Reply To: Going off the Derech

OhTeeDee/LLL/EH-thanks for your advice. Some of the suggestions make a lot of sense, even though they are hard to do.

EH-About Shabbos. Mostly, he just doesn’t want to be home, but we don’t like that he’s out all day/night with his chevra, and we usually let him know this. What I meant was, should we just keep quiet and let him go without saying anything? Everything we do feels like pressure to him and I don’t want to add to his pressure. Yet, staying out ’til after 1am and missing the seudas (and of course, all the tefillas) bothers us terribly. Not knowing where he is all day and night just ruins any peace I could possibly feel on Shabbos. And now, this weekend is also Shavous. I just don’t know how I’ll be able to handle it.

I do try to set limits with some of the melachas on Shabbos, but he really doesn’t care too much, and is becoming more lax, even in front of his siblings, which bothers me. If I say anything, he just doesn’t ‘hear’ me, or he’ll get angry.

LLL_where was your Rebbe when all that was happening to you? It’s true that kids can be cruel, religious or not. It just seems to be a stage they go through on their way to maturity. I feel terrible to hear how they tortured you like that, kids just don’t know how much pain they can cause someone. It must be so hard to heal from something like that. What helped you?