Dear Mr. Weisbord,

Pesach is over, and our daughter will soon be coming home from seminary in Eretz Yisrael. But instead of being happy, I am upset and worried. We visited her this past winter and found a different girl than the one we sent off. And according to our phone conversations, it has only gotten worse.

We are a middle-of-the-road frum family – not especially modern nor extremely chareidi, either. We fit in well in Baltimore. Both my husband and I have college degrees and work as professionals. This is our oldest daughter; she is extremely bright and talented, b”H. During her last year in high school, after discussing it with a relative, she decided to become a physician’s assistant, because she thought it would afford her opportunities for full- or part-time work with a good income.

Dear Mr. Weisbord,

I’m worried about the beginnings of a temper in my son. He is a lovely, sweet, considerate boy, and has friends. It’s just that if somebody is making fun of him, or something makes him angry, he loses his temper. His teacher says he blows up in class. At home, he cries at the drop of a hat. He didn’t used to be like this. Perhaps we gave him his way more when he was younger. It has occurred to me that he might be frustrated because he has a lot of older siblings bossing him around.

Regardless of the reason for his behavior, please give me some ground rules for dealing with it. I am not the type to wonder about what caused him to be angry. I just want to know what we can do to correct it. He is young, only eight years old. I would think that there is still time to modify this trait and save him (and us) from becoming a bad tempered adult. Should we come down hard on him and not tolerate it at all when he exhibits anger? Or are we supposed to be more understanding? What should we do?

Whatever methods you suggest, I plan on involving the entire family, including the older children, so that we all deal with this child the same way.

Worried Mother

I have a good son. In fact, he’s a great son; He has good middos. He is kind, nice to everyone, intelligent, and responsible. At 16, he drives everywhere, and is happy to do errands for me. He’s a really special person. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

My son likes everything about school, during the English part of day. He likes his rebbe, too, but he doesn’t like gemara. It’s boring and doesn’t excite him. He okay with Chumash, mishnayos, halacha, and many other subjects. But most of the day, he says, is spent on gemara.

About any other subject, I would say, “Don’t worry, that’s not the only thing that counts.” But I’m afraid that, in our system, it is the only thing that counts. And I’m worried that his lack of success in gemara is making him feel badly about himself. I don’t want it to affect his relationship with his Yiddishkeit – because the reality, it seems, is that to be a successful ben Torah in today’s society, you need to be good at gemara.

When I went to a PTA meeting recently, the rebbe said to me, amidst much praise, “You don’t want your son to be one of those who goes off the derech.” He told me that the boys who don’t like gemara have nothing to hold them to Yiddishkeit. I felt like I was going to faint. What are you talking about? I thought. My son is a gem.

Dear Dr. Weisbord,

My daughter, aged eight, often tells me in the morning that she is afraid to go to school. On the last occasion, it was the day after test results were returned to the class. She said that the teacher likes the girls who get good marks on the tests. There is one girl whom the teacher always praises because she regularly gets 100 on tests. My daughter finds it hard to memorize and feels she can never compete with this girl in the teacher’s eyes. She studies hard and still gets average marks.

In reply to my daughter, I asked her, “Do you think anyone remembers what ‘Rochel’ (her older, married sister) got on a third grade social studies test?” I told her that she is a wonderful, kind girl whom a lot of people like, and that I am happy with whatever grade she gets. The important thing is to do her best.