Purim: Are you the spontaneous or the structured type?

Purim was just here, and what a holiday it was – you either hate it or love it. Why is that: why should it

create strong feelings, and what determines how you feel about it? It depends on what type of person

you are. Are you the spontaneous or the structured type? Do you plan or play it by ear? Do you go with

the flow… or do you need to know where the flow will go? And, since we are already asking these

penetrating questions, what is best for us to be, as parents: spontaneous or structured? What should

we want for our children?

You’ll hear a lot of talk about the need for consistency in our lives.

Consistency has value for adults; it helps us create ways to get things done. This is important, right!? If

you’re not sure now, think about it the next time the electricity or water gets turned off because we

didn’t schedule or budget our payment! It also helps in our day to day-to-day life. It organizes what

needs to get done and it helps shape the way our days look. It helps us prioritize what should get done,

especially when we have so much on our plates. It focuses us to see what needs to get done and what’s

being done, so that we can compare and make sure we are meeting long and/or short terms goals.

Being constant allows us to meet our families’ needs - shopping to have food in the house on a regular

basis. It allows our families to eat and for us to cook Shabbos. Doing laundry on a regular basis allows

our families to dress in clean clothes everyday. Scheduled “down time” – whether it’s davening,

learning or Tehillim, yoga, a walk or a nap – allows us to stay healthy and take care of ourselves and

those we love. Creating constants and structure can truly help our sanity: just knowing there is a time

and a place for everything, a feeling like we know what that time and where that place is.

Reliability helps build trust and confidence within our families. They know when certain things get done

and can count on that. They know where things are so they can go and get a snack or milk from the

fridge because someone has made sure that it is there. For children this is especially important – it is the

basis of their earliest feelings of security, stability and routine. We – who’ve been around a while -

understand that “things don’t always run smoothly” and handle it as adults, but many times children can

feel overwhelmed or scared about these changes and differences in their environment. We can often

see this in young children when mom has a new baby: suddenly that which is familiar to them (mom’s

routines and schedule and role) changes. Dad, also (being a wonderful sport) changes his routines and

takes on the challenges of additional duties. He may be doing some of mom’s jobs, but it is not always

“like mom does it”, and we often see young children respond with anger, a meltdown, crying or acting

out…just not being himself. It is natural insecurity and the need for consistency in the child; it takes

maturity and a feeling of overall security to accept change, as well as a maturity in a child’s neurological

system. In children that have trouble with this there are additional ways to help them process. Perhaps

we can address that at a different time.

OK, so now that we’ve spoken so highly about consistency…what about spontaneity?

Spontaneity is important – it helps avoid being “stuck in a rut.” It keeps our eyes open to so many

amazing opportunities out there. The world presents us with so many gifts that we must be open to

seeing and trying. It also keep us fresh and flexible! Instead of responding in the same way – and

training myself that there’s only THAT WAY to respond – I keep myself open to new ideas and thoughts.

I’m ready to go “out of the box” for solutions when that’s needed.

Spontaneous people often exhibit creativity – because they don’t plan and think about what must come

next; they just DO something!

And let’s face it, life does not always go as planned. The people who understand that even plan B – AND

plans C, D and E – sometimes fall through are going to live with less stress when it happens. They have

less trouble when thing don’t turn out the way they expected. It may be easier for them to adapt,

and/or simply move on to the next thing life has in store for them. There’s less let-down when the plans

fall through if you didn’t have so many plans, or didn’t make so much of your life depend on them:

there’s less disappointment, since many times disappointment and frustration are connected to not

having our expectation meet.

So which are you, and what should you aim to be?!

There needs to be a balance: too much one way or the other is not healthy for anyone. We all know

people who are imbalanced one way or the other in this; usually they have very hard lives. This could be

why Purim is not so loved by some – it is often a crazy and spontaneous kind of holiday! (And isn’t it

interesting how Pesach is a totally STRUCTURED holiday? Everything has to be cleaned and made just so,

we need to be extra careful of every crumb of food. Even the meal at night is called the SEDER, the

organized meal. It’s got to unfold in a certain order. Do you suppose there’s more to this transition from

Purim to Pesach than meets the eye? I’ll leave that open for us to think about.)

Our children need this balance, too, and guess what…we need to be role models in this (again!) It’s like

a muscle the more we practice the more we will grow! Most of us are born with an innate disposition to

one way or the other. We all know children who are strongly towards one of the extremes.: the child

who can never find their clothing, and is always late, the other child who has great difficulty when the

usual Morah isn’t in gan because things aren’t being done the way they should be done.

Our job is to, somehow, show them both points of view, and when to use each. The Gemara tells us

that a talmid chacham needs to be BOTH as rigid as a rod, but as flexible as a reed. It’s a matter of

when…but we need to have both tools in our skillsets.

For a child that can’t be on time, I recommend helping them lay out clothing the night before, and giving

them a “timer” to challenge them to “beat the clock.” For a child that hates when the teacher is out

practice talking about what good can be seen in the situation, what fun might be had by trying

something new.

There are many other techniques and ways to help your child (and maybe yourself, too!) find balance.

Join us tonight – even if you weren’t planning on it �� – to talk and share experiences and ideas about

tools we can use to help our children…