194. Letting Go of Expectations

Chanie Monoker, founder of Hearing Kids is an award winning audiologist, who helps learners learn more easily and educators optimize their facilitation of learning. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman is a marriage coach for women in business and successful careers. Join them as they talk about expectations &. G-d.

  Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God's presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let's get started. 

 And we are live. Welcome everyone to the Connected for Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, and today with me is Chani, Chani. Introduce yourself, tell everyone all about you, and then we'll get into our topic of expectations and God, which is actually a really exciting topic to talk about. So let's begin. 

So professionally, I'm a developmental audiologist, and what that means is I help children find out why they're struggling to learn or perform the way we would expect.  So when there's something obvious, it's obvious. But when it's not obvious, we often as parents or teachers, educators run into the trouble of, we expect this child to do it.

We don't see anything overtly wrong and they're not doing it. Why not? So what I specialize is in looking at how well the body is serving this child,  primarily through the ears, but I am actually multi-disciplined, trained, and I do look at other things as well. The parent gets to pick what level hierarchy of assessment they want. 

Sounds great. So lemme give you guys a little background so we're all on the same page. You guys know my sister is an audiologist and so when I met you and I was like, what? I know audiology, I'm all into it because my sister has trained me so well to understand every part of the different ear and, you know how it affects the way that we learn, the way that we interact with people and all that stuff.

All about communication. I should probably have her on my podcast again 'cause she's been here a couple times, but very long ago. So she hasn't been in the last two years. Now that I think about it. But one of the things that I am hearing you say is that sometimes the person is hearing, the child is hearing, but they're not processing.

And that's also part of audiology. Yes. Is that, is that part of what you're looking for to see where Yes. Yes. It's, it's not. As commonly known or as commonly practiced. But the, the way I differentiate is you see, we're both wearing glasses, right? So  the way you got the glasses was they checked your visual acuity. 

So when we're seeing how well the sounds are going in, we're checking auditory acuity.  Mm-hmm. Then the next question is, what is the brain doing with what is getting in? And that would be auditory processing or visual processing, you know, depending on the, the modality through which it's coming in. 

Interesting.  So let's talk about expectations in God because, mm-hmm. As you guys know, I have four pillars in my. Business and my program and everything I do, there's God at the core, marriage and business are the things we really tackle here. And then you as the container of all of it. And today we're talking about expectations, specifically when it comes to God.

And I love that you fit into this topic so well, because you're talking about the expectations we have, you know, of what's happening in this world  of God. You know, like, you made this, so  couldn't you fix it? Like couldn't, why is this happening? You know, it, all these thoughts. I remember when my sister started working with parents,  her specialty is helping them process the fact that they have a child who is not quote unquote, you know, typical, perfect, whatever the thoughts are. I'm not saying it's truth, but it's, you know. Why, what, why? The counseling part, the adjustment part, right? Because you're we're using processing now in two different ways. It could get confusing.  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good. Thank you. But, you know, the internal digestion of the situation.

Yeah.  Thank you for catching that. I, I have no idea. Like I'm just  spitting it out. But, you know, it's always good to have somebody who's listening. It's my specialty.  There you go.  So, so one of the biggest things for me when talking about expectations is that we expect everything to go smoothly. Well, you know, I'm supposed to, right?

And like, just the word supposed to  is setting you up for failure. But then we come and we're, we're sort of upset with God or complaining about it. So let's get into that a little bit.  So I, I wanna, I guess, dial back a little bit in terms of expectations in and of itself. So what always kind of grounded me in this idea  of expectations and how our perception is limited through our own experience is actually  Rav Shiman Schwab wrote commentary on chumash on, on basic Bible,  and he discusses the incident and where Moshe Rabah Moses could not remember  the punishment for the person who to use the euphemism.

Blessed Hashem, blessed God.  And so Schwab asks, how was that possible that he couldn't remember it?  And his take on it was this, because Moshe could not relate to such a concept of somebody being so ungrateful that they would reach the point of blaspheming. He had no place to store that information.  Hmm.

And that  particular take resonated with me on so many levels. As, as a a person who's always looked at the learning process and how learning takes place, I'm like, oh, so this is a component that impacts memory and how we file things. We have to be able to relate to it. Right? Hmm.  It's not enough to get the information.

You have to be able to access it. Right.  And so we as human beings go through life with certain expectations based on our own personal experiences, but we don't know the other person's experience.  And so that's how we come to misjudge. Misunderstand, have expectations that are maybe not reasonable, not fair.

And that includes with our children,  you know? So if you see a child who's born with an obvious handicap, or the handicap is caught early on, like somebody who has a severe hearing impairments, and yes, it's a big adjustment  to having that information and, okay, now my child's gonna need hearing aids and need to learn in a different way.

But for most children,  whatever's going on that's blocking, their performance is hidden. It's not as clear as an obvious hearing loss,  whether it's an auditory processing issue,  whether it's a fluctuating hearing loss from the number one childhood medical condition, which is middle ear fluid, right?  That has such a huge, devastating impact on development. 

One of the mistakes parents make, which aligns with the expectations, is that if the child's not crying in pain,  then everything's fine.  Right? But just 'cause they're not crying in pain doesn't mean everything's fine. And that's why we have to uncover the hidden,  and then the parents can have more, I'll say, reasonable expectations and have more compassion for the child.

'cause now they understand more about the child's experience that they didn't understand before.  It was like when you were sharing the story on a different podcast with your daughter with the glasses. Right.  It's the same thing. It's like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize how much this was impacting her. Right.

Okay. Right. Tell them the story so that they know what you're talking about. Well, it's your story. You tell them. Okay, so I, I don't even remember telling the story, but I trust you that it's in one of the podcasts. My daughter was needing glasses and I eventually took her to get glasses  and when she put on the glasses, she suddenly realized that there is grout like between the tiles in the mall. 

And then she came home and realized there's lines of grout in all the places. Like I never saw any of these lines and I'm thinking, oh my gosh. She was missing so much information  and she was making up for it because she's smart and capable and friendly. So she was looking over to the side to see what the friend was copying and just copying from her.

So she was getting notes from the board by.  Using her other skills, but she was really not seeing anything. Right. Not nothing. So it was just really shocking as a parent to suddenly feel, you know, and then all the  guilt and the shame floods in. 'cause you're like, oh my goodness. And I think that's one of the things that, when you're talking about expectations  and God and children and, and you know in marriage, husband, wife  is

understanding what they understand, like sort of being able to get in their shoes. Right. And we can't. So, you know, in and of itself, expectations is already a, a tricky thing because there's no way for you to fully understand. But can you imagine the shock  and the.  Realignment of yourself when you thought things were one way and suddenly it's, oh, it's totally not what I expected.

And then all the emotional flood of shame and guilt and all that stuff. So I'm thinking, can you imagine like cursing God and then getting to the other side and seeing things differently and then going, oh, oh, you know, like, I don't wanna be there. But I'm sure everybody goes through that 'cause Yes, you really don't know.

We don't know. Right.  Exactly. Exactly.  So, you know, I think we're just trained from a very early age, from a self-defense mode to judge. 'cause otherwise, how do we know if this stranger is safe or a threat? And I, I do think it's probably a good idea to change our definition. I actually saw something about that recently, but I don't remember where I wish I, I did so I could share it, but she was saying how she, she redefines it, because unfortunately we've found out that sometimes it's not the stranger who's the danger, right?

So it's much more important to talk about what's appropriate and what's inappropriate.  But getting back to the point of expectations, it's also confusing  because you're supposed to have expectations, right? You're supposed to have expectations in a spouse. You're supposed to have expectations of your children.

Otherwise things would be dysfunctional. And in terms of helping children grow, in order to raise your children, you have to have expectations.  Where it gets tricky is we think our expectations are reasonable, and we don't really know what's going on underneath.  So my focus is in helping parents see what's going on underneath, you know, by assessing how well the child's body is serving them.

But a good way for parents to find out is to have open lines of communication,  you know, to say, you know, this looked like it was hard for you, or What's going on for you? Somebody was sharing a story recently with the two young, the two young children, I don't remember the ages, maybe four and two.

And they had given them each a balloon, and  the 4-year-old grabbed the balloon away from the 2-year-old.  And his instinct was, you know, to punish the 4-year-old, you don't grab things, you, you know, you're not being thoughtful of your sibling, you have to think of other people. But instead his wife decided to ask the 4-year-old, like, what's going on? 

And the 4-year-old said, I wanted the taller balloon. And they're like, taller balloon. The balloons were the same size. Oh, the strings are a different length. Oh, okay. Well guess what? The string of one had like a little bow on it. We undid the bow and there you go. Now you have the taller balloon. Right?

Right. It's not so reasonable to expect a 4-year-old to be thinking of other people. It's normal for a 4-year-old to be a little bit selfish. So  in terms of the expectation, thankfully they caught themselves, but I think a lot of us were raised differently, and so we have to really pause and rethink how we do things and how we approach things. 

Right. I I love that curiosity.  That's the word. When you bring that in.   I remember one time I got really annoyed with my husband,  and usually I just start, you know, blaming him and being all wifey to him. And I'm, I am too. I am normal.  And this might come as a surprise of course, but yeah, I start just like, ah, da da da, don't do this.

Why are you doing that? Whatever. But then one time I actually was able to catch myself and I asked him, did you mean this or that? And he said, no. Why would I mean that?  I am thinking, so what did you mean? Because that's the only thing I can think of that you meant by saying that. Right. And he said why always think of worst case scenario.

And I thought, I don't think of worst case scenario. I just think of only case scenario. Like this is the only thing that came into my mind when you said that.  And it was such aha moment  because I was able to save myself from a gigantic fight and useless energy drain  by just being curious and asking, asking a question instead of attacking, which is real skill.

Yes, yes.  That is the most important thing. And you know what, if we recognize it now and could teach that our children even younger, so that for them it's a habit. Imagine what kind of a world we would live in. It would be amazing, right? Yes. Yes. To come with curiosity instead of opinions.  Yes.

Wow. Okay, so let's get into that. Expectations of the system, like the educational system, because that I think causes a lot of  challenges. Mm-hmm. That's a good word. Challenges.  It creates a lot of challenges for parents when they send their kid to a school or whatever. You know, the educational system is supposed to, there's the word again, supposed to, mm-hmm.

Expectations, figure this out. Know what to do. They have the tools, they have the skills. They went to school for this, whatever it is. Right.  What do we do? Oh my gosh, I have so much to say on that. Please go ahead. First of all, we have to appreciate that a teacher is not a clinician.  So that they did not really go to school to figure out why this child is not succeeding, right?

They're only able to teach, you know, to the mainstream.  And even that nowadays, you know, takes a lot of efforts, a lot more that goes into teaching nowadays than when we were being taught, right?  But still, they're not clinicians. And I think parents make the mistake of thinking that teachers know more than they do, but they're not diagnosticians.

And so  it's just as hidden from the teacher as it is from the parents.  You know, sometimes you might get lucky,  you know, again God's the one who decides what you see and when and who's gonna be the person to tell it to you. I have an interesting story with that personally, that one of my children was born tongue tied  and I didn't see it. 

My sister, who's a speech pathologist, didn't see it. My sister-in-law, who's an ot, didn't see it. None of the pediatricians that she had seen over the first eight months of her life  noticed it or commented about it.  And then at that time I was going to the bungalow for the summer and it was my first day back for that season.

And a friend of mine who hadn't seen me all year says, oh, that's so cute. Your baby's tongue tied just like mine was. And I was like,  but that was the moment Hashem decided I was gonna know.  Right. She was the messenger.  So that's amazing. You do sometimes get lucky that a teacher, based on whatever experience she has or he has, you know, might call out something appropriately, but for the most part you have to appreciate that teachers are not diagnosticians, they're not clinicians.

So if there is a question about why a child is not succeeding, you're looking at how well the body is serving this child.  And if you think of something as complex as reading, we know the ears have to work properly, the eyes have to work properly, they have to work together. Your memory has to be good so you remember what you learned.

I had an interesting case once where this child wasn't reading  and had receiving intervention for the whole school year with zero progress. And when he came to me, and again, you know, I  was lucky that Hashem decided I should be a, a messenger, a good messenger. 'cause I also, I asked him, you know, can you read for me?

Couldn't.  But then I decided to have him read to himself and answer comprehension questions and he got a hundred percent. So clearly he was reading,  he just wasn't reading out loud.  Wow. So, so that was a, a different question of was it the added multitasking of the decoding and comprehension on top of.

You know, speaking out loud or was it a performance anxiety like you have to, we have to take it to the next level. But  you know, it has to be when God decides. And  like I said, there's so many things I wanna say about the question you ask. So one of the things we have to appreciate is a, a very common question.

People have like, why do bad things happen to good people?  And that question is wrong. There is no such thing as bad or good.  All there is is opportunities.  Now again, we do have this habit of seeing things through our own experiences. So very often when a child is struggling with learning,  the parents end up in conflict. 

And part of the reason for that conflict is often there was one parent who had the same struggle.  Hmm.  So now all those memories come flooding back  and either they're gonna bend over backwards and, and try anything possible, whether it's reasonable or not, to help save their child from the struggle they went through.

Or they're going to respond to the child the way they were responded to, which is just basically like, suck it up and do what you need to do, make it work.  And how are you supposed to make it work? You don't even know why it's not working. How are you supposed to make it work? Right? Yeah. And then you have the other parent who  maybe can't even relate to it, so doesn't really know what to start, because learning for them went easy.

So like,  I don't see anything wrong. You know, you don't need glasses, you don't need hearing aids. Like, what's the problem?  Right? Or they may be more objective.  They don't have that whole history, so they're not so emotionally tied into this.  But what you often will have is the conflict between those two parents because of their very different perspectives based on their very different experiences. 

Yes. So if we come with curiosity  right,  then  it can be so liberating for the parent who went through that struggle  and then the parents can work together as a team  to best help their child unveil their potential.  Yeah. Okay. So actually Rav Yaakov Kamenestky ZT"L. Who was a great sage who passed away in the 1980s.

I don't remember which year exactly he said that.  School is simply a place for people to learn social skills. It's really a parent's responsibility to educate their child. I love that when you talk about like what to do with the schools, well  practice your social skills, teach your children how to  deal with people who don't agree with you, who may even be, in your opinion, difficult.

And the school might say you're being difficult. You know? Right. There's two sides to everything, but when you, I say that all the time, people, you know, people say, why don't you homeschool or whatever. I'm like, people, first of all, I need my space, but second of all my kids get to go out there and learn how to deal with the world, the hierarchy of teacher, principal, and where I am in this scale.

You know, how to deal with friends, how to deal with people who are lower, higher. People who get it, don't get it. How can I help? How can I serve? There's so much to learn. And if they wanna learn anything actual, like learning, they could watch a video on YouTube. Like really, there are so many things that they could learn if they just are interested in it.

So I'm less interested about, you know, are they learning and achieving certain things? I'm more interested in their ability to deal with the world because it really teaches you how to go out there and deal.  Exactly. So I love, I love, I didn't know that he says that, but now I'm like, wow, I feel so special.

But I would like to add to that. I would like to say  the main goal would be for the child to graduate,  wanting to continue learning.  Yes. That's the most important thing. 'cause first of all, let's, let's be practical. It's not possible to learn everything  just through elementary and high school.  No, no. We're sitting here, we're like way older and we still dunno everything.

Exactly. So sorry people.  Exactly. And it's not possible because they, there's always new things to learn, you know? Right.  The world keeps changing. We have to learn this technology that didn't exist when I was younger. Right. Right. I mean, my kids are learning, my kids are being taught AI now. Mm-hmm. And I'm actually really annoyed because all it is is just like playing games  on the computer.

I'm like, do you really think you're learning anything? Like, I'm sure you could learn how to use it way better, but whatever. We can get into that later. Yeah. I was once on my sister's podcast and I was the guest who spoke about marriage and how to, quote unquote process the experience of finding out that the child has hearing problem or deaf  through the lens of marriage.

You know, one person is in denial, the other person is like, go, go, go. Let's research. Let's do this, that let's like take action. And you end up creating a gigantic gap in your own marriage just by not being able to understand why the other person is dealing with it so differently. Right. And I remember saying, it's okay.

You don't need the other person to be on the same page with you, for you to have a good marriage and to be okay. And I remember people in the comment, 'cause it was, I think it was live, and they're like, no way, this and that. You know, like they were really not liking this approach, but it really is true.

You don't have to all be on the same page. And I'll tell you something else about that.  When there is a teacher that's the regular teacher and then one day she's not there and you have a substitute. Mm-hmm. The kids know  the kids are so smart, they know how to deal with a substitute. They know that they're allowed to change each other's names.

They know that they can tell heard lies. They know that they can make up rules. They get up and go to the bathroom when they want, they go and get candy, whatever. They're all chewing gum. Right. There's like just, it's just understood that she is not the teacher. Right. Right. So why are you not trusting that the child is capable of understanding that one parent is one way and another parent is the another way, and it's okay for them not to be the same exact person. 

It's not only, okay, it's important. Right. And then it takes us to the next level of what we just said about school and social skills. Now what you're teaching your kids is how do you interact? With someone who doesn't agree or someone who has different rules than you. For example, I remember early on I really was like. 

So annoyed with candy, like, just stop giving my kids candy. Like, ah, I can't stand it. And my husband was, you know, just like trying to make them happy about coming with him to learn and doing these things and whatever. Like he was trying to excite them. So he was giving them candy. And this is making me crazy, right?

So the, the way that, you know, I, I could choose to blow up at him in front of my kids and say, this is a, you know, red line, you just crossed it, blah, blah, blah. Or I could say, listen, you guys like really don't eat candy around me. 'cause it makes me cringe. I feel it in my body that I am like, seeing you eat something, like really gross.

Eat it somewhere else. Don't show me. Don't show me that you got it from abba. Don't tell me about it.  And then also my husband started being a lot more conscious about it. Like, oh. EMA doesn't want you to have this, so why don't we get some, you know, fruits instead, why don't we do this other thing instead?

Maybe let's go have fun in a different way. So, you know, it was early, like now my kids are way, way older, but it's such a clear memory of how we were able to model for our children how to deal with someone who isn't following the same rules or it doesn't have the same values or whatever it is. Right, right. 

Doesn't have the same perspective and experience. Yeah. Right. So it goes with, you know, how to deal with the school and it goes with how to deal with within your home. Right. I think that's really,  really interesting. Right. And just because the other person has a different perspective, it doesn't make them bad or wrong. 

You know,  if they're not violating, you know, a law,  then it's not bad or wrong, you know? And just make room for. Their  experience and their perspective with curiosity. Yeah. And I would say even if, if someone is violating something, I would be curious to hear what's going on behind the scenes.

Because like you said, I just can't relate,  but I understand that there's something there. Right?  A lot of women that I speak with,  there's things that don't make any sense on a conscious level, but then you find deeper and deeper that there is a God baggage, like they're upset with God about giving them something or about doing something.

So why should I even care? Like, oh, you know, there's this like inner conflict, right, of I wanna be good, but I also am upset with God. So I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to hold both. Right,  right.  I hear it. Yeah. Yeah. So when, when I was talking about violating the laws, I.  I am not talking about us, you know, judging or taking upon ourselves to  train someone who's violating laws between them and God.

I'm saying if someone's doing something that is harmful  for sure to us physically or emotionally, that's in a violation of laws you know, speak lashon hara or Yeah. So that you're gonna have to put a stop to it and then you could be curious.  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No,  definitely. Safety is always first.

Yes. Yes. Let's, let's put that, that's, that's, that's what I was referring to. Yes. Safety always comes first. That's not just the difference of opinions, you know, even though they might have a different perspective, it's not, that's something that's gotta be paused. Thank you for making that clarification.

I didn't even think about the, you know, the actual between people, laws. I was thinking straight. God. It's interesting where my brain, where my brain goes, which is a great example of, okay, let me just tell you. I was once in a class where there was this woman who had all these parents and she was gonna talk about you know, the difficulty in processing.

And she put on the board like she had a slideshow and she said, as soon as you see the letter, say it out loud. And she pressed the button and there was an A and everybody went A, but not everybody went a at once. It was a a a, a, a, a A. Right. Okay. And she said, did you guys notice what just happened? You guys are all adults and yet you processed.

Seeing it, understanding it, and being able to say it in at different speeds. Right. Like there were split second differences between all of us. That's great. And that's how it is in real life. Mm-hmm. Right? So take that to the next level and just with where you were taking it, where I was taking it, the same exact sentence,  different connotations, different memory things, different places where our brains go with it.

So yes,  this is such a fascinating conversation, just just with what just happened. But I love your focus. I love how God is just the center of everything. That's why I love talking to you.  Thank you.  Thank you. And I wanna go back to having to deal with the school system and with kids who have difficulties.

Because I see this a lot. This is a real stressor for people. It's when there is a kid who's having trouble,  it stresses out the kid, it stresses out his parents. Mm-hmm. It stresses out the marriage, it stresses out. The grandparents 'cause they are trying to get involved but not get involved. Like there are so many and of course it stresses out the school because they also are being judged by the level of how they deal with the students.

Right.  I think of the school, by the way, this is totally like parentheses when we were talking about teachers.  I'm a mother of eight and I can't even like, keep my head straight about what each kid needs and what's going on with everybody. And they each have their own worlds and their own personalities and experiences and I'm like trying to catch up and have time with them to just understand what they each need.

Can you imagine being a teacher for 30 kids?  No. And they're not even their mother.  I was just discussing this with a, a friend of mine who's a social worker the other day I was saying, really  every classroom needs two teachers. Every classroom needs two teachers. And you ever wonder why God gave two parents. 

It's 'cause you always need one person leading and one person in the back to help the stragglers who are struggling. Mm. You can't. I like that. You can't do both at the same time. You can't be leading and keeping an eye on the stragglers. You need two people.  I also think there is something even deeper.

You need one person having the conversation and one person looking from the side to witness to be able to say, you know, when you said that he shrunk or he moved back, or there is a reaction that I realized and then it's such a helpful piece of information  when somebody was not in the conversation or in the moment, they suddenly can see things that you don't see because you're too wrapped up in figuring out what to say next.

Right. It's like the active listening. Yes. When you're active listening, you are not figuring out what to say next. You are just listening. Right.  Right. And you can't be  a speaker and a listener at the same time. But if you have two people, one could be doing the speaking and one could be doing the listening. 

So we're, we're saying actually the exact same thing, using different words. I love that. That's why we do this in podcast. You know, I chose to do my podcast in interview form because of this exact thing. Because if people just had to listen to me ramble, they would hear me and it would be really great and interesting.

I'm sure you all want that, but  having someone else pushes me to have to think differently or to come up with examples that I didn't think I needed to bring, or just it, it takes me places. And it also allows people to hear from really interesting people like you.  Thank you.  Yeah. So I was going somewhere and then I, I gave a parentheses and I took myself out into a tangent.

So do you remember what I said? So we were talking about how hard it is as a parent to take care of a few children. And the classroom teacher has a much larger group of children. So I guess where you were going was like, really? What do we expect of them? Right. And it's true.  So, and it, and it's very challenging also because like with that other little vignette you shared where she, this presenter had put that letter A on the board and everybody was responding at different times.

'cause it takes some different amounts of time to process.  And there's often a, a debate of what to do with gifted children who get bored in class. Right. But  my understanding is the Chazon Ish was actually asked about that. And again, with the same mindset that school is supposed to be about social skills. He was against having separate classes for the gifted because they should learn how to not only tolerate, but help  the students who aren't as quick. 

Right. 

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 And lemme tell you something very cool about the way Israel deals with gifted children. My daughter got into the program, so I know, and it was really fascinating to go to the orientation and to be part of seeing how they do it. They give them one day a week where they leave the school and go to special activities that mm-hmm.

Are enrichment. And the enrichment is emotional iq, like eq, emotional intelligence. I love that. They learn, they learn theater, they learn radio, they learn how to do medical clowning.  They learn. Improv  and they're basically addressing  something that's really very big in the gifted world, which is there is a lack of balance between your IQ and your eq sometimes because you're so smart, you end up being more baby-ish or you end up taking things to an extreme in the emotional side.

So this was a huge thing. I was so impressed. Yes. That was one thing. And the second thing they do is they teach them leadership skills so that they can go back into the classroom during all the other days when they are with their regular peers and lead. So how do you help someone in a way that doesn't push them down, that doesn't make them feel dumb?

How do you you know, sort of like catch a situation that's happening behind the scenes 'cause you're on the student side and sort of lead it to be a better. End result socially, because it's not, it's just not fair for the teacher to have to like work against all these,  you know? So  it was amazing.

I was like sitting, I never heard this before, but yeah. That's applause worthy. That is amazing. Yes, because as a parent I was sitting there going, wow, wow. Just like, wow. And apparently Israel's really good at doing that. They do this in elementary school. It was from third grade until eighth grade. And then afterwards, now that she's in high school, they have a college program where they go, I think it's one, one afternoon a week or something like that. 

That is absolutely amazing because in my clinical experience, very often what I found is this imbalance. I don't know if it's because of my discipline. I don't know how many people know that the balance system is actually housed in the ears. So the vestibular system is actually part of the wheelhouse of an audiologist.

Yes. But to me it's like all about that balance. And so often when I'm testing these children, you'll find that they have a genius in one area,  but it's so imbalanced. And to hear that they have a program like this is, is amazing. It, that was not my experience working for New York City Board of Education. 

Yeah. I, I think we just found something that everybody can agree is you know, applause worthy in Israel, so that's very exciting. Yes,  they should start doing trainings on their model. That's amazing. Yeah. It's, it's so cool. And my daughter used to come home with all this cool stuff like arts and you know, clowning and all of like, you know, improv stuff. It was so cool. So cool.  Okay. I remember what my question was and I wanna go back to it because it has a lot to do with expectations.

When a kid is having a hard time in school, the self-judgment  of the kid, of the parent, you know,  I'm messed up, I'm broken, something's wrong with me. Why did I get this child? What is wrong with me? Why did I deserve this? Like all this,  I call it God baggage, but it's really all the garbage is coming up and we just, we don't have the skills and the tools to deal with that. 

Right. It's definitely challenging, but  I think it's largely attributed to the story we've been fed, the story we've been told,  if we don't see this as something bad, if we simply see it as an opportunity,  right? And I'm gonna rewind here, like, how did I end up doing what I'm doing? There is no other audiologist that I know of that offers this tiered model of assessment who is multi-disciplined, trained so that they can look at not only the ears, but the eyes, the hands, the feet, you know, the full, how well is the body serving the person? 

So the way I got there was in my family of origin, as they say every one of us struggled with learning some more than others.  So I had actually gone to school for speech therapy. 'cause I figured I would  teach children with learning difficulties  and do it in a smaller setting than a special education teacher.

'cause I'm lazy.  Why should I work with 15 kids if I could work with four kids and get the same pay? It didn't make sense to me. The same education, you know, in terms of years of schooling and the same pay. Like why should I work harder with a group of 15 students if I could work with 1, 2, 3, or four? Like Right.

You know, in the public school system in New York, at least the max a speech therapist would have to pull out at one time is four. So I, I'm just practical. But especially I noticed just notice side point that the first time you said it, you said, I'm lazy. And the second time you said it, you said, I'm practical because they're both true.

It's such a neutral thing. It's not even a good or bad. It's just like I found information that served me. Yes. I think you're genius.  Thank you. But anyway, so especially at that time, there was no doctorate for audiology. So most audiology programs in America by far were basically colleges that had a speech and an audiology program. 

The bachelor's is identical and at the master's level, the difference is four classes and clinic hours.  And there was just something about audiology that totally resonated with me. It just seemed a lot more concrete. I mean, I was naive in that understanding, but I thought it was like very concrete. And you just, you know, they'll listen to the beeps and raise their hands so you know exactly what's going on with their hearing.

Now we know a lot more about hidden hearing loss, talk about revealing the hidden, you know  so basically I ended up going into audiology and the thing that really stood out for me  in my childhood is I remember how often  we would take the Yami pink medicine amoxicillin for ear infections.

I put it in quotes because  unless they take an actual sample of the fluid and test it, they don't necessarily know that it's an infection. So but in those days they were much quicker to give antibiotics 'cause they didn't realize the harm in giving antibiotics so often.  So it totally aligned with my goals of trying to get to the bottom of when a child is struggling, there's always a why. 

And in my family, you know, as much as it was hard to struggle in school myself, I was able to tell myself I see clearly why I was put in that situation. That's what gave me the passion to do what I do.  You know?  So at that time. I can't say that I, I felt that way. It was definitely painful and for my siblings as well.

And most of them struggled more than I did. But looking back, I can clearly see that it was an opportunity,  right? It wasn't a bad thing.  And there was this pediatrician, Dr. Melvin, who wrote a number of books, one of them all kinds of minds. And then he shares that  a parent's job is really to help the child survive school, because it's absurd to expect everybody to be good at everything.

And only in school do they expect you to excel at everything. Ugh.  Survive school. It's so sad. Yes, I'm sitting here going, I feel so bad for them. Yes,  I have my kids sitting there going, when am I going to finally be able to do? What I really wanna do, and I'm sitting there going like, just count down.

I, I don't know what else to tell you, right? Like,  oh, it's so sad. It's so sad. Right? But that's why I'm adding that caveat that parents should be mindful of the fact you don't want your child to just survive school. You do want your child to graduate wanting to continue learning, right? So that's why it's important to recognize that it's really the parent who is the steward of their child's learning  and the attitude they're gonna take towards it. 

And you know what, if you really, really, really dislike math, first of all, I would have to question why. 'cause again, my clinical experience, I had this funny story once where because it was a 14-year-old that I was evaluating, both the mom fills out a comprehensive questionnaire of, you know, like what she finds this child struggles with and what, because, because they were doing top tier, what I call academic excellence, where we're looking at everything.

Mm-hmm. Not just how well the body's serving the person, but also what's going right. So we could tap into that. So when you have an older child who's not reading, you don't wanna just know why they're not reading. They need to be learning how to read yesterday. So you wanna know which reading program is gonna be the best fit.

So you have to also know what's going right, not just what's going wrong. So anyway, right. 14-year-old gets to also answer his own questionnaire.  And the funny thing in this particular situation was mom said that sports were a strength and he said sports was a weakness and how could it be both,  right?

Mm-hmm. And you know what? They were both right,  how he had a fine motor weakness. So any sports that involved fine motor skills were stupid.  And he was excellent at sports that involved gross motor. So like basketball is a gross motor sport. He was great at basketball. Baseball was harder for him, so that was a stupid sport.

So when a child is complaining that something stupid or hard or whatever, there's probably something going on with them that should be a red flag for a parent. Like, why, why is this so hard for them that they have to like, denigrate the thing? Because they're feeling bad about themselves.  Hmm.  Because whatever they're saying about the thing, they're thinking about themselves.

Right. Right. That's where you being a good listener comes in.  Right.  It's interesting, you know,  the glasses story,  the teacher, the math teacher was the only one who was calling me to tell me, your daughter can't see. Your daughter can't see. And eventually I took her in. Of course, you know, she was right, but why was it that none of the other teachers saw it or even, you know, bothered with it? 

And it turns out you, for what? You have to know what to look for. And that's not their training. Right, but it turns out mm-hmm. That she doesn't see when she does math  because she's so stressed out. And even after she got the glasses, she says, I realized that I don't see well, like I, you know, my eyes actually will weaken when I'm trying to do math because I feel stupid because there's no point of seeing it because there's, you know, no point in math, there's too much pressure to, you know, get it right.

Whatever it is, there's only one answer. 

So  there was a whole story, and her body was just serving her to try to help her come up with another thing that was making math stupid, like you said, right? But isn't that crazy? It's crazy. I'm sitting here going,  my brain is blown at how genius the brain is. To be able to come up with real things. Right.

You know, when people say like, oh, it's in your head, like your stomach ache is in your head. It's like, yeah, my stomach ache actually hurts  and is a real thing. Mm-hmm.  And what they mean to say is not that it's in your head and it's not real. It's that it started in your head, right? It was created by your head.

Right? Because it needed to protect you from something. So if your stomach hurts, you're not gonna have to help as much. You're not going to have to do the thing. You're not gonna have to go places. So it, it picked up on that and started sending the same message over and over again. Like, oh, oh, conveniently, we can use this thing now.

Right? So, so I, I feel like it's really important when people say like, oh, it's in your head. Please don't make them feel like it's not a real pain. 'cause it really is. Like the glasses are really necessary 'cause you really can't see. But when you really  dive deeper into it, there's such magic that you can find behind the scenes of why this is even happening. 

So you've, you've touched on something that's extremely important and that's the diving deeper, which takes us back to the curiosity. 'cause it brings to mind this was also a high school boy who the school was concerned. He had just started high school and the school was concerned that he had ADD  So the mom brought him to me.

Most people come to me when there's a question of ADD, it's 'cause they don't agree that it's a DD or they don't want their children on the medication.  Which just to be clear, there are times where the medication is fitting. The problem is the system in which we go about fitting it. So  a lot of practitioners don't bother testing and there are tests, so they don't bother testing if it's really attention deficit disorder.

Because if it really is and you're treating it biochemically, well then where are the tests to figure out which medications would be the best fit instead of trialing, why are we trialing medications? Yeah. And why are we, why are we doing that to kids? But I can't eat, I can't sleep. I'm nauseous, whatever.

Like why, why this is actual, like testing on humans. It's worse than testing on animals. Yes. Yes. And, and it's just become accepted as the norm and it's really not okay when you look at the side effects. Right. And think it through. But anyways, back to this situation.  So the, what mom shared with me, and I don't know if she had told this to the school or if they didn't connect the dots.

'cause I didn't have permission to speak to the school. This boy had an ulcer.  Mm.  And  the backstory was the parents were divorced and it was very contentious. Very contentious.  So when I explained to the mom that like, ulcers are known to come from stress unfortunately  she wasn't willing to hear it and she was, no.

Science now shows that there's some kind of bacteria and it's because of that.  And it, it was just very sad because this boy really needed help for his stress. And of course he wasn't paying attention in class. But it wasn't because of an attention deficit. It was because of stress and worry. Right.  And, and there was actually a, a long history with him of signs that he was stressed, you know, the thumb sucking, you know, at a much later age, bedwetting at a much later age. It was like a lot. He was clearly showing signs of stress for a long time and it wasn't being heard.  Hmm.  You know,  so, but that, that popped into my head because an ulcer is a good example of something that is psychosomatic, that what's going on in your head  then becomes manifest in your body.

It's basically the message is getting louder and louder if someone please help me. And unfortunately, he wasn't getting the help he needed at that time.  I hope he eventually did, or at least gave it to himself when he was able to. I hope so too. I hope so too. But again, you know, God's the one who decided that he should go through this for reasons that are not known to me.

And that's been my biggest struggle professionally, is that. When I feel I can help someone  and then my hands are tied like that, like I don't have permission to talk to the school and mom's not hearing what I have to say. And I, you know, I'm not talking to dad. And I'm just like, okay,  I have a very limited perspective.

There was actually a, a cartoon recently that was comparing the perspective  of two people and one is like looking over the fence and can see the whole view. And one just, there was a little hole in the fence.  And the picture on the other side was, I think there was a water tower that had been punctured and it was like leaking water.

So the person was looking through the little hole in the fence and saying, you lied to me. I can see that it's raining. 

Right. I don't know what the backstory to that was, but it may be a drought situation and this person's saying there's no drought. I can see it's raining. I with my own eyes. Right, right. So, I have to consciously stop and remind myself that  Hashem has a better plan. He sees the big picture, and I don't, you know?

Right. I can only see and be curious about what he will allow me with this opportunity that's, you know, in front of me right now.  But it, but it's work on my part. I have to keep reminding myself of that because, like, I got into this so I can help people not have to suffer in what I consider to be needlessly. 

Right.  Right. What do I know? I, I, I'm looking through the fence in a little hole.  Right, right. You called it opportunities and I love that because, you know, even in business. They tell you there's no such thing as failure. It's all a learning opportunity, you know? So  I went live on a webinar and then, you know, my baby woke up.

I had to stop everything 'cause she had a leaky diaper. And I'm going, I'm watching her. Like, I told everyone, like live on Zoom. Like, guys, you gotta wait one second 'cause I have a baby with the leaky diaper. Do you remember that? Were you there?  She was very tiny. Anyway, I went, I washed her, I brought her back.

I'm sitting there, I started nursing and I continued doing my, my webinar. And when I hung up I was like, ah, that was the biggest failure. Oh my gosh, nobody's gonna wanna work with me. Because it's like, who, you know, who does that Stops a webinar mid-sentence and like goes to, you know,  and the amount of.

Feedback that was positive that I got from that webinar. Like, you're so human. I love that you were able to just pause and get back into it without missing a beat. And I love seeing your baby, like how you take care of her right away and you didn't like neglect her and just let her be dirty or whatever.

It was like, you know, it was up her back, like the, the whole thing. It was so sad. Anyway the feedback I got helped me see that actually it was not a failure. If anything, I gained real, real you know, people connection, real connection, people who actually see me for who I am and not for like, some fake, you know, oh, I need to have it perfectly aligned and right.

And whatever. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Yes.  And you wouldn't have gotten that without that opportunity.  Yeah. Your baby was a godsend. His timing is perfect. God is perfect. What can I say? It's,  it's hard to say, you know, when you're in the suffering, it's hard to say, and that's what I want. Yes. I want the listeners to hear this.

When you are sitting there going, this is not what I expected. Mm-hmm. And it's not supposed to be this way, and things should be that way and whatever. Those are all words that, that's language that is pointing you in the direction of pause. Just stop. Right Question. Right? Like something here is not working  in your favor. 

And when you're able to do that, then  things start to open up. 

Well, one of the things I love is the fact that I forgot which president it was that had the sign. The buck stops here. Right? The buck doesn't stop here.  I can always go ask a rabbinical authority,  like, what's my obligation? What's my limits? When do I say, stop trying to fix this child and, and make him learn in the way that we think he should, right?

 And it's great because it's an objective you know, perspective on it. Somebody who's more knowledgeable than I am, and far too often I've suggested to parents that, like, you, you, you're coming to me after going to a whole list  of professionals  and I can see that your child just feels broken at this point.

Just something to be fixed, like you need to pause and celebrate this child  and then go ask someone.  You know what you should continue with, if anything.  Who said this child has to do it math, who said this child has to do, you know,  it's a belief you have, but you have to question a belief also as to whether it's really true. 

You know, something that really stayed with me until today growing up my mother said  like, would, would point to somebody who is in our community and she said  he has dyslexia. He does not know how to count money,  but a millionaire because he hired other people to do it for him  and, and I saw it over and over again with my clients who were really successful.

Some of the people I did design for, I remember this one guy had a money counting machine next to his desk and he would just throw a bunch of 200 shekel. You know bills and it goes  and it come out and like a big number and he would just show the number, right?  He wouldn't even repeat the number.  He was, that's how much he was not able to do it. 

And I was just sitting there going,  yeah, you don't need to be perfect at everything. You don't even need the basics.  But it's, it's also so wrong to look at it as  not good enough because  God created you  and he knew perfectly well what he was doing, and he knows perfectly well how to do it to perfection.

So again, when he gave you these struggles, there was a reason.  And the question is, what has to be worked through and what has to be set aside?  Oh, this was a perfect way to wrap it all up. What you just said was.  Exactly. Exactly. So beautiful. And what comes to mind in order to really bring that home is that story about, you know, different people who get different jobs.

Like, you know, if you were right, you know you're okay here, you're gonna be the doctor, we're gonna give you the stethoscope and the this, and the that, and the other. Okay? You're gonna be the computer guy. You get a computer and a desk and whatever, and then you, you're gonna be the delivery guy. You get a car, you get whatever, and then the guy, the, the doctor's like, Hey, why don't I get a car? 

You know, that's not fair, right? He gets a car and the, the driver's like, why don't I get a computer? Don't I deserve a computer? He's like, we're sitting here going, why don't I know? You know math as well as he does? Well, because you don't need math. What you are here to do in the world is what you need to do.

And everything you need in order to do that job is already in your box, right? You don't have to look beyond what you have in order to do what you need to do.  Right. But as a parent, the important thing is to know what it is your child struggles with so that you can help them compensate. So if you need a money counting machine, you should know that,  right?

If you don't know you need it, then, then you're in big trouble.  Right? And usually these, you know, these kids or these adults  figured it out on them, you know, by themselves, by having to just survive. And,  and so you're saying if a parent can help them come up with solutions instead of trying to fix them, right.

It would be, it would serve them so much better in the way that they see themselves and in the way that they handle the world.  Yeah.  We're gonna go back to the example of glasses. So I remember this one child that I had evaluated who was 10 years old who had just gotten glasses within the last year.

Now this child had been struggling for a long time.  Decided, God decided that she should get glasses when she was 10 and that she should have her ears checked, you know,  however many months later. And his timing is perfect. So, you know, feeling guilty  for not seeing something like my daughter with the tongue tie, there was nothing to feel guilty about it.

It was just like mind boggling that none of us saw it. We have so many people in the family that should have, but God decided it wasn't the right time and that was it.  There's so much peace in that.  Yeah, there's so much peace in that, you know, and being able, and you know, we were talking about modeling for your kids. 

If you can model to your, for your kid, you'll have everything you need and you're exactly the way you need to be. And God is guiding your journey and helping you figure it out. And you're here on purpose. You're not some extra, right? Like we think God is doing this to me. He gave me this child who's broken or you know, problematic or whatever.

And like I'm using those words totally. Not in a way that, you know, don't take this the wrong way,  but this is the way that she's thinking. Like, lady, get over yourself. It has nothing to do with you. It's not some extra, well, yeah, I'm gonna tweak that a little bit. It has everything to do with her, but it's not that God's doing it to her, God's doing it for her.

It's an opportunity.  Yes. And don't forget that he is a real child with real, you know, a real life. If we were looking at a movie, you have people who are extras. They're just there to like, you know, for the story. Like the kid is not an extra, he's not there just to give you  a problem or just to be your issue, right?

He is the person that is living his life. He is the main character of his life. So just like you are the main character in your life and you have to work through your own, you know, processing quote unquote, of what's going on behind the scenes for me, why do I feel so bad about being given this gift?  So, two, can you model for your child how to grow up and love himself and love the way that he can figure things out and that, you know, he does things differently and so much better sometimes than people who are trying to do it.

You know, the typical way,  whatever it is. I think this is just another really great point. Yes. Well, to reconcile with, with the mom guilt. In a conversation with another friend of mine last week, the like,  I guess epiphany that we came to is  even if a child's a math genius, right?  You still understand that they have to first learn basic accounting and then addition, and then multiplication, and then exponents, and then you don't start off right away with calculus.

Right? Right. You have to absorb things step by step.  And just 'cause I have the title of mom  or even the title of clinician doesn't mean I know everything. I can't know everything. I have to learn it step by step,  and there's nothing to feel guilty about. That's how a human being is designed. You can't learn everything.

You just, it's not a computer you just downloaded, you know, a jump drive with. Gazillion pieces of information you, you learn step by step since the day you were born. Literally, you know, and it, it continues. So have some grace with yourself.  I love that.  Have some grace for yourself. That is going to be our, you know, ending things like, have grace for yourself, Chanie, how can people find you and work with you? 

Okay. So for the clinic, the website is hearing-kids.com, H-E-A-R-I-N-G dash KID s.com. And on Instagram,  it's Moms_Unlocking Learning. So it's MOMS, plural. Moms  unlocking learning.com.  No, that's, that's Instagram. So I think it's Oh, oh Instagram. Sorry, I wasn't listening. So  I know, you know, a good audiologist.

Thank God, you know, it's so fun because even within audiology, you guys are doing completely different things. Yes. Like, if I needed something for my child, I would actually come to you. And if I needed something for myself, I would go to her because it, she's more about the parenting  and that, that angle of things.

So it is just really fun. Very interesting. Well, that's another, you know, like a last note for parents that even if you identify what's going on for your child and you know, which discipline deals with it, but within every single discipline there's always a lot of different areas that they cover. So you wanna make sure you find someone who actually deals with the issue. 

So you can take speech pathology as a different example. Not everybody deals with stuttering. Not everybody deals with swallowing. Not everybody deals with articulation. Not everybody deals with language, even though anyone who is licensed in that field technically could deal with all of it. Right. But you want someone who specializes in what you need. 

Yes, yes. And that's why I think it's such a gift that podcasting and email lists and all these things that we have these days, you can really find what people are specializing in because of the things that they're talking about, the things that they're posting, the things that they're interacting with.

Yep. Yes. Well, thank you so much. This has been fascinating. Super awesome. Thank you for being here. You know, I'll chat with you anytime. It doesn't have to be on the podcast. I love talking to you.  Yes. Just so you guys know I was in Chanie's house, so this is like a really fun moment for me to, you know, celebrate you and thank you for that.

That was really fun. It was one of those times when I came to speak in Lakewood, so thank you. Privilege was mine. Anytime.  Pleasure. Okay. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Don't forget to be back next week for another amazing episode. As I said, we have four pillars, so expectations and God was this one.

There's coming up expectations and marriage expectations and business and expectations in you. So make sure you subscribe and follow along 'cause these are awesome. And don't forget to be connected for real.

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