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.