Reply To: Going off the Derech

Interjection-Thank-you for all your insight/advice. Probably you are right, if we fight with him to come back earlier, he will come back later. But the alternative is that my son is calling all the shots, he is the one in control, he is the one making all the decisions in the home, and me and my husband are like the rest of the kids in the house, observers and recipients of his ‘chinuch’. How will he ever be able to respect us again? I’m afraid my other kids will lose respect for us, even I don’t feel I can respect myself. Isn’t it possible that his ‘damage’ somehow runs too deep? For instance, you mentioned to leave food out for him. On Shabbos, he doesn’t come to the table anymore. Shabbos morning, after the meal was over, I asked him if he wanted me to save him a plate of food, as I was cleaning up and putting things away. He told me he doesn’t like Shabbos food anymore. For some reason, that really bothered me, not bc he’s rejecting food that I prepared, but bc I felt he must have really changed on the inside to suddenly feel repulsed by food he used to enjoy.

Regarding the incident with your father, I think the reason it worked is bc he challenged the very reason you were put off by your parents in the first place. Maybe I will use this as a paradigm for figuring out what my husband and I need to do, but I have to first figure out what it is he is rebelling against when it comes to us.