The father received an encrypted message from his son and realized that he had to act immediately

Imagine the picture: your teenage son or daughter went out with friends. Naturally, as a caring parent should, you call your son or daughter to see if they’re okay. A little nervous, of course, they will tell you yes. But that “Yes” doesn’t change the fact that after a while you find out they’ve had their first taste of alcohol or worse.

A pastor named Burt Fulks was well aware of this psychological peculiarity of teenagers and wanted to avoid similar situations with his youngest son, Danny. As a pastor’s son himself, he understood how difficult it could be with his peers. Even though Fulks was used to trusting his son, he wanted to know that his son had enough trust to come to his father for help when he needed it. Dad developed a little secret cipher that would be a kind of S.O.S. signal. Using this signal, Dan could not be afraid to fall flat on his face in front of his friends, as often happens in adolescence.

The genius idea came to the pastor after visiting drug clinics for teens. He often asked the same question of his teenagers: “How many of you have been in a situation where you were doing something that you didn’t like, were afraid of, embarrassed you, but you followed the example of others for fear of being laughed at and couldn’t see a way out?

Hands were raised as one. Here’s what the pastor later wrote about it:

“One day my youngest, Danny, was going to a party. I told him that if anything went wrong, if he felt uncomfortable or out of place, to have him send an ‘X’ to any member of the family (me, his mom, his older brother or sister). Whoever receives this cipher should follow a simple instruction to call Dan’s phone in a couple of minutes. When he answers, roughly the following conversation will occur:

– Hello, yes!
– Danny, something has happened and I need to pick you up right now.
– What is it?
– I’ll tell you on the spot. Be ready in five minutes. I’ll be there.

After that, Dan tells his friends in good conscience that something has happened at home and he needs to leave right away.

That’s it. Dan leaves. In the eyes of his friends, he didn’t run away, he went “on business.” As a result, the teenager trusts his parent and already responds more calmly to the company.

The most important thing is not to leave your child in trouble under any circumstances. It’s easy to lose a teenager, but building a trusting relationship in which the child learns to make the choice between good and evil himself in favor of the former is worth a lot!

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The father received an encrypted message from his son and realized that he had to act immediately