If It Feels Good

In Inyan magazine #952, Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald writes, "Children today, by and large, have replaced the concept of "good and evil" with 'comfortable and uncomfortable.' Not that they do not want to do what is right; on the contrary, they very much desire to do what is correct. How then do they "know" what is the right thing to do? They see how it feels. If it "feels good," it is good, and if it "feels bad," it must be bad."

I wonder whether this comes from "safety" talks with kids, in which children are told that if someone does something that makes them feel uncomfortable, that's not good and they should leave immediately and report it.

Idealistic Women

At the Agudah Midwest Convention, R' Dishon read a letter that he received.  The letter, from a woman in Lakewood, told him off (his words). He felt the tears and pain in the letter.  It said:

What do you want from me? You say to spend quality time with your children. Can you tell me when? I get up at 6:00 in the morning and have to hurry and get ready.  I can't afford a babysitter [to come to the house], so at 7:00 on the icy road, I run to bring my son to a babysitter.  

Then she goes to a town near Lakewood to teach. She comes home 2:00 and has to rush and prepare lunch because her husband has to get ready for 2nd seder. When he leaves, she cleans up the house. Her boys comes home from cheder at 4:00. In the evening she's falling apart and she has to prepare for teaching the next day.  Where is the quality time for my kids? she asks.

Unfortunately, the lecture ended with R' Dishon extolling these ladies who live such a life, who are so idealistic, and he does not respond to her question.  Nor does he, in any way, say: This is a crazy life you are living, in which you sacrifice your children for your husband's learning.

As R' Elya put it, " 'What you are doing is in gantzen nisht nohrmal!" (completely abnormal)" see here

The madness continues.  And so do the articles about the myriad problems that children today have, and the mothers with PPD and numerous emotional/mental problems.

OTD in Yerushalayim

In a Binah magazine interview with Rebbetzin Chana Weinberg, of the Slonimer family, a 7th generation Yerushalmi, a descendent of the Boruch Taam, a Baharan* einikel, I read a shocking thing.

She said that after World War II, when she was in fifth grade, she went to the first Bais Yaakov school in Yerushalayim.  One of the teachers was Chava Landsberg, a student of Sarah Schenirer.  They were approximately forty girls and only three girls remained frum.  "If I tell you their names, you will tremble ... daughters of roshei yeshiva, daughters of Rebbes, all went off the derech completely.  All of my friends and neighbors joined the movements of the Haganah, Etzel, Brit Chashmonaim and Beitar, singing patriotic songs and going to meetings.  The bachurim too joined the Haganah.  I would see boys in the streets, without hats, with guns, and then I would recognize them as bachurim from Yeshiva Eitz Chaim.

"Some of the youth left because of the extreme poverty, but many left because of their chinuch.  In some of these homes, the parents had come from Poland already influenced by the Bund.  Their homes were not whole and the children went searching for what was missing. They wanted excitement, they wanted enthusiasm!

"My friends laughed at me and said that I was naïve, that I didn't know what was going on.  I knew very well what was going on but I didn't ever want to go with them.  I wasn't interested at all.  There were many times I have asked myself why, why didn't I go?

"The only thing I can think of is that I had so much more at home.  I was fulfilled; I wasn't missing anything."


*Baharan stands for Ben HaRav Nachum.  Each of the five sons of Rav Nachum Shadiker (1810-1865) had a dream that they should move to Eretz Yisrael. Without knowing that the others had the same dream, each one packed to leave Poland.  They all met at the boat and traveled together to Eretz Yisrael.  They were known as the Baharan.

It's Just Too Hard

R' Daniel Gross spoke in Yiddish at the Keiravtuni Shabbaton.  He said he saw a bunch of guys hanging out, drop-outs.
 

One of them said, it's a pity I was born a Jew.

If I was born a goy I would have only 7 mitzvos.  Taryag mitzvos are a pressure for me, I always have a guilty conscience.

A goy gets olam haba for doing his seven.

***
So it's not the kid did not believe. He believed and wanted olam haba, but felt it was just too hard.  A friend of mine thinks this comes from "affluenza," which includes the idea that life should be easy.

R' Gross presented the issue to chassidishe bachurim, of why be a yid, what's good about it.  The best answer they could come up with was olam haba.  They viewed Torah and mitzvos as an ol (burden), and saw the point as just olam haba.

It's a great essay topic to assign 12th graders.  Describe the scene, repeat what the guy said about it being a shame he was born a Jew and why, and ask them to write their response.

 

My Children, Myself

In Zecharia 3:7, the angel says to Yehoshua the High Priest, "So says Hashem, if you go in My path ..."

The commentary Metzudas Dovid says this means, "If your children go in My path, and he [the angel] said it about him [Yehoshua] because a person's children are considered like himself."

Over the years, in numerous articles, I've seen how parents separate themselves from their children.  This is in the sad situations in which the child is not going in the ways of their parents and the parents agonize over this.  One way they have of dealing with it is to say things like: children are entrusted to us but they are not ours, we do the best we can and they have free choice, we can teach them and show them but ultimately the decision is theirs in how to live their lives. 

These lines are true but when the parent adds a "disconnect" to their perspective, this flies in the face of how we were created.  As Metzudas Dovid writes, our children are like ourselves.  This is why it is so devastating when they don't carry on our ways.  With a disconnect we don't feel as invested and we don't try as hard. 

To deny that our children are like ourselves might temporarily make someone feel better, but since it is not the reality, it is a false assurance.

May all parents derive yiddishe nachas from all their children.

No Scare Tactics

R' Yaakov Bender says (Chinuch with Chessed), "Gehinnom is not something to be discussed with 8 year olds, and perhaps not even with mesivta aged boys.  You may discuss reward and punishment but the gory details of Gehinnom will not create healthy teenagers.  There is a time and place for everything.  At the very sensitive age of 13 or 14, we are not trying to scare our children into being good."

Threat of punishment is scary.  So it's not clear how he proposes to discuss the punishment aspect without scaring the children.

And while only scaring children into being good is not a good approach, why should true, scary aspects of how Hashem runs the world be off limits?

I wonder how R' Bender thinks teachers should handle the more gory stories of our history, stories like Akeidas Yitzchok, Chana and her Seven Sons, the death of Rabbi Akiva, the curses in the Torah which are delineated in great, gory detail, etc. And I wonder how he thinks the Holocaust should be taught. Or maybe he is only opposed to gory details when it's Gehinnom, but when it entails what people do to people, he thinks differently.

I don't know, but this thought of his made me stop to think. I'm not convinced.

Good Chinuch

Tsirel attended Gateshead seminary.  One Lag B'Omer, the school went on an outing and a boat trip.  She knew that her parents were opposed to boat trips and told the hanhala she could not go.  She remained in the school alone (the principal and family were on the premises).

As she sat there reviewing her notes, there was a knock.  Who had shown up at the seminary? Her father and uncle! In her two years in seminary, they came just this one time, only because they were somewhat nearby and decided to drive to see her.

Her father asked where is everyone? Why are you here alone? She told him that the school had gone on a boating trip and she did not go because she knew he did not like the idea.  He was moved to tears.

Here was a popular, lively, fun-loving girl who did not attend a school sponsored trip because she knew her parents did not approve.  They would not have known if she went and the trip was really fine! But since she knew it was something they would not want, she stayed back.  How many parents wonder whether the lessons they've taught their children follow them, even when the children are not under the parents' watchful eyes? How many children are faithful to their parents' wishes when unsupervised by their parents?

A Thought-Provoking Letter

The following letter was printed in Binah magazine in March 2015:

"I live in a community where boxes are getting smaller and smaller, and the only way to get the contents to stay in the box is to sit on the cover and squash it so it fits.

I have been forced to send my daughter to an out-of-town high school because no school in town could accommodate her. She is a girl who is tzniusdik, respectful, and bright.  She is also very talented and creative, and would love to have a career as an artist or fashion designer.  She voiced that once in a personal essay at school and it set off a flurry of conferences as to where this heimishe girl was getting such aspirations from.

Once that red flag was raised, it all went downhill.  She was called in and asked pointed questions such as, "Do you read fashion magazines?" When she answered in the negative, they asked her, "So how will you be a fashion designer? Do you understand why it's the wrong career choice?" And then, I kid you not, she was asked to re-write the essay with a more preferable career choice for a frum girl.

She came home broken and confused.  "Why is it okay for Mrs. X (a parent on the PTA committee) and Rebbetzin L to design tzniusdik fashionable robes and children's clothes, but I can't? Why do I need to write an essay that is a lie?"

She is respectful, my daughter, so she wrote a beautiful essay on why she would shift careers and become an accountant instead.  She called my neighbor, a mechaneches, and told her the story and asked her to read it to ensure that not a hint of cynicism was in there.  My neighbor read it, praised her, and then called me, insisting, "You must talk to your rav.  This girl is going to learn a new habit: lie about who she is and say everything right to satisfy those around her.  She must get out of the school and learn that it's not a way of life."

She scared me (this is my oldest child and I would not have stepped out of the box and made a fuss had she not pushed me) and I did call our rav, who advised us.  He explained it all, in person, to our daughter, and encouraged her to become the best frum fashion designer there is and raise the kedusha level of Klal Yisrael with her creations. He encouraged us to find a high school that would nurture her passion for art and allow more self-expression.

Prior to this, I too was a very "in the box" type.  Now, I worry about its far-reaching effects."

Warning - Danger!

I was given a booklet with excerpts from the lectures of Rabbi Shaul Yitzchak Rabinowitz of Satmar.  The booklet is in Yiddish with English translation.

The gist of his message is, treif phones - which are phones that enable you to do anything but make and receive calls - are a danger for the Jewish family.  And they are dangerous even if you don't own it but people in your circles own them.  The fact that other people in your community own them, and that your children's classmates either have these phones or their parents do, means exposure to danger.

Even if a person does everything right and has a filter and it's used only for business, experience has shown that that it is impossible to control the people around you.  Children are drawn to these phones, even if they only have the ability to text, and all the more so if they enable images. 

Parents might think it's nice to show their children Lag B'Omer at Meron on their phone or other innocuous or even wonderful things.  What the booklet says is this teaches children that nowadays, the prohibition against viewing images is no longer in force.  Your children will likely be less careful than you are.  (Perhaps these are the people seen in the public libraries looking like ultra-Orthodox Jews and checking out CD's of movies and TV shows).

He claims 30% of children own treif phones and are going downhill and taking others down with them.  He says that even for business purposes it's not worthwhile to have these phones because the benefits of the phone cannot compensate for the damage it causes.

He sounds very serious and is raising the alarm about how our children are being ruined while many other frum Jews who are serious about chinuch are focused more on filters and safeguards like Web Chaver.  It's certainly something to think about.

A Caveat to Teachers and Parents

A child came home from school with the story about Avrohom Avinu but something went wrong in the transmission.  The child said that Avrohom was bad because he broke everything.  Somehow, in telling the preschoolers about how Avrohom had broken the idols, this child thought that if a boy breaks things and his father is upset about it, then the boy did something bad. 

To make it worse, the child had no idea what a "getchka" is.  How should he? (Getchka being the Yiddish word for idol.  The morah said that Avrohom broke all the getchkas).

***
Another incident:

A mother was saying goodnight to her little boy, and she said mommy loves you, daddy loves you, Hashem loves you ...

Her son said, "Hashem is bad."

The shocked mother asked: Why do you say that?

He said, "Because Yona ran away from Hashem."

And it was obvious to the child that if Yona ran away from Him, that He must have been bad.

***
What can parents and teachers do to make sure these misunderstandings are minimized? I suppose only by discussing things with children, getting feedback from them, will we know what's on their mind.  Other than that, we have to pray that what we say is understood properly!

Then and Now 2

continued from previous post

When the frum world talks about the tremendous changes in our society, technology is usually the focus.  And cell phones and the Internet have certainly drastically changed our lives.  But the shift in life at home is not often discussed.  It is deemed too sensitive a subject.  Working mothers will feel bad. 

 

And yet, the reality hasn't changed from R' Weiss' description back in 2000 of unavailable mothers.    The yiras shomayim and emotional well-being of children being raised in frum homes today haven't improved since 2000.  As someone who attends Lakewood yeshiva said, there is an off the derech child in most homes in Lakewood.  Is this true? An exaggeration? I can't tell you.  But even if it's not accurate, it's prevalent enough to seem that way.

 

There was an impressive article a while ago in Mishpacha in which a woman related that she and her husband decided that one of them will always be available to their children.  It's a priority for them and they do what it takes to make it work.  Most people can't or won't live this way.

The word that is commonly used to describe today's mother is "juggling."  They juggle home and work and community commitments.  It is hard to see how we can go back to women's primary focus being the home, but then I read an article (Binah Jan. 2014) about a courageous woman who did just that. 

Financial security was important to her since she was a child.  She worked as a preschool teacher and supported the family.  Then her family grew and her husband left kollel to open a photography business.  It was a hard field to break into but between her steady income and his occasional jobs, they managed.  Financially.

But she faced the reality that although she was a superb teacher, she was a mediocre mother since she did not have the energy for own children after taking care of other people's children.  She just did the basics but no longer sang with them, read them books, or did craft projects with them.

This bothered her and she thought of quitting her job.  But she knew they needed her paycheck and could not manage on what her husband earned.  She asked other preschool teachers how they managed and found that some had more energy than she did, some had different parenting goals, and some confessed that they also felt guilty.

She ultimately decided to quit.  She knew they could always hire another teacher but her children had just one mother.  It was tremendously scary for her to let go of the financial security of her job but she was convinced she was doing the right thing. 

One week before school started, her husband received a terrific job offer from one of the most prestigious photographers in town with a salary that equaled their previous combined income.

It seems to illustrate the principle ( Gemara Makos 10b), ‘B’derech sh’adam rotzeh leilech buh, molichin oso’; the path that a person chooses to follow they bring him (and allow him) to go down that road. 

Daycare Postscript

One of Rebbetzin Feige's daughters, a working mother, wrote an article about the ins and outs of daycare and concluded by reassuring parents that their children will turn out fine despite being sent to daycare.  She wrote that her parents traveled for speaking engagements and she turned out just fine.

Someone wrote a letter to the editor asking whether mother and daughter disagreed on this topic.  The daughter responded and said she wasn't actually in daycare.  When her parents were away, which was not on a daily basis, she was under the care of a dear family friend who was like a surrogate grandmother.

She said, "My mother has counseled scores of women who, as a result of being a breadwinner, have no energy for homemaking and mothering and are struggling to be functioning wives.  I can personally attest to the struggle and strain caused by attempting to simultaneously balance one's career and motherhood.  None of us [Rebbetzin Twerski or her daughter] believes that sending your children to daycare will turn them into dysfunctional adults, but it is inarguable that children who are raised by other people, in conjunction with a mother who is distracted, barely there, and stressed out, are likely to reflect those limitations.

"My mother's article was about the ideal and mine was an exploration of the daycare system for when the ideal is not an option."

***
I wonder how "likely to reflect those limitations" manifests.  She and her mother don't think the daycare kids will become dysfunctional adults, but ... but what? Something is "inarguable" but she does not spell it out.  What limitations will these children have and why is she afraid to spell it out? Also, living in Israel, the daughter is in a society where daycare is considered the norm.  Children are sent to the metapelet and to the ma'on from infancy and then to gan.  Raising your own children is not considered the ideal.

More from Rebbetzin Feige

In the previous post, Rebbetzin Feige Twerski quoted roshei yeshiva about the importance of chinuch taking place at home, and mothers and extended family raising children.  In a more recent article from last month, I was pleasantly surprised to see her begin her weekly column in Ami with:

"My daughters know that I am a big advocate of mothers staying home and personally raising their children."

Rebbetzin Twerski is a rebbetzin, a public speaker, a writer, a counselor, all in addition to her being the mother of 11 children and numerous grandchildren.  When someone as bright and accomplished as she advocates mothers raising their children, it makes an impact. 

Of her seven daughters, not all of them are homemakers, she says.  She describes one of her daughters as multi-talented and exceedingly bright who stays at home to raise her children with great mesirus nefesh.  She doesn't describe what the mesirus nefesh entails.  I assume financial gain as well as the forgoing the utilization of her brains and talents in more challenging ways than changing diapers, toilet training, cooking meals and running her home.  Many women feel that hired help can do the work just as well if not better. 

The Reason for Yeridas Ha'Doros

In the Pesach 2014 issue of Binah, Rebbetzin Feige Twerski writes:

"At a Torah Umesorah convention some years ago, R' Aharon Feldman, rosh yeshiva of Ner Israel, observed that children of our generation are not of the same caliber as those of his generation.  The reason for that, he asserted, is that children today are not being raised by their mothers.  They are, for the most part, consigned to a variety of daycare situations.  He quickly added that economic reasons necessitated this phenomenon that has affected the quality of offspring who, by right, should be in the loving environment provided by parents, grandparents, and extended family."

She goes on to say that in an address to mechanchim, R' Hutner spoke about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla who instituted formal education.  Up until that time, Torah was transmitted directly from father to son while daughters learned from their mothers.  It came to a point where many children were uneducated which is why R' Yehoshua instituted a yeshiva system where children were taught outside the home.

R' Hutner pointed out that although R' Yehoshua is praised in the Gemara for doing what he did and he saved the day, it was nonetheless a tragedy for Klal Yisrael.  Why? Because ideally the Torah, "the art of living should flow from the same source as physical life.  The same parents who brought the children into the world, the parents, should be the ones who provide the Torah path in life."

R' Hutner gave an analogy to a country where, because the air was polluted, all babies had to be put in incubators if they were to survive.  This is not the ideal situation, of course, but if children can't breathe the natural air, we have to be grateful for incubators.

"Relegating our children to others to educate, shape, and form them is akin to placing them in incubators.  This is not the ideal, but we have no choice.  The Gemara praises R' Yehoshua ben Gamla.  Given the change in times, his was a heroic act."

Rebbetzin Twerski pointed out that Hashem puts us in a situation for the good, and the point is not to pine for yesteryear.  It's to acknowledge the reality of our situation and figure out how best to deal with it.

In Gantzen Nisht Nohrmal

In the Pesach 2014 issue of Mishpacha magazine, R' Henoch Plotnik, a rav and maggid shiur in Chicago, tells the following story:

"Before we decided to move from Lakewood to Chicago, over 25 years ago, I had the opportunity to visit with R' Elya Svei and chart out our plans.  What he said shook me to the core, and I have shared it with my own children and anyone else willing to hear it.  At the time, we were anticipating the birth of our bechor, and my wife was traveling from Lakewood to New York to work every day. 'What you are doing is in gantzen nisht nohrmal!" (completely abnormal) R' Elya admonished me.  He encouraged us to retain a semblance of normalcy in our respective roles and consequently our priorities."

What I find astonishing about the story is that this was before they had any children.  It wasn't even about abandoning one's babies with strangers.  It was the commuting pregnant wife that R' Svei considered crazy.

to be continued

Chinuch for Table Manners

Shabbos morning.  In many homes, adults and children, or just children, eat cake.  I happened to be in someone's home where little children, perhaps ages 3-6, were walking around the house holding cake (messy, chocolatey cake, no less).

It was harmless and the adults obviously don't have my squeamishness about food and crumbs all over and dirty hands and Pesach awareness.  However, even allowing for variances in how to handle messes, I thought this was a chinuch problem.  And this is probably not because I am in the middle of reading a book describing a frum home Czechoslovakia and the great emphasis on discipline and manners (along with plenty of love). 

What's the chinuch problem? Not instilling and cultivating discipline in children from the youngest ages.  Allowing them to go where they please with food in their hands.  Not teaching them that we eat at the table.   Sitting down. Then we finish eating and we wipe or wash our hands.  And (if the child is old enough) we say a bracha achrona. 

Our society's lack of discipline is at odds with a life of Torah and mitzvos; at odds with kabbolas ol malchus shomayim.  Allowing children to do what they want, where they want, whenever they want or too often, cripples them later in life.  It's the easier route for parents but it's not chinuch.

"The Naomi Principle"

Rabbi Dr. Lob wrote a nice piece in Mishpacha called "The Naomi Principle."  He heard the idea from R' Nosson Wachtfogel z'l.  It goes like this:

If you look at the dialogue between Rus and her mother-in-law Naomi when Naomi urges her to go back to her people, Rus says the famous words, "Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people are my people and your G-d is my G-d. 

Rus doesn't say, I commit to Judaism because the concepts are deep and beautiful, because Shabbos and the Yomim Tovim and the mitzvos are so meaningful and I love them.  R' Wachtfogel learned from this: "The primary mission of parenting is to create the kind of relationship with each child that will naturally inspire within him/her the desire to proclaim, "I want to be like you."

Lob goes on to ask, what does "like you" mean? What does your child see when he or she looks at you? Are you living the Judaism you want your child to live?

A few weeks later, the editor of Family First magazine (supplement to Mishpacha) wrote a story that illustrated the point.  Three boys were accepted into an excellent yeshiva but although they were accepted, they were not great kids and they were expelled.  They switched to a yeshiva that wasn't as excellent and they were expelled from there too.  The only yeshiva left for them was a yeshiva for problem kids.  Even there, two of the boys did not last more than a few months while a third kept out of trouble. 

When the third boy was asked why he didn't continue downward with his friends he said, "I couldn't do that to my father.  Up until this point, I let my yetzer hara get the better of me, but I love my father and I couldn't have him see me end up on the street."  Today his friends are not religious while he is.

So I know, it's not quite the same.  Loving his father and not wanting to hurt him anymore is not identical to identifying with his father's way of life, but it's close.

Does It Work Both Ways?

There is an ongoing discussion in R' Grylak's column in Mishpacha magazine about parents who expel their wayward children from their homes.  He is incredulous that parents can do this, especially to 15-16 year old girls.

A rabbi who founded a home for these homeless girls tells R' Grylak that it is the shame the parents feel because of their child, the feeling of betrayal, that she humiliated them in front of the world.  "After we sacrificed so much for her, after we nurtured and raised her, she turns around and spits in our faces?" And he says that throwing her out is their revenge.

R' Grylak then goes on to elaborate on the erroneous idea that parents have that their children are their personal property which is why they feel so deeply ashamed and hurt when their children reject their upbringing.

When I read this, my mind went off on a tangent.  According to R' Grylak's reasoning, there would be no good reason for parents to kvell and feel nachas when their children do well.  If, according to him, we should not feel ashamed if our children do things to reject our teachings, by the same token, should we not feel proud and thrilled when our children embrace our teachings?

Is it Hot in Here? Nah

One of the explanations given as to why Chushim the son of Dan took action and killed Eisav at Yaakov's funeral is that since he was deaf, he did not become immersed in the negotiations over the burial as did the rest of the children and grandchildren of Yaakov.  It happened slowly.  Eisav made a claim, the brothers made a counter-claim, Eisav responded, and it was decided that Naftali would go back to Egypt to get the document.  Chushim missed all this.  All he knew was that his grandfather's burial was delayed and this was disrespectful.

This idea, of slowly getting used to an untenable situation is referred to as the "boiling frog syndrome." Supposedly, if a frog is placed in boiling water it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

I am reminded of all this in connection with an article that I read by Sudy Rosengarten in which she provides the history of early education.  When she was a little girl, nearly eighty years ago, children started school at age six.  That is when they learned the ABC's and numbers.  A little googling shows that twenty of 34 European countries have a starting age of six and another eight wait until seven.

Then kindergartens were started for five year olds where they heard stories, played, and painted.  What followed was America's Head Start program for poor, disadvantaged children, ages 3-4.  The age has been lowered even further with playgroups for two year olds and younger in the US and Israel.  This is not for an hour or two.  Some of these programs are until three in the afternoon.  Of course, babysitters may keep them even longer.

If a mother wants to keep her child home because she doesn't believe that sending babies out to school is beneficial to them, there will be no playmates during school hours.

Mrs. Rosengarten covers some of the problems inherent in this new system which is now considered the norm ("boiling frog syndrome).  Most importantly, very young children need their mother.  There are years to come of schooling and these early years cannot be replaced.  It's a time when they are forming their first and most significant emotional attachment which will stand by them forever.

She also refers to those children who don't do well in group settings at the age of two and how "accelerating the natural timetable just isn't good for them" and how early academics are not a good idea.

All this may be irrelevant given that today's parents are "boiled frogs" and cannot imagine keeping a child home past the age of three, never mind four and five.  More often than not, these days, mothers are working so that even Rabbi Mandel a"h of Yeshiva of Brooklyn, who held that little children belong with their mothers, was "forced" by circumstances to open a preschool.  Mothers told him that they would be sending their children out of the home regardless so could he please open a class for them. 

The water has been boiling for so long now, that I don't think even a modern-day Chushim can save the day.

It's All About Love

In the September 2004 issue of the Jewish Observer, there was a letter by Dr. Bentzion Sorotzkin in response to a previous article about the dangers of the Internet.  What follows are some excerpts from his letter:

Some of you may erroneously conclude that exposure to the Internet, by itself, will cause someone to go off the derech or become involved in promiscuity.  If this was true, then one would expect that such tragic events would be significantly more prevalent in modern Orthodox communities than in more insular ones, since the people in the latter communities are much more shielded from outside "cultural" influences.

Judging from my professional experience, the sad fact is that the percentage of rebellious teens and promiscuous spouses are very similar in both types of communities.

Some may feel that the ends justify the means and therefore, it is worth using (inaccurate) scare tactics to encourage parents to protect their families from the spiritual dangers of the Internet.  However, there is a distinct danger to this approach.  It gives a totally inaccurate picture of the reasons for youngsters going off the derech or for couples to stray.  As a clinical psychologist, with many years experience working with rebellious teenagers in the frum community,  I can state categorically that the Internet has never been the prime factor in causing a child to rebel against his family's way of life. Rather, it is family conflict, often caused by parental mishandling of common childhood behaviors, that cause a child to rebel. 
   
When I meet parents of rebellious teens they often express shock that their children went off the derech when they worked so hard to shield them from outside influences. They are much less sensitive to the negative impact of their own harsh and critical parenting style on their children's future ruchnius level.     In a book of lectures by rosh yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg he states: "Show me the juvenile delinquent and in almost every case I will show you a person resorting to desperate means to attract the emotional warmth and attention he failed to get but so much wants and needs ... Aggressive behavior, when fully understood, is in fact nothing but love frustrated. It is a technique for compelling love, as well as a means for taking revenge on a society that has let the person down, leaving him disillusioned, deserted and dehumanized .. If you find rebels in society today, it is because they were never given the proper love."     A recent sefer on chinuch (Chinuch Malchuti) makes the following points: "Parents who treat their children with flexibility and do not overreact to minor infractions will have children who remain loyal to them and to their way of life.... "Educators who deal with dropouts relate that every single one only dropped out because he or she received insufficient love at home. None of them claimed that they left due to complaints against Hashem or the Torah. Lack of love at home is the reason for dropping out of yeshiva and for going off the derech. A child who receives sufficient love at home will never drop out or go off the derech."