The Balancing Act of Parenting

I tell parents all the time, time is your ally. You don't need to react immediately to anything. Maybe there's exceptions when it comes to imminent life and death situations, but outside of those extremely rare circumstances, time is your ally. I'm so happy we're having this conversation, especially if the kid came to you and told you about something. They offered to you something. The entire response should be, at least in the moment, I'm so proud of you. It's amazing that you had the courage to come and tell me and talk to me about this. Baruch Hashem, that's amazing. Like, I want to reward you for that. At the same time, in 24 hours, like my girls break said, we may need to have another conversation about what kind of consequences are necessary. And therein lies the balancing act of, you know, um, support, but yet at the same time, with an understanding that their actions have consequences. >> I don't think there's any contradiction to, uh, parents saying to a kid, hey, I just want to let you know, I found a phone I found a device. We're going to need to talk about it. We're going to need to plan. In the meantime, I want you to know, this doesn't ruin our relationship, but if anything, I want to talk to you about it more. And the more you're willing to lean in to that relationship and talk to me about it, the better. The more you're going to hide from me and try to keep things from me, it's going to be more strained. But, let's go let's go have dinner. I just want you to know that my policy is that the more that you're willing to be open with me, the more that I'm willing to be patient with you and talk to you about what your needs are and figure out a way forward that we can be honest and open with each other and with before I just need two two things about dinner is I I think dinner has to look be the child has to understand, I still love you. I'm upset about the action. Dinner has nothing to do with that action. So, in other words, things are normal and I'm just saying that many kids have told me they cannot believe they appreciate that their parents don't share with the rest of the family what's going on. In other words, they're they're careful about the embarrassment of the child. Again, not taking away from facing the music, but also not, you know, not embarrassing them in a way that the rest of the family knows um what happened. Realistically, that child that teenager may not join you for dinner that night and you can't really force her or him to come to the table. I would bring them dinner in their room. Again, we're going to have to deal with what you did. I still want you to eat. I still love you. I still want a relationship with you, etc.