Once your kid hits a certain age, knowing what they're up to doesn't get you very far. Let's say you know your 15-year-old child's friends use drugs - what are you going to do about it? Cut off their contact with those people, follow them around and make sure they have the "right" friends... ? I can't think of anything that wouldn't almost certainly do more harm than good.
Now, I wouldn't want a teenager hanging out alone at home for hours each day if they're not going to do anything productive in that time. If they're home, at least some of that time should be with friends, or doing homework, or working on some sort of project they're interested in, etc. If they were spending 3 hours or more at home each day just bumming on the computer I'd suggest they get a job.
Once your kid hits a certain age, knowing what they're up to doesn't get you very far. Let's say you know your 15-year-old child's friends use drugs - what are you going to do about it? Cut off their contact with those people, follow them around and make sure they have the "right" friends... ? I can't think of anything that wouldn't almost certainly do more harm than good.
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Now please don't tell me that you are serious in your post, please! If you ch"v know your son is hanging around teen druggies you'll just let it be? I hope to never have to experience this, but int hat event I'd reach out to a professional and have some trained specialist get my son into good company, casually and professionally, without him realizing our intervention.
Once your kid hits a certain age, knowing what they're up to doesn't get you very far. Let's say you know your 15-year-old child's friends use drugs - what are you going to do about it? Cut off their contact with those people, follow them around and make sure they have the "right" friends... ? I can't think of anything that wouldn't almost certainly do more harm than good.
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Now please don't tell me that you are serious in your post, please! If you ch"v know your son is hanging around teen druggies you'll just let it be? I hope to never have to experience this, but int hat event I'd reach out to a professional and have some trained specialist get my son into good company, casually and professionally, without him realizing our intervention.
an *OLDER* teenager is a 17, 18, 19 yr old. what happens when your teenager is 13? 14? a little young to be on their own for 6-8 hours a day for 2-3 weeks.
an *OLDER* teenager is a 17, 18, 19 yr old. what happens when your teenager is 13? 14? a little young to be on their own for 6-8 hours a day for 2-3 weeks.
They wake up late. Summer minyan is at 8:45 by the time they drag themselves home it's 10-ish? They have breakfast, do whatever and in my case, have a mother home by 1:30. It's not a big deal. With mothers out of the house till later, they just do more of the same. In Israel, it's acceptable for kids to just hang out. I did it as a kid, and those were the best times!
Once your kid hits a certain age, knowing what they're up to doesn't get you very far. Let's say you know your 15-year-old child's friends use drugs - what are you going to do about it? Cut off their contact with those people, follow them around and make sure they have the "right" friends... ? I can't think of anything that wouldn't almost certainly do more harm than good.
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Now please don't tell me that you are serious in your post, please! If you ch"v know your son is hanging around teen druggies you'll just let it be? I hope to never have to experience this, but int hat event I'd reach out to a professional and have some trained specialist get my son into good company, casually and professionally, without him realizing our intervention.
Once your kid hits a certain age, knowing what they're up to doesn't get you very far. Let's say you know your 15-year-old child's friends use drugs - what are you going to do about it? Cut off their contact with those people, follow them around and make sure they have the "right" friends... ? I can't think of anything that wouldn't almost certainly do more harm than good.
.
Now please don't tell me that you are serious in your post, please! If you ch"v know your son is hanging around teen druggies you'll just let it be? I hope to never have to experience this, but int hat event I'd reach out to a professional and have some trained specialist get my son into good company, casually and professionally, without him realizing our intervention.
Laughing at me, oy, what did I say wrong now?
You demonstrated a naivete that we all wish we still had.
I'm shocked then. Really? I'm not talking older teens, I'm talking ketana age. Just let them be, and spiral off, or offer some intervention not by the parent?
kitov, this same innocence showed in a different thread that we both posted on yesterday and was since locked. I wonder how old your oldest is.
Well, I won't respond to this one....
But let me tell you, here, if a young bochur, and I emphasize-young, starts his downfall, there is usually soem kind of intervention. From the simple offering him a good mentor to the extreme of sending him off to Israel under the care of a warm family. I have seen it many times. Most turn out well, but, yes, some are nebach lost. But just sitting back and doing NOTHING I have never ever heard of, and I've heard a lot. (Won't tell you, not gonna blow my cover for this..lol). From young molesters, to young thieves, to young arsonists and drug experimenters, most of the time someone tried to help.
Actually most SAHMs dont rejoin the workforce when theyre older. Theyre either rusty/out of practice in the workforce, or they dont need it. It's also very hard to suddenly become committed to a job, when youre 50 yrs old and tire much more easily. You still have yougn kids who sometimes dont feel well; there's still before pesach, when the bochurim are home for a month; etc etc etc. these women do a lot of volunteer work, and usually end up taking care of their elderly parents, too. they are veyr, very busy. not to mention marryig off kids, taking in their kimpeturins, babysitting a grandchild... theyre still doing their SAHM 'job'.
It is complicated. Bochurim home for a month, big deal, they'll do the Pesach cleaning while I'm at work. But the rest, yeah, gives one pause. Wish me luck, I'm trying to line things up to go back to school this year.
I'm shocked then. Really? I'm not talking older teens, I'm talking ketana age. Just let them be, and spiral off, or offer some intervention not by the parent?
Kitov, this is the most difficult tightrope to walk. Terrifying, in many ways.
Kids are influenced by friends. So yes, I want to know where he is, and what he's doing, and what his friends are doing.
Never mind when they get licenses, and I need to know that the driver isn't drunk or high.
But at the same time, you have to trust. When he says he's going for pizza with his friends, you can't ask for a receipt to make sure it was the kosher place, not the treyf one down the block. And you sure can't ask him to pee in a cup once a month.
OK, so let's say, ch"v, that a young teenager is starting to edge his way OTD. His friends aren't those his parents want him to be with, he's experimenting with something you don't approve of... or let's say he's a fine young man and he isn't doing any of the above but spending his day davening, learning and playing chess . So now you are babysitting/policing him at home and he says he wants to go to the park with his friend Shmuli/ wants to invite Shmuli over/ wants to sort out his stamp collection in his room. So now what? What did you gain/ prevent by staying home? Are you going to forbid him and Shmuli going into an empty room to exchange stamps, or are you going to insist on watching them?
By staying home when a young bochur is at home, a parent "learns" who their chld is. A vigilant parent can tell by a kid's actions if they are "just going to the park or trade stamps", or have something else on their mind. A vigilant parent would let her teen go to the park, but would occasionally drop by, or have someone drop by, to casually say hi, while really looking around. I remember my brothers learning in shul, and my father would call any man in the shul from time to time to hear what my brother doe sin shul. The reports weren't always great. My father once even stepped in by asking a decent boy in his yeshivah to learn with my brother bein hazmanim and my father secretly paid the boy. My brother is a grand masmid today. But he had all the resources to slip, hadn't my father intervened.
Another thing, when a parent is home, a child kind of feels like "I have a parent at home waiting on me, I'll have to report my late homecoming from shachris", versus the son of parents who are working during his yeshivah break and no one knows when he's coming and goind.
I know this from what I used to do...lol. I always had to recount "what took me so long" when I did my mom's errands....
I hope to never have to experience this, but int hat event I'd reach out to a professional and have some trained specialist get my son into good company, casually and professionally, without him realizing our intervention.
. So now you are babysitting/policing him at home and he says he wants to go to the park with his friend Shmuli/ wants to invite Shmuli over/ wants to sort out his stamp collection in his room. So now what? What did you gain/ prevent by staying home? Are you going to forbid him and Shmuli going into an empty room to exchange stamps, or are you going to insist on watching them?
