Quote[The wife and I tried to set him down and talk with him - and ask him where he plans to go with his life, and how his current destructive behavior, even לשיטתו  is going to get him the supermodel wife and the big lake-shore house and Ferrari, etc.  I hope we got him to think a bit, but I did not see too much in terms of his making any effort to make up the missing work..
}

sorry rabbi, but IMHO, this was wrong for you & ur wife to ask this question, a child at this stage in life, have to be asked this only by an outsider & also very delicate, it’s not something that parents can/may ask, as he feels rejected/threatened, & would love to tell u for that, "GO GET A LIFE' what do u know about supermodel wives, it is just adding pain cuz obviously he has no answer for that question, & it just makes feel a total loser, i will repeat again, get him a professional mentor, doesn’t have to be with all the bells & whistles & charge u $ 200 a session, rather someone with a warm yiddish heart & a proven success record, or someone who can act as a big brother, may hashem be with you all along the way of your/your son’s recovery, but 1 thing is for sure your recovery will defiantly change things for good on his side too, as kids read your mind, besides the bonus that I am sure hashem will send ur way for the effort u make on ur part, hatzlacha raba

Don't worry, JnotIP.
Rabbi S said he'll be looking at Rabbi (Yaakov) Horowitz' parenting site. He'll hear what you are saying and also get some specific strategies for trying it without feeling like a hypocrite. It's just a question of patience until he finds the time to do the reading. Rabbi S is clearly a really really smart guy who loves his son very much -- the rest is commentary.

Rav Shmendrick: Right?

SHMEN,  COME BACK, PLEASE.  WE NEED YOU.  NO MATTER WHAT.

Yeah, where is he?

Hey Guys,

I have been away for way too long.

I apologize...and thank you to those who wrote that they missed me

It is Erev Shabbos and I do not have much time for an update today, but b"kitzur:

• My son is now home for the summer.  We are truying to figure out what to do with him both during the summer and for next year.....not much has changed


• This time of year is difficult for us in this group. I walked around Manhattan yesterday, went on the subways ....Lots of temptations wherever we look.  I mainly joined this group to deal with my internet addictions, but i have become more sensitized to the need for shmiras einayim all the time.....man it's hard....so much on the menu all the time!  I wonder what is possible, or even optimal in this regard .... 

I hope to begin posting more again next week.

In the meantime

Good SHabbos to y'all

Shmendrick

Most welcome back, Shmen.  Yep, out here in California they've never heard the "tsnius".  It's like a full time job.  All I can tell you is I try not to do the second look, and not to linger.  The yetzer just comes screaming up in the chest in a nanosecond, and then there's the cool-down time.  A trick I learned here that seems to help is when I do "over-look"  to dig my fingernail into my thumb for a count of six.  That seems to calm things down pretty quickly.  I'm going to  check the threads on the "What Worked for Me" window.

As to your son. Sometimes less is more, because I've found that the "more", for me, is often about me wanting to control my sons, a determination driven by the yh that wants to see the love between me and my boys go into the toilet, so that I can feel hurt and dissapointed, angry and frustrated and absolutely entitled to go do "IT".

So have a Gooten Shabbos, and much Shalom Bayis.

Reb S! Great to have you back w/us!!

I was just in Manhattan, and definitely empathize, but the salvation for me is to come to truly believe and remind myself that no matter how juicy and outrageous the images of those women are, the problem - if I have one - is in me, not ever in them. As the Rebbe Reb b says: She is not my problem (I am)! ...OK, maybe I'm farteitching it a bissel anderish fun der Rebbe, but in the lower oilomois where I dwell, the Rebbes words come to farshid'ner pirushim!)

No matter how lusty she may look - she isn't lust itself - I am the one experiencing the lust. Nobody can give me lust if I do not use them. In a way, they are the victims, not I. Concerning myself with their intentions (whether they are bad for dressing that way and why they do it) is poison sh'ein kamohu for me, as it is nothing but a cheap and easy way to excuse lusting after them! Boom! (That's for you, Reb b!)

Agree....disagree...I don't care. Have a great day and hatzlocha I love all yidden especially the ones with lust problems!

Post away!

Reb Shmendrick:
I'm new to GYE having joined in your absence.  Last night I read your entire thread.  Keep up the fight.  One piece of advice that I did have concerning your sons struggles.  Other have suggested a mama's tears.  I would suggest that you should focus on your own tefilos if for nothing other than selfish reasons.  Kol Hamispallel Be'ad Chavero V'Hu Tzorich L'Oso Davur Hu Neneh Techila.  Because you are both undergoing the same struggles your tefillos for him will have a double punch, they will help you in your struggle and what could be more sincere than a father's tefillos for his son, particularly a father who understands all too well his son's struggles.  Hatzlacha and stay close to the site.  It's safer.

Show your son lots of love.
For no reason.
Even though he doesn't deserve it.
Even when he's bad.
Even if you think it will send the wrong message.
It won't.
Over time, he'll WANT to change.
He'll confide in you.
He'll not want to disappoint you.

And of course, like others have said: Daven.

And of course, the more we succeed in our OWN issues, the less issues we leave for our children to "fix". We are often parts of one soul...

OY  :'(  OY  :'( OY  :'( OY

I do not have time to post now -- gotta give a shiur in 20 minutes that I am not prepared for -- but I had to vent a little . . .

OY  :'(  OY  :'( OY  :'( OY

Thank you all so much for being there and for your tefillos and advice and dreqms qnd hopes

I will בע"ה write later, but I have gotten much deeper into the hole that my son and his friends and so very many kids are in today....and it is simply terrifying. 

What an incredible level of Yetzer hara!!!!  How will they ever pull out?

We need so much Rachamei Shomayim now - I can't even begin

more later

Thanks again so much!

Unconditional love. In abundant quantities. Don't worry that your son will see through you, or think you an idiot for ignoring his foibles, or feel unable to rise to the challenge. The love AND RESPECT of a father is important whether "deserved" (whatever the *&# that means) or simply a gift.

But oy oy oy, the shande of the rav's own son being like this! What will people say! That maybe the rav and his family is... normal?? oy.

Keep going. You know what to do. And if you momentarily forget, just imagine yourself being that age and asking yourself what you need....

Briut wrote on 01 Jul 2010 04:19:


Dear Friends,

I have not posted for quite a while, nor really been here, and for that I have to apologize, (espeically to those who have asked me to continue posting).

It seems that the last few weeks have just been a long descent into a very difficult hell . . . one in which I see my son slipping away and I just feel powerless to do anything about it.  SO I will kvetch here a bit . . . maybe some of you have some better ideas for me.

I tell you one thing . . . which is not very comforting . . . seeing my son's issues has helped me with my own in that I am not nearly as tempted to look at the sick stuff that is tempting him. :-[  I see where he is going, and how I feel about that , and find myself repulsed to know that I was and to some extent am still tempted by the same stuff...it is really disheartening.

(I have to say a eulogy in a few hours, so perhaps this exercise of writing here might get me into the right frame of mind of discussing the futility of life . . . )


Here is my last few weeks in brief, in regard to my son.  I say this in the sense that there are certainly other things going on as well...good things...my eldest daughter is on the verge of getting engaged...my other three children give us more nachas than we possibly deserve . . . but this son is putting a damper on it all, most unfairly and unfortunately.

After a pretty bad year in Yeshiva, ha came home about two and a half weeks ago.  He is determined to "chill" all summer, after getting out of "prison" and is not interested in doing anything other than sleeping till noon every day, getting on the internet, trying to meet as many girls as possible, going to as many movies and parties as possible, complaining about his "overreacting" parents if we say or suggest anything at all about what he is doing, doing hooka (some smoking pipe thing) with friends, and more sleeping.

That is a general picture.  Of course the details are much more.

Thinking about and trying to follow some advice heard here and elsewhere, I really tried to withhold criticism and give him some space.

He very much wanted to get on the net, use faceboook, watch youtube, movie trailers and tv shows, let alone more destructive things.  I installed K9 before he got home to help him (and myself) stay away from stuff, and blocked most of those things.

On the advice of a computer expert, I agreed to let him have facebook, but I also installed eblaster, which shows me everything that he is typing when he is on.  And a whole new and depressing world opened up to me.

I see a world in which my son, and all his friends, are in a place which is so far from what the adult world sees, so far from the frame of mind that yeshivos hope to instill in their talmidim, so far from the hopes and dreams that parents have fro their sons growing up to be healthy adults with at least a smattering of yiras shomayim and love of Torah . . . that it is truly frightening.

I see a world in which kids use facebook in a completely different way than I do.  When I get on facebook, I like to connect with friends I haven't seen for a while (sometimes meeting people I haven't seen in forty years), post some thoughts, read about events in others lives, share a joke, story, dvar torah, whatever....pretty benign stuff.

My son, and all his friends use facebook, and particularly the chat options in facebook, to try to meet as many girls as possible, plan Friday night parties in a place they think is safe from adult snooping, take on a "chilled" persona that talks trach (the nivul peh is astoundingly outrageous and filthy), engage in one oneupmanship as to who was "badder" as far as getting to which base with girls, edge each other on to get involve in activities that will only drag each other down, even to illegal things.  In a way - the opposite of what Guard Your Eyes is all about - a place on the web where you can meet people to help you go down, rather than up.

I see a world in which I cannot imagine any of these kids being able to turn away and focus on even a minimal level needed to succeed in any kind of yeshiva that I know about.  Their thoughts are focused 24/7, except for when they are sleeping (perhaps), on girls, porn, parties, being cool, talking trash, bemoaning th jerks that their parents are for the few restrictions that they do have.  They have zero interest in davening, learning, mitzvos....doing the absolute minimum of shabbos and kashrus because (a) there is still some guilt they feel and (b) they aren't ready yet to cross that line.

I have to end for now, though there is so much more to say and vent.  I started this posting by quoting our dear friend Briut, and how I wish it were that simple.

Honetly, i don't really care much about what others will say.  There are "kids at risk" everywhere and in every type of family, so that does not bother me too much.

What does bother me is

(a) I find myself incapable of giving unconditional love.    I cannot stand what he is doing.  I cannot stand the insubordination.  I cannot stand how he uses the rachmonus of his mother to allow him all sorts of things that I think are bad for him.  I can't tolerate the way this is adding so much tension and difficulty in our family dynamic and  when he just blows us off, and knows that he will get away with almost anything he wants, and will be "unconditionally loved", it drives me nuts, and I lose it sometimes.

(b) I am not sure that even if I was able to give it, that unconditional love is the answer.  Why should he be loved despite what he is doing, which I hate?  Why should he be allowed to make us so miserable?  I know, I know, that sometimes this will lead him back in the long run (maybe) and that otherwise we will just drive him away.

But it is so darn diffcult.

Gotta go bury someone

All the best

Shmendrick

Time does not permit now , but I am so lost as to how to deal with this

Shmendrick,

It sounds like your getting one heck of a lesson on Powerlessness.  Of course we are all powerless over our life circumstances but since GOD usually runs the world according to a certain order (e.g. if I send my son to Yeshiva he will learn, daven, wear tzitzis) there is the illusion that we can influence events and people around us.

Your son trying to meet girls is as much removed from your power as is the nachas provided to you by your other children.  His actions are not your problem and issue!! Your responsibility to do what you can do for him (e.g. love him, daven for him, etc..) is your what you have to be concerned with. 

I personally have huge issues with my relationship with my children and not because of their behavior but because of my own emotional problems.  What I have come to realize is that loving my children (and wife) is something that I need to do because GOD wants me to not because I happen to feel like it. 

The ramifications of this are many.  I don't always feel loving so what do I do?  I need to take the actions of love and then usually the feelings follow.  I also can't keep a score card.  I need to love my family regardless of what they do or don't do for me.  I need to love my wife even when she won't have sex, my children even when they won't listen or keep quiet.

I have just begun to realize that this is GOD's plan for me in having a family.  To turn me from a self-centered egomaniac to a more selfless, giving person who is looking to do for others - a baal chesed.  I am a long way off still but it feels good to finally feel pointed in the right direction.

It is easy to love our children when they give us nachas.  Who wouldn't enjoy spending time with their son when he wants to learn with you in the Bais Hamedrash, but this child is not just your son.  He is also GOD's son, and GOD wants you to love him.

Hatazlacha

Jooboy.  Beautiful post. Thanks. 

I have a daughter that's far off the derech:  A "sex worker", bis******, "plyamorous" (I had to figure out that means as many as she wants, on and on.)  Today, from my experience here at GYET I know that it was my own lust addiction during the years she was growing up, that somehow insinuated itself into her mind.  So I've learned to accept the grief.  Much of what she deals with today simply must be from where I've been as a father all those years.

Then she wanted to talk all about what she does to the younger kids.  We put our foot down and a long rupture in my relationship to her happened.

I wrote her a scathing letter about disrespecting her mother, her brothers, me, herself and Hashem.  I just needed to vent.  I made sure I didn't call her names or be disrespectful back.  She didn't respond for a long time, and then when her response came, her response basically said she "has to be herself and feels everyone is rejecting her because she doesn't fit into their mold".  The important thing is that she answered. 

I suggested we email.  We did that for maybe a year.  Then I suggested we could add texting.  Which we've also been doing for about another year. 

Then she had a pap smear that came back negative.  I panicked, to myself and "H.  It was during that time that I was shown that at the end of the day, she is my daughter, and I love her.  Cherish her.  I couldn't deny that in the face of possibly losing her.  I could drop the resentments (which were largely about my need to control).  "H showed me the deeper truth.

So i started telling her how much I loved her.  How worried I was and how much she meant to me.  The biopsy proved negative B"H, much to everyone's relief.  But that didn't change anything for me.  Now she is very loving back.  She sent me a really beautiful fathers' day card.  SHE WISHED ME A GOOD SHABBOS.  I sent her a picture of her as a a very little girl benching licht with her grandmother and aunt.  She was touched.  Little by little, "H will move this in His direction.  My job is to admit and express the truth that I love her so much.  I don't know where things will go from here.  That's not my job.

So Shmen, my friend, my journey fellow, I think I can understand what you're going through.  I had to be very firm--the letter about respect.  And then I had to just break down and be driven by "H to the deepest truth a father can know--that when all is said and done, if I lost her Ch'v'shalom, , I would feel and go through everything that any parent would go through (Ch'v'shalom) with the loss of a child who gave me great nachus.  It wouldn't matter at all, that she wasn't doing my picture of "being on the derech".  I would die the death all parents die when they lose that which is more precious than anything, and again, ch''v sh.

Besides, who says she's not on the derech.  Who am I? G-d?  I know what He's doing with her life?  I gave my parents no less pain and aggravation, and then did T'shuvah.  I accepted that she belongs to Hashem, and He is there with her entirely and completely, even if it's not apparent right now.

Somehow I hope this rambling will be in some indirect way a help and a comfort.

I'll daven for shalom bayis for you and your WHOLE family.

wow ...you guys rock!  you are awesome dudes!  it is so great it's sick!  (my son's lingo)  8)

Anyway, in all seriousness, really both responses of jooboy and 1daat are very deeply moving and thought provoking.  They touched me very deeply, and I will try to take what you said to heart very much

Once again you have confirmed that we who are lucky enough to have this group and benefited from everything that Guard and his cohorts are doing are in the company of some truly great people  ... a humbling experience indeed.

It made me reflect on a dear cousin of mine whose eldest child has cerebral palsy, whose two daughters are older wonderful sweet girls who cannot find a shidduch, whose one married son wife almost died in a freak accident last year, and yet is the sweetest, most loving, most generous of spirit people that I know . 

And I have a kid that in many ways is just acting out the way many teenagers act, and, so far, has not done anything too terrible, and I kvetch and kvetch  :-[ . . .

and yet . . .

what do I do for my son?  How do I keep him from hurting himself further?  Or is 1Daat right - that it is not my choice anyway?????

Gotta go to mincha...I am just writing to thank you all again.... Thank you Dov and ur-a jew and Briut and JIP and Yedidya aleph and Steve and otherwise and of course Guard...and al of youse guys

Lots of love

Shmendrick