Reply To: Going off the Derech

here to help-I’m not sure its going to work on my son. For one thing, he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He is extremely smart, controling and manipulative even when he’s on the derech. The other thing is, my husband keeps telling me of someone he knows with a son in the same situation, who wanted to stay out all night. The reason he doesn’t, is bc his mother DID lock him out once, and he slept on a park bench. Since then, he’s been coming home on time! I told my husband, maybe it worked in the short run, but they may lose in the long run. But we don’t seem to have any guarantees doing things this way either. My son’s chevra tells my son what to do, ie ‘just scream at your parents, and they’ll give in’; “they can’t force you to do anything, you can do whatever you want”. The only advantage I can see by ‘twisted parenting’ is that the ‘battle’ is removed. But the kid won!! No resistance, no disapproval. Why would he ever come back? Isn’t it just a way of letting him fly further and further away? (I hope I don’t come across as being cynical, I’m really just trying to understand it better so I can do it correctly).

My other question is, are there any parents in my situation who felt like their child would never come back to the derech, and then they did? For some reason, and I hope I’m wrong, I think that once my son takes the final steps to leave the derech (chas v’Shalom), he won’t ever come back. He’s just too stubborn, and would never want to admit that he made a mistake…Hashem forgive me, and I do hope I’m wrong