A Guide For Raising Compassionate Kids May' for Goldfish Swim School's Annual Safety Day Event! With a focus on water safety for families, our Safety Day Event will also include free famil swim, food, and lots of fun activities for children of all ages! Are you opening - or closing - your children's hearts? T Visit our website for specific times and details about Safety Day! Join us at these locations! Birmingham Ann Arbor Farmington Hills vim essons: months - 12 years of age :1 group swim lesson ratio 30•minute weekly lessons Birmingham 1 248.644,1914 Ann Arbor 1 734.864.5555 Farmington Hills 1 248.596.1914 Rochester I NOW OPEN Now franchising a GOLDEN experience at goldfishfranchise.co Visit www.goldfishsvvimschooLcom for location information! (STUDIOS COMMUNITY DAY AND STUDENT ART SALE AT CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART AND ART MUSEUM SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2012 2-5 PM Tickets: $12 in advance; $15 at the door. Admission includes: Access to more than 79 artists studios in 10 departments. + Entrance to Cranbrook Art Museum and Opening Day of the "2012 Graduate Degree Exhibition". + Family Events, Performances and Demonstrations in the Big Top. + Entrance to Cranbrook Institute of Science. For more information, tickets, and parking directions: www.cranbrook.edu or Art Events at 248-645-3040. SPONSORED BY: ANBRO Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum 39221 Woodward Avenue Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303 t' 1 . 1 si t 0 1 1 111.11 1E1.1 1 '"C t. \ MASCO 1745750 32 April 19 a 2012 ..._........ here are only two ways to walked to another aisle. As she passed raise your children: You either me, I heard her say to her son, "We shut them down or you open don't talk to those people. They don't them up. believe in Jesus:' If you shut them down you raise Religion is often a means for them in a zero-sum world of winners closed-heartedness, and parallel sto- and losers. You teach them ries could be found in any that the world is a pie of faith. Because religious fixed size, and that if they stories are some of the most want more they must see personality-shaping stories that others have less or per- we humans tell, we must haps nothing at all. This is a examine them to see what fearful world of endless and kind of children we are rais- often violent competition ing when we tell them these and retribution; a world stories. of haves and have-nots; a A few months ago, I met world of us versus them with a small gathering of Rabbi Rami where the ends (the success Muslim and Christian cler- Shapiro of us) justify the means gy to draft a statement con- Special to the (whatever secures the fail- demning religious violence. Jewish News ure of them). We had no problem doing If you open your children this as long as the violence up you raise them in a nonzero-sum was this-worldly, but when I suggested world where abundance is the norm, we also condemn the eternal torture and while there will still be winners of nonbelievers (who are really only and losers — those who have more differently believing believers) in the and those have less — it is not a world world to come, I found myself in a that allows some to have nothing. This minority of one. If God wants to burn is a world rooted in compassion rather people for believing what they believe than competition; a world of us and that is His business, I was told. So them rather than a world of us versus yes, we should avoid telling our chil- them. dren that our God condones violence Are you parenting opened hearts or against those who believe differently closed hearts? One than we do, but we way to know is to should tell them that RABBI R AMI , GU DE I TO analyze the stories God will do just that you share with your when they die. children. I'm not Of course, religion talking about the isn't the only source storybooks you read of heart-closing to your kids, though stories. Politics, these, too, need to be nationalism, ethnic- looked at; I'm talking ity, race can all be about the stories you used to this end. teach them through And what all these your faith and your heart-closing stories dealings with others. have in common is The other day I that they demonize was in a discount the other. store walking down a toy aisle. Two kids were eyeing the What Do You Teach? action figures. Both boys were with So what stories are you telling your their moms, one of whom was dressed children? in a manner that identified her as a When you see a homeless person Muslim. The little Muslim boy picked is your story "there but for the grace up a toy and turned to show it to the of God go I," or do you talk about the other boy who moved closer to get a power of negative thinking, or do you better look. As the boy moved closer, talk about justice and injustice, and his mom, who had been holding his our obligations to the poor? None of hand, yanked him back, turned and these stories stops you from giving