to open up to you when he fails. Make it ok for him to fail. Then he will only be fighting his temptation and not his parole officer as well.
I'll give you some information from another side of the temptation coin. Men who have pornography addictions can't shake it so easily. But, according to Barry Horowitz, men whose wives are on board with them and support them actually soar in overcoming their struggles. In Alcoholics Anonymous, they suggest having a sponsor-someone whom you are comfortable with, who you can check in with to let them know how you are doing. You say when it's a good day, you say when you mess up. And they are there to tell you, "It's ok, let's keep going. Tomorrow is a new day." Here, a wife who supports her husband is a sponsor that is around 24/7.
So your job is to calm down, and tell your husband how much you love him. Tell him that you understand that this is not an easy thing for him. Say that you are his partner and will not judge him anymore. And that's all you will say. Now you have to show him that you are serious. Don't sniff, don't confront and don't dart your eyes to his pockets. Once he feels safe (like in 2 weeks of this), you can gently ask, "How's the smoking going?" And if he feels safe with you in this area and other areas, he will open up. And you will say, "Wow, that's so hard." Or, "I'm really proud of you for trying."
Another thing that may be worth looking into is the stressors in his life and the way he relives stress. Think of healthy outlets that would be good for you two as a couple and present it as "couple's time" as opposed to "your new, healthy, constructive ventilation system." Bike riding season is starting soon, and jogging is always in season. Or, if he already has something in place (like the gym or basketball with buddies), make sure that you encourage him going. That doesn't mean that you should say, "Hey, it's 8:00! You're going to be late to basketball! C'mon, get up and leave!" No. Instead make side comments that he can overhear like, "Sorry Chani, but I never go out at 8 on Wednesdays. That's hubby's basketball time."
Will he stop lighting up? Don't hold your breath. But at least you'll fire up his heart in your direction.
Aviva Rizel

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC

How do you help your children when they're struggling with sibling rivalry?

Recently, I've spoken to three different women's groups who wanted help with sibling rivalry. Each group began with the same question: Why can't my children get along?

I explained that sibling rivalry is common and probably unpreventable. I wanted to reassure them that they were not to blame for the bickering, yelling, fighting, and other manifestations of sibling rivalry they were seeing in their homes. Apparently that message was well received. There were no more questions about "why is this happening" and "how can I prevent it." The new question was, "How do I deal with it when it happens?"

My four-year old teases his older brother and sister when they are trying to do their homework, or sitting and reading a book. They are really very good about it. They never hit him or push him. They tell him to go away. Sometimes their voices get a little bit loud, but that's just because he doesn't listen to them. Sometimes they come over to me and ask me to make him stop. I don't know how to make him stop! I mean I can take him out of their room, and explain to him that he has to leave them alone because they're reading or doing their homework, and I can put him in time out and he'll stay there for three or four minutes, but it won't be long until he's right back there again teasing and distracting them. How am I supposed to deal with him?

What would you rather your four-year-old do while his brother and sister are busy reading and doing homework?

I don't know.

I suspect he doesn't know either. I'm not sure he is teasing and distracting them because he wants to be a malicious.

No, he's not a malicious child at all; he's very sweet most of the time.

Could it be that he doesn't have any homework, and he doesn't know how to read, and he is bored, and teasing his siblings is not about distracting them from what they're doing, it's about relieving his boredom? I don't know about you, but I am one of the many people for whom boredom is extremely unpleasant. Maybe it's really hard for your four-year-old also. It's also possible that your four-year-old is experiencing sibling rivalry over the fact that his older sister can read and his older brother has homework to do, and he does not. I'm sure it won't take long, and he won't be jealous of somebody else's homework once he has plenty of his own, but in the meantime it's something his big siblings get to do and he is left out. Helping him find something to do so that he feels useful will be more effective than telling him to leave his older brother and sister alone.

Next question:

How do you teach children Shalom strategies when things are calm?

I would suggest you begin by acknowledging and celebrating your child's being calm. Say his name, make eye contact with him, and say to him, "you are (reading, writing, playing, getting along, etc.) so nicely; you're such a good boy!"

Then, before you teach him anything, find out what he's already learned.

What do you mean? What makes you think he's learned anything? Ten minutes earlier he and his sister were screaming at each other, and sooner or later they will be again, so what did he learn?

Apparently, he learned how to temporarily disengage from a screaming session with his sister. I would like you to help him figure out what Sholom strategy he used so that he can use it again; use it again to disengage from the next screaming session a little more quickly, and to stay disengaged longer. I hope that someday he and his sister will no longer have screaming sessions. Many siblings eventually outgrow that kind of thing and become friends. Try to trust that and be patient.

Follow-up question:

Maybe it's okay to be patient when they're screaming at each other, but what about when they're hitting, I should just stand there patiently and hope they'll stop soon?

No, you have to intervene verbally or physically, if necessary, to stop the fight.

Q: What about this situation, Rabbi Ackerman. This morning, my four year old hit my seven-year-old. My seven-year-old came over to me and said, "Mommy, he hit me, I want you to hit him." Isn't he right? He didn't hit his brother back; he came to me like I've told him to. What do you think I should do, isn't it appropriate that I hit the four-year-old to punish him for hitting his brother?

A: First of all, what did you do?

I didn't get a chance to do anything, because the school bus came right then, but as soon as they get home from school I'm sure my older son is going to ask me again, he is going to want to me to hit his brother for hitting him. Doesn't that make sense?

It makes sense if you are a Sadducee. They thought that "an eye for an eye" was to be taken literally. Chazal taught us that that's not true, that actually the Torah is alluding to tashlumen, compensation for harm done. The Torah Temima suggests that physically harming a perpetrator accomplishes nothing for the victim, whereas compensation exacts a penalty from the culprit and provides benefit to the one whom he harmed.

At this point, we ran out of time at the group, and we've run out of space for this article. G-d willing, we'll continue with this topic next time.

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC. Men's and women's parenting groups now available. Call for details: 718-344-6575.

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC

How do you teach children shalom strategies when things are calm?

Do you believe in timeout? And if yes, how would you do it?

When does your child have the opportunity to learn how to regain shalom with her siblings? When does she get to reflect on how the shalom was lost to begin with? What is your expectation for her? Do you want her to develop a shalom strategy that will ensure unbroken tranquility with her siblings? Having never met her or any of her siblings, I can confidently tell you that unbroken tranquility is an excellent example of an unrealistic expectation.

But why can't she and her brother get along?

Are you sure that they never get along?

Okay, yes, sometimes they play together very nicely, and sometimes they just leave each other alone which is fine with me. But all of a sudden, pandemonium breaks out and I can't prevent it because I can't tell when it's going to happen.

And when it happens, what do you do?

I send the two of them into timeout.

You send the two of them into timeout together?

No, I send her to her room and I send him to his room.

When you send each of them into their respective rooms, what would you like them to be doing there?

I'd like them to be away from each other until they figure out how to get along with each other.

So you imagine that when you send them to their rooms, they are sitting there thinking about how to get along with each other better. I would like to give you some homework about that, what you think?

Okay, I'm willing to give it a try. What would you like me to do?

I would like you to sit down with Mendy and with Mindy, separately, after they've finished their next timeouts, the timeouts they got because they were at each other again. Ask each of them what they were thinking about while they were in timeout. No matter what they say, I want you to say, "okay I was just curious, thank you," and walk away. What do you think about doing that?

Yes, I'm willing to do it. But what if I don't like what they say?

For the time being, I just want you to find out what they've been thinking about during timeout. If you don't like it, we'll help them do better gradually. I would like to do this one step at a time.

Mom did it, and a week later told me that both Mendy and Mindy had told her pretty much the same thing.

During their timeout, each of them was planning how to get back at the other one for getting them in trouble. Not much of a shalom strategy. Not that anything came of it, they didn't do anything to get back at each other, at least not that I was aware of. But it doesn't look like they accomplished anything either. So, timeout is not a good idea?

Timeout is not an idea. Timeout is an opportunity. It takes a child out of a situation in which she is not doing well, and gives her the opportunity to figure out what went wrong, how to get things right again, and maybe even how to prevent what went wrong from happening again. Your role is to help her make the most of that opportunity, because many children don't know how on their own.

The next time pandemonium breaks out between Mendy and Mindy, I'd like you to say, "This situation is not going well. I would like each of you to go to your room and sit quietly until you're not so angry anymore. Then I would like you to try to figure out what happened that you didn't like that got you so angry. Then, think about what you could say or do the next time that happens, instead of what you did last time."

I'm sure that if I were to say that to them they would both turn to me and immediately say that they don't know what else to do.

Yes, I suspect they probably would, and the key word here is "immediately." So I would want you to say to them, "I know you don't know what else to do right this second. That's why I want to go to your rooms, sit quietly for a while, and then see what you can come up with. If either of you still can't come up with anything, please come to me and ask me to help you."

All right. So now it's 10 minutes later, and the two of them come over to me and say, "we don't know what else to do." What should I tell them then?

I would try not to be so pessimistic. I have found that children often come up with very good ideas when they're given the time to think quietly, especially when you give them some gentle guidance about what to think about.

Many of us spend our timeouts feeling bad about what we did wrong and trying to shift some of the blame onto someone else so we won't feel so bad about ourselves. I'm not sure whether that comes naturally or if it's something we learn. I am sure that we can become conscious of how we spend our reflective time, turning it into an opportunity for planning shalom strategies and teaching our children how to do the same.

But still, what if they don't come up with an idea. What should I tell them?

Don't tell them anything. Speak with each of them, separately.

More, G-d willing, next week.

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC. Men's and women's parenting groups now available. Call for details: 718-344-6575.

It is a manifestly true assertion, one often made, that the two biggest and most important jobs that we all have, and for which we are least prepared, are marriage and parenting. We tend to think that since we watched our parents' marriage, and saw what we liked and what we did not like, we will know exactly what to do in our own marriages-a manifestly false assertion. In addition, since we were all "parented" and, again, saw what we liked and we did not like, we enter into parenting thinking we know it all.

It comes as a rude awakening, upon having the first big argument with our spouse, that marriage may not be as easy as we thought. As the weeks and months pass by, the awareness that living together well with someone is not only difficult, but we really do not know much about what we are doing. However, if everyone else can do it, so can I. We, then, proceed to operate by the seat of our pants, with a hit or miss kind of approach. It is true that "trial and error" does work some of the time, but it is very wearing and tearing on the nervous and emotional systems. It begins to swallow up energy that would be better spent on doing things, in our marriages, that are more likely to succeed.

It is not much different with parenting. Most couples really believe that they know how to parent. Everyone has ideas about good and bad parenting, and we are sure that we know what the right and wrong approaches are. The day finally arrives, for all of us, when we are faced with situations that seem to defy all logic and whatever we try, flops. The first few "flops" are not earth-shattering, but when we begin to see the behaviors, in our child/children, which were exactly the ones that we were trying to correct, most of us begin to have doubts, to say the least, concerns or fears that we may not know as much as we thought we did. However, it is not until most of us are in deep trouble (we think) that we seek help.

What would happen if we could get a "heads up" on parenting? Would we not be better off if we began our parenting careers feeling that we have some solid and practical tools and skills that would really make a difference? Of course we would!

The truth is that there is a great deal of helpful information as well as workshops and courses that are available if sought. What we need is some consciousness-raising that we all need, without exception, to avail ourselves of what is out there. Like anything else of value, it takes a desire and effort to find the appropriate workshop or books, but If we truly understood that we all come into parenting without really knowing what we are doing and that there really are skills and tools that can help us become better parents, we would all seek them.

I am here to tell you that there is not one of us, not one of us, who does not need help with parenting. If you are smart, whether you have very young children, elementary school age children, middle or high school age children, you will seek out good parenting books/courses/workshops. You cannot imagine how knowing or having a handle on good and practical parenting skills can change the quality of your life. When you improve your ability to relate and understand your child/children, your life and the life of your child move to a new and healthier plane. There is tremendous gratification in knowing that you are doing something that is right, or that, at least, you are trying to perfect your parenting practices. None of us will ever be perfect parents because we are human, but our children are more likely to forgive us our mistakes when they know that we are sincerely trying to be better and more understanding parents. And, we all make mistakes, but if you are growing, seeking, changing not only will your child respect you for those efforts, but you have communicated one of the most important life-lessons to your child, and that is, that none of us are perfect but we strive toward perfection. You want to be the best parent for your child that you can be; he/she, in turn, will want to be, because you have shown him/her the way, the best person he can be. What more can a parent ask for?

Miriam Lowenbraun

MS in Counseling, Johns Hopkins University

Founder of the Institute of Basic Parenting which offers parenting workshops and lay-leader training

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC

I appreciate the nachas that I get from parents like Ayala, and enjoy hearing about the nachas she has from her daughter, Ronit.

Ayala expressed empathy to her child, and it allowed her child to express her feelings and her wants more accurately. The result of that was a suggestion that might make Ronit's bed time less difficult for both of them, a suggestion that came from the child.

Here's Ayala's letter.

Ronit has been having a hard time with bedtime and of course I've been utilizing your methods. The articles on empathy were also so helpful. Tonight she cried again and once more I asked her, "I see you're crying. What's so hard for you at bed time. I wish you would use your words instead." She finally calmed herself down and said, "Ma I'm so jealous that everyone else is still up when I go to sleep. It makes me sad." Amazing!! We then were able to have a conversation on what she can do when she feels jealous. She asked to play on her Nintendo for a few minutes each night in bed!! Incredible stuff!! Rabbi Ackerman I'm still impressed every time. What a success! And yes of course I told her how well she worked that out for herself!! Thanks again!!

Over the past few weeks, we've looked at some of the concerns parents have about expressing empathy towards their child.

I don't have enough time to give empathy.

It is not relevant; I'm too busy focusing on the problem.

Giving empathy is emotionally exhausting for me.

I don't want to open that Pandora's Box.

I haven't had enough training in empathic communication.

I'm concerned that if I use up all my empathy on one child I won't have anything left for the rest of my family.

We've addressed the first three, and this week we're up to number four. How did Ayala overcome this obstacle to empathy in order to have this conversation with Ronit? What gave her the courage to open Pandora's Box?

According to the myth, Pandora's Box contains every kind of evil that exists. Thus, the expression, "to open Pandora's Box," means to expose yourself to all kinds of difficulties that you think would better be contained inside the box.

What is the answer to a parent who is reluctant to invite a child to express her fears, frustrations, or jealousy because it would be opening Pandora's Box? I found the answer on page 168 of a book called The Facts On File Dictionary of Classical, Biblical, and Literary Allusions. I found out that there's one more thing in Pandora's Box besides all the evil and trouble. All the way down at the bottom, there is Hope.

Maybe the metaphor is that until you open the box and face what's frightening, you don't realize that there is hope. You may be afraid to invite your child to tell you what's inside of their box of fear, anger, disappointment, or jealousy. You may be thinking that allowing them to express what they are feeling obligates you to help them feel better and you don't know how. The reality is that your empathic listening gives them the opportunity to explore what they are already struggling with rather than teaching them to deny it. Then you can offer them hope that they will think about things differently and feel better someday soon. You can't think about something differently, and feel better about it, until you look at it. That's why the hope is inside the box.

David haMelech, A'H, in Psalm 48 wrote, "diminu Elokim chasdecha." Rav S. R. Hirsch explains diminu as "to make a likeness or a picture for one's self, to conceive of something," and translates the phrase as follows: "We had heretofore conceived of Thy mercy, O G-d." (The Psalms, Rav Hirsch, Feldheim, page 343) In the Artscroll Interlinear Siddur, Rav Davis translates diminu as "we hoped." (Ashkenaz, page 223) When you picture something, look at it more calmly and get a clearer, more accurate understanding of your thoughts and feelings, you gain hope that you will cope with them and develop new strategies for success. That's what Ayala accomplished by empathizing with Ronit. Ayala invited Ronit to describe all of the unpleasant thoughts and feelings with which she was struggling. Her empathy allowed Ronit to look at all of the scary things in her box, and resulted in Ronit's developing a strategy for success. And Ronit is, bli ayin hara, three.

There are two obstacles to empathy we have not addressed in these articles:

I haven't had enough training in empathic communication.

I'm concerned that if I use up all my empathy on one child I won't have anything left for the rest of my family.

Once you've learned empathic communication, you'll know that empathy begins with yourself. Learning how to monitor your own need for nurturance will help you nurture others without running out. I would not attempt to teach that to you in an article. I hope you will seek someone to teach and nurture you. You and your children deserve no less.

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC. Men's and women's parenting groups now available. Call for details: 718-344-6575.