bsharg2

“once I had a student who was always wearing the “wrong ” socks 9ie socks which the school didn’t allow) I bought her a bunch of permitted socks and wrapped them in nice paper and each day left a different pair in her locker with a funny note. Problem solved with out a word of tochacha. A year later we had a follow up discussion whith no anger and today this girl is married with children of her own and she always wears socks and is very tzanua. What would have happened if I would have punished her? yelled ? lectured? ”

The way you handled this was really good. I think if you had yelled or lectured the girl, she would have been turned off, upset, and more likely to break halacha. But instead you made it into a positive thing by gifting her the socks, and set her on the right path!

Boys are ready earlier, its parents that get too nervous….let them start shidduchim

Also people have overly high expectations of marriage as OP suggested.
People think its going to be amazing all the time, they are not prepared for challenges and real life. My husband and I realize that we are going to argue and disagree, there are things we dislike about each other and issues after many years being married to the same person you are going to have disagreements. But you work through it and thats what you have to do.
Generally, being divorced is a worse scenario so its not worth it. I think the only situation I would do it is there was physical abuse and thats it.

I’ve found that the best parenting strategy is ignoring bad behavior. It works so well. Especially for younger children.

If they are whining or throwing a tantrum, just completely ignore them until they stop and ask nicely. Like if they are whining they want a cookie or to play with some toy, whatever it is. I dont respond to whining. I don’t even say anything. Just ignore until the tantrum stops. I don’t scold them or yell at them—it doesnt work.

If they bite or hit or pull hair or hurt me or my husband, we just walk away. Don’t even say anything. Don’t say “ouch!” Just silence. Walk away from them. Within days, they stop the behavior.

Children actually crave negative attention just like positive attention. So if you give them negative attention by yelling at them, or hitting them, they will keep doing the bad behavior.

“My 19 year old daughter just started shidduchim, most of the boy’s that are read are alproximately 20 years of age. We are a regular Chassidishe family listening to regular Chassidishe boys. My daughter has only 4 engaged girls out of her class of 30. She attended a very Chassidishe school.

Even Satmer boys who get engaged young are generally at least 18 years of age while there could be kallahs 17 years of age but they wait until they are 18 to get married and they are a minority. Most boys and girls in the very frum Chassidishe crowd are at least 18 when they start listening. I do know of a Rebbishe girl who got engaged at 16 and married at 17. But even for Rebbishe, it is very young. My friend has an 18 year old son in Satmer yeshiva and none of his classmates are engaged yet.

The trend is certainly not 17 years of age. In Israel 17 years of age is also not the norm. Maybe by the Meah Shaerim Chassidishe like Reb Aharon’s Chassidim, maybe they go at that age. I’m not familiar with that shidduchim scene.”

17-18 years old is good for shidduchim. You get married and you grow/mature together as a couple. The younger, the easier it is to form a relationship.

“R’ Yoely Roth (Breslov) has a song about marrying kids young to “fix” virtually all issues a boy/girl has. Not that I agree with him, but he does mean it lishmuh. And he has a pretty large following, that seems to be increasing. I don’t think he specifies an exact age in the song.”

Yes this is true. When people marry, they generally become better and are more likely to follow the right path. You have a direction in life, a purpose to take care of your family, and it is good.

“Then it was determined that it was the age gap. Those bastions of our kedusha kept up the tradition of insisting that 19 is old enough for a girl to know what she wants in life, but a boy has to be 22.”

This is dumb. The boys should be 19 too. More younger boys dating would solve the shidduch crisis. The boy doesnt need to already be earning/working necessarily, maybe hes still in school but there will be a future earning potential. He can be married and in kollel, I don’t see the conflict there. Or if he has a job that doesn’t require a ton of learning prior to working, like a blue collar job no problem there.

“I was told by someone that it’s pointless to set people up if you’re not 100% sure there won’t be a divorce because if they get married and then divorce it’s on you pleitzes (I disagree though)”

I disagree strongly with this. there is no way to “be 100% sure there wont be a divorce”. first of all divorces are not common. secondly, we have no way of knowing what a couple might argue about, or how their relatinoship could change in however many years.

If the boys just married earlier, there wouldnt be a shidduch crisis with all these single girls in the first place

Ideally, the boys should start dating when they are younger. It doesn’t make sense for girls and boys to wait til they are old and grey to start dating. The younger the better for both boys and girls. Easier to form a marriage and get along better because the older you get, the more you get set in your own ways.