Tefillin and kids

[hatam_soferet]

Anyone want to tell me about their experiences with kids and tefillin? In particular:

If they lay tefillin, why you got them started doing it and when you started them
What you told them about why we do it.

If you lay tefillin and they don’t, how/why that works.

Whether they play tefillin.

Who in the family wears them.

If they’re still babies, what you plan to do when they get old enough.

If you have teenagers, whether they do or don’t, whether they’re boy or girl, and what they think about it. (Or if you’re actually a real teen and you’re reading this, hi! and tell me about it yourselves.)

Anything else you think is relevant to parents considering tefillin for their kid?

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

Comments

[liv]

When I was not quite young enough to be allowed to go into my parents' room whenever, and not quite old enough to understand why not, I walked in on my dad laying tefillin. I distinctly remember just how embarrassed and awkward everybody was about it.

When I was bat mitzvah and interested in this kind of stuff, Dad gave (or perma-lent) me his tefillin set. I had phases of laying and phases of being too much reminded of the horrendous embarrassment attached to the ritual. When I was about 15 a rabbi sort of laughed at me for laying tefillin to daven shacharit when I didn't know any of the other related halachot, so I stopped for years. And then I started again because of Esther and because of solidarity with you arguing with the world about whether women are allowed to write STAM, but that was well into adulthood.

[wendylove]

When I was little, the only tefillin I saw were in a bag in my grandparents' spare bedroom, and I didn't know what they were, just that they were my zadie's.

I learned to lay tefillin as an adult; I bought my own first pair and then a similar pair as an engagement present for the man I married (his were old bar-mitzvah ones); a few years later we had children. It's good I already knew what I was doing, because laying tefillin has to be fast when little kids are running around, and breastfeeding with tefillin on (especially on the same side as the shel yad) is tricky. We won't even get into the difficulties of serial tefillin-laying because one parent has to be available at all times to whisk the potty-training toddler into the bathroom! But my babies loved to play with my tefillin, and my younger child still loves to play with the empty cases and the dangling straps from my shel rosh. Several years ago I bought a set of toy tefillin for them, which have mostly been destroyed; I keep meaning to repair them or make another one. But my oldest child is five, so it'll be awhile before they're interested in the real thing. When they get old enough, I'll guess I'll either wait till they ask (it might come up at school) or till they're 10 or 11 or so and then I'll start showing them step by step. Gender is not an issue except that it means my daughter can be bat mitzvah at 12. We do have my husband's set of old bar mitzvah tefillin that they can learn with, and we'll give them each their own set -- in an industrial-strength tfidanit -- as a pre-bar/bat mitzvah present.

[cremains]

Hey,

Can you clarify what this is for (personal interest? professional? specific situation, etc)?

[hatam_soferet]

Well, I kind of want to explore Tefillin And Kids because I have a lot of friends whose kids are growing up, and a bunch of people ask me Advice Questions, and the two are bound to intersect at some time in the next few years. So I want to get a bit educated. But I don't know what questions even to ask. And I figure people like talking about their kids so it can't hurt to ask :)

[(Anonymous)]

My son is the reason I finally bought some tefillin and started working on how to lay them. He's a year old, and I want to have some way of telling him and helping when it's his time. If I don't start putting some family memories into tefillin now, they won't be "our thing". I'm trying to build our family brand: "Our family eats fresh food, cares about feelings, and lays tefillin."

-Chavah

[hatam_soferet]

That's really lovely! Thanks for sharing.

[(Anonymous)]

I like this too. I'm also a single mom with two boys, and I recently started laying tefillin. I asked my older son (age 11) what he thought about it, and he was very supportive. I'm glad to be able to model committed, egal tefillah for them. I hope it's something we can all do together in a few years.