Hagaon Harav Gershon Edelstein answered a chinuch question recently that is on the minds of many parents with teenagers at home during the current coronavirus era.
A parent asked. “There are children in the house above the age of 12 who aren’t keeping to a schedule because they’re in the house all the time. They’re going to sleep late and waking up late in the morning. How much should one be makpid with them on zeman tefillah and Kriyas Shema?”
Harav Edelstein answered: “Never force. Only through darchei noam.”
The parent clarified: “To nudge them with darchei noam?”
The Rav answered firmly: “No, no, no -never nudge – only darchei noam. The child knows what’s good for him. You should encourage him so he’ll have cheishek [to daven on time]. Force doesn’t have any influence at all. It causes an opposite effect. It’s assur to force a child – only through friendly means, with love.”
“In general, a child does what his father does,” Harav Edelstein emphasized. “It’s the nature of imitation. But if you force him, you’ll have the opposite effect. Only through darchei noam. He shouldn’t feel at all that he’s being criticized.”
“A child feels the criticism and it hurts him very much. It causes the child to throw off responsibility. The child should never feel criticized – this is an important rule in chinuch.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
It’s a halacha in Shulchan oruch that you have to wake someone up if he’s about to miss zman krias shema!!
PLEASE CORRECT. He is clearly talking about 12 year old children as that was the question as can be clearly heard and it also so says so clearly stated on the screen. NOT BOCHURIM. He would most probably have a very different answer for bochurim as they are obligated in mitzvos. The difference is obvious. Your headline is very misleading, wrong and a huge מכשול לרבים. Please correct it.
Thank you
That’s on the assumption that he wants to wake up and say it. So wake the kid up and say “Would you like to say krias shma? It’s almost the zman, so I thought you might like to be woken up for it.”