This week, I had the chance to speak to the parent we had observed retrieving his son last Friday night. P and I approached him at a Bat Mitzva party to congratulate him on taking responsibility for his child, something we had not yet seen on our Sayeret Horim patrols.
The parent, we'll call him R, told us that there is more to the story than setting firm limits. The limits must be there, and when his son wasn't home half an hour after the curfew time they set, R was making sure his son knew the limits, and also making sure his son wasn't up to "no good". But that comes with Always Talking. Talking about the situations that exist out there, and what one has to be careful about. But mainly, Talking About Feelings. Talking about how hard it is to be a teenager, at a time that in the "very best yeshivot" there are drugs. Talkign about how worried we are as parents.
Talking that includes listening.
We do a all this - create and develop the limits and the strong bond - because our goal is to make sure that they get to the age in which they get brains (18-19 usually, according to R) with their minds, bodies and emotions intact.
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