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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow. I so disagree with all of this. Talk to your kid. Doesn't have to be judgmental or involving rules. Just say you notice they're spending more time with X, how's that going? They seem to me to be a little different than your other friends, like doing xyz. What's that like for you? Then you can make it clear that he can hang out with whom he wants, but you don't want him to be involved in (whatever), and if he's ever with them and wants help, he can get in touch with you immediately, no questions asked.

If you don't take this as an opportunity to share your values, he's going to think you're fine with everything he's doing. He needs to know that you support him, but that there are limits to what's okay in your family. He may even be relieved to know there are boundaries. [/quote]

+1. I’ve been talking to my kid about how to choose friends since they were little. I get that you probably need to talk less as they head into teen years, but I’m not remaining silent if my kid is spouting red pill/toxic nonsense. And I’m going to ask questions that I hope provoke them to think.

So far, the biggest issue has been one friend bullying another friend (and I mean real bullying, not “they didn’t want X to sit with me at lunch”). I had several conversations with my kid about whether they thought the bullying behavior was ok. They didn’t, but I could tell they were struggling with dropping the bully as a friend. What started to happen was that I could see my kid was sort of backing away. A year later, my kid is very clear they aren’t friends with the bully. It took time, but I think having some conversations helped my kid think it through. I also never told her what she “had to do,” it was more about a few questions.

If my kid had remained “all in” on being friends with the bully, I would have made my kid conveniently busy quite a lot. I can’t control school hours, but I have a lot of influence outside of that.[/quote]

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