Question:

What would you tell the “Wise Child” to keep his interest strong during the Passover Seder? What would make the experience even more meaningful for a child like this? How would you direct or encourage a child like this in life?

Answer:

Having a “wise child” can be a challenge for a parent, just as it is a blessing.

Your role as a parent is to encourage your child to keep on learning and growing as a person. You can do this, first, by showing your child by example how essential continual growth is. Reading, learning, discussing ideas and viewpoints will help a child to see that life is not static but is full of development. Encourage his efforts not his innate talents. Encourage your child to question, to think, to discover. Relate ideas or issues to his own life.

Let him see the beauty in his traditions, in his people and in the wisdom of the Torah. Show him, for example, a relevance of the Pesach Seder to his own life. Mitzrayim (the Hebrew word for Egypt) means limitations, obstructions, challenges. At the Seder, you can discuss with him what are his own limitations or challenges, and how he can overcome them in his personal life. Help him to set realistic goals for himself, and then be there for him to aid him to realize these goals, through his own efforts. Speak about the different types of children, and ask him why he thinks a child will develop to become one of the respective four types.

Make him feel a part of something wonderful—a beautiful nation that is “a light unto the world” living in this beautiful world that our Creator gave us. Help him to see his responsibility and obligation to give back to our world and to make it a better place. Give him the faith of mankind reaching a better time period with the coming of the Messiah and the redemption, but help him to realize that achieving this better time is up to each one of us, and the small actions that each of us do.

I hope some of these ideas have been helpful for you.

Wishing you success in raising your special child!

Chana Weisberg for Chabad.org