Life can be difficult when you are a child or a teenager and you find yourself in a troubling situation. You may be out with friends having a perfectly good time when suddenly, things turn sour.
What do you do when you find yourself in such a situation? If you have things set up with your parents in advance, you may just have a way out that is much easier than you could ever have imagined.
This is also something for parents to consider because we would never want to find out that our children were in a dangerous situation but we didn’t find out until the next day. Bert Fulks is a father who understands the situation, and he has something set up with his son, Danny.
Danny is a teenager and like any teenager, he sometimes finds himself dealing with the bad decisions of others. He tries to be a good child, but there are going to be times when problems sneak up on him and he just needs a way out.
Fortunately, Danny and his father have something set up so that they can deal with this head-on. He got the idea when talking to teens in addiction clinics and asking them if they ever found themselves in a situation where uncomfortable things started happening. Every one of them responded favorably.
This is how it works: “Let’s say that my youngest, Danny, gets dropped off at a party. If anything about the situation makes him uncomfortable, all he has to do is text the letter “X” to any of us (his mother, me, his older brother or sister). The one who receives the text has a very basic script to follow. Within a few minutes, they call Danny’s phone. When he answers, the conversation goes like this:
“Hello?”
“Danny, something’s come up and I have to come get you right now.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there. Be ready to leave in five minutes. I’m on my way.”
This allows the teenager to help tell his friends that something’s come up and someone is coming to get him. In other words, he has to leave and there is nothing he can do about it.
For this plan to be effective, the children must understand that they are not going to be punished for the situation they were in. There is a ‘no questions asked’ policy in place, and it can help to build trust between the parent and the child.
Not every parent is going to find this type of parenting easy, but it can work if it is given an opportunity.