I have a guest post up at Green Prophet, Breastfeeding and “Supply and Demand.” If you know anyone worried about not having enough milk, this is a good place to start.

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We all want our children to be compassionate, but teaching this in our individualistic culture can be challenging. Here are my thoughts:

1. Show compassion for your children from when they are babies. A person can only be compassionate if he has experienced compassion from others. We comfort babies when they cry, even when we don’t know the reason, and we don’t let babies cry to teach them a lesson or force them to fall asleep. Showing compassion to babies develops a capacity for compassion not only in the child but also in ourselves. By inuring ourselves to their screams we become less sensitive to the pain of others.
   As a child grows, showing compassion when it is not needed can be harmful, like picking up a child’s shoe when she says she is too tired. But usually, focusing on the emotions behind the negative feelings while emphasizing correct actions will take us in the right direction.

Read more on Teaching Compassion to Children: Start When They Are Babies…

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The September/October edition of New Beginnings, La Leche League International’s magazine, contains an article by Sheila Kippley about her new book The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor

I recognize this approach is not for everyone. However, many couples wish to minimize the use of artificial birth control for a variety of reasons, and it can be difficult to find information about the relationship between breastfeeding and fertility.

Read more on Breastfeeding: An Optimal Way to Space Babies…

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I’ve adapted this idea from an earlier meme called “Eight things about me.” (A meme is a cross between a chain letter and a themed blog post.) I changed the number to seven, in honor of the seven days of Sukkot (Tabernacles festival).

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Which of the following situations is disturbing, distracting, or inappropriate in shul?

• Cracking open a bag of Bamba for a toddler, who proceeds to distribute the contents around the shul Hansel and Gretel style.

Read more on The Truth about Nursing in the Ezrat Nashim…

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Treppenwitz posts about the common Hebrew expression used by parents when kids have minor scrapes:”Lo kara kloom,” or “It’s nothing.” Since his blog decided to eat up my comments, I’m responding here.

“Lo kara kloom” is a way of comforting a child and sending him the messsage that everything is okay. But it is often used to minimize or ignore genuine emotions.

Many parents overreact when when their kids get hurt. Yet underreacting can be just as
harmful. Have you ever been upset about a situation, only to be told that it’s nothing? Years ago I was in a car accident; my ribs were badly bruised and painful. For many reasons, the accident was traumatic and it took me a month to recover. I resented the friends who, instead of acknowledging my feelings, implied that I should get over it and be glad that the accident wasn’t more serious. I knew that; I was grateful, but I still suffered. (Actually, the only one who really understood was my own mother a”h.)

I once saw a little boy in the park bump his head on a piece of equipment. Hard. The mother didn’t comfort him, pick him up, nor acknowledge his very real pain in any way. While he screamed hysterically, the mother kept repeating a variation of “lo kara kloom:” “It doesn’t hurt, you’re fine, you don’t need to cry.” Is this a way of toughening up boys?

Our job as parents is to recognize when our children are going to pick themselves up after a fall and skip off, and when they need cuddling and sympathy. It starts when they are babies: Do we recognize that they are crying for a reason, or do we assume that they are manipulating us?

By reflecting children’s feelings, and giving them a proper dose of sympathy or comfort, we help them learn when they can manage on their own and when they need our help. But we need to keep in mind that what looks to us like “kloom” (nothing) may actually be “mashehu” (something).

Read more on Minimizing children’s pain…

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