My Son, the Tasmanian Devil

By: Chana Jenny Weisberg

“Most parents with a child like Yoel would give him ritalin,” my doctor mentioned matter-of-factly, as though she was saying something obvious like “Carrots contain lots of vitamin A” and “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.”

But what she was saying was far from obvious to me.

Up until several months before my 3-year-old son had been a very calm child, the kind of boy that caused neighbors and teachers alike to remark knowingly “You can see that this Yoel Weisberg is growing up in a house full of girls…”

But soon after I gave birth in the summer to my 5th daughter, my Yoel suddenly changed. Climbing, breaking, hitting– non-stop misbehaving.

My calm angel had been replaced by a Tasmanian devil.

The 3 years of parenting classes and the mountain of parenting books and the 12 years of mothering experience that I had under my belt had, I discovered, left me completely unprepared to cope with the hurricane that was my only son.

To maintain my sanity, I did something I had never done before. Instead of picking Yoel up from nursery school at 1:30 PM like all the other mothers, and as I had with all my daughters, I realized that I had no choice but to admit that I was simply not coping. I swallowed my pride and enrolled Yoel in an afternoon program until 4 PM, so that he would be out of the house for almost the whole day.

I felt like a failure. What kind of mother can’t stand being around her own son? And what kind of stay-at-home mother sends her 3-year-old out of the house, by choice, for 8 hours a day!

And when Yoel would walk through the door at 4 PM? My heart raced, my shoulder muscles locked. I was in full panic mode, as though a blood-thirsty lion or terrorist had just walked through my front door and not my Yoel, the son that I had davened for for so many years to join our house-full of Weisberg girls.

4 to 5 was the hardest hour of my day. It was an hour that lasted a week. Yoel was hitting and breaking and Tasmanian devil-ing while I was trying my best to maintain some kind of order and feed my older daughters a meal when they arrived home from school.

As soon as my girls were done eating, I would rush out of the house as soon as possible, and stay out until bedtime, since I found Yoel more manageable outside.

I didn’t know how long I could go on like this…

And then a mom who reads my blog, Chaya Cohen, wrote me one day to recommend that I take the Chanoch Lnaar course which, she explained, had empowered her with the skills necessary to mother her own rambunctious boys.

So I did register, and by the end of the first class I was addicted…

Week by week, Dina Friedman provided me with exactly the tools that I needed to mother my Yoel. She taught me how to nurture him, and empower him, and discipline him, and generally understand what makes him tick, so that I could be the best possible mother for him.

Yoel today, b”H, is a different kid. While my only son definitely still keeps me on my toes and challenges me in ways that my girls never did, it would not be an exaggeration to say that mothering Yoel today is a total pleasure (well, at least most of the time…)

Yoel today is more confident and calmer and happier. And I am too, because of Dina Friedman.

This year, every morning when Yoel walks into his cheider, I can see his teacher’s face light up.

But that’s not such a surprise. My face lights up too every time my Yoel walks in through the front door.

My angel (well, at least most of the time…) My only son. My Yoel.

Read the original post here: http://jewishmom.com/