Several years ago, a Jewish magazine ran a story about a young boy navigating life after his parents' divorce. One scene has stayed with me ever since.
The boy returned to school after vacation without completing a homework assignment. His teacher understood that moving between two households and a complicated family situation may have contributed to the oversight. Yet while other students who had not completed the assignment received no reward, this child was given the same prize as those who had.
Most readers would see the teacher's choice as an act of kindness. He was trying to spare a child further disappointment or embarrassment. Didn't the boy have enough to handle? Why should he suffer because the adults in his life could not coordinate their responsibilities?
Years ago, I might have agreed wholeheartedly.
Today, after helping to raise both my own and my husband's children in our blended family, I see it differently. The teacher's response raises an uncomfortable question: when does kindness stop helping and start hurting?
This is not a theoretical question for me. For many years I watched well-meaning adults extend extraordinary compassion to my stepchildren. Their parents were divorced. Their mother shared custody with us for much of their early childhood, and she chose to live in a community known for its chesed. Teachers, neighbors, relatives, and community members saw children who seemed to need extra understanding and support.
And they were right.
Children of divorce often carry burdens their peers do not. They navigate two homes, shifting schedules, divided loyalties, and emotional complexities that many adults struggle to understand. They deserve compassion, sensitivity, and support.
What concerns me is that compassion can quietly evolve into lowered expectations.
Homework that went uncompleted became excusable. Missed responsibilities became understandable. Academic struggles were overlooked. Gifts, rewards, and privileges appeared not because they had been earned, but because people felt sorry for the children's circumstances. None of this was done maliciously. Quite the opposite. It was done by caring people motivated by genuine chesed.
And yet, as the years passed, I began to wonder whether some of that kindness had come at a cost.
Children absorb more than what adults explicitly teach them. They learn from the expectations placed upon them, and from the expectations removed. They learn whether effort is required, and whether life's challenges are obstacles to overcome or reasons to be excused from trying. Like so many lessons of childhood, these messages are imprinted early and can harden into crutches by adulthood. They become part of the framework through which a person understands himself and moves through the world.
As a community, we pride ourselves on our commitment to chesed. We organize meal trains, raise funds for families in crisis, visit the sick, and support those who are struggling. These acts reflect some of the finest values of Torah life.
Yet not all chesed is equally beneficial. Sometimes, in our desire to ease a child's pain, we remove the very challenges that would help him develop resilience, responsibility, and confidence. True chesed is not measured only by how a child feels in the moment, but by whether it helps him flourish in the future.
This idea is deeply rooted in Torah thought. The Torah commands us to care for the vulnerable, but it also recognizes the dignity that comes from growth and responsibility. Chazal do not define kindness merely as relieving discomfort. True kindness seeks the ultimate good of another person.
Perhaps the clearest example is the Rambam's famous hierarchy of tzedakah. The highest form of charity is not giving money to someone in need. It is helping him become self-sufficient, so that he no longer requires assistance at all. The greatest act of kindness is not dependency, but empowerment.
Will they look back and feel that I believed in their capacity?
The same principle applies to children. When we excuse every responsibility, remove every obstacle, and eliminate every disappointment, we provide temporary relief. But we may also deprive a child of the chance to develop the very qualities he will need for the rest of his life: perseverance, accountability, confidence, and resilience.
A child facing the challenges of divorce may genuinely need accommodations. He may need extra support, flexibility, understanding, and encouragement. What he does not need is the message that life's expectations no longer apply to him.
The teacher in the story had a beautiful instinct. He wanted his student to feel understood. The question is whether there was a better way to honor that instinct.
Imagine if, before vacation, the teacher had met privately with the boy and named the challenges he was facing. Together they might have set a modified goal, one that was realistic and attainable for his circumstances. The child would still feel compassion, but he would also taste accomplishment. He would learn that his circumstances matter, yet do not define him, and that the outcome was his to shape.
That is the difference between helping a child and handicapping him.
Children of divorce do not need pity. They need people who believe in their capacity to succeed despite the difficulties they face. They need adults who will support them without surrendering expectations, who offer compassion without diminishing accountability, and who help them build the skills for a healthy and productive future.
That is the kind of chesed that heals. That is the kind of chesed that empowers. And ultimately, that is the kind of chesed that reflects the Torah's vision of what it means to truly help another person.
For Reflection
The line between supporting someone and stunting them is rarely obvious in the moment. A few questions can help tell the two apart:
Am I easing this challenge because the person truly cannot meet it, or because I find it painful to watch them struggle?
Does this accommodation move them toward independence, or toward needing the same accommodation again next time?
Am I adjusting the expectation to fit their circumstances, or removing the expectation altogether?
If this person were not carrying difficult circumstances, what would I expect of them, and how far have I drifted from that?
Years from now, will they look back and feel that I believed in their capacity, or that I quietly decided they could not manage?