Reply To: Taking children (3rd garde and up) to shul

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#891623
Nechomah
Participant

Having sons who are reluctant to go to shul because, in my opinion, their father could never take them to shul, I would say that it is very important for a father to take his son to shul and let him see that you’re makpid on daavening in a minyan (regardless of the time). I can’t see the harm in missing your regular time for daavening while it is vacation time to take that opportunity to teach your son how to behave in shul and what the daavening during the week looks like (I imagine that taking him to shul on Shabbos is not an issue). It is to your credit that you take this interest in your son’s chinuch at this stage. I had a neighbor whose 5 year-old son was ready to go to shul to daaven netz on Rosh Hashanah before his father just out of excitement. Having a chance to spend time with his father I’m sure will be very good for your son.

As far as women screaming at their husbands (which I am unfortunately guilty of myself), I would strongly suggest that you speak to a third party so that both of you can hear the other’s side in a nonantagonizing way. If she has a Rebbetzin she is close with or you want to pick a neutral third party, if you don’t mind “hanging out the dirty laundry” for someone, it would be good to help the lines of communication develop on less attacking levels so that both of you can learn to handle these kinds of situations which come up more and more often the older the children get, hopefully without the aid of the third party in the future.