“If I did something wrong, it was out of ignorance. Maybe I...

“If I did something wrong, it was out of ignorance. Maybe I was too strict with him. I was in the army for twenty-seven years so that’s all I knew. He’s really pulled away lately. He doesn’t go to church. He doesn’t care about school. He thinks he knows everything and that we don’t understand anything about his life. So he always locks himself in his room. Recently he told me that he hated me. And I lost my temper and told him that he was no longer my son. Both of us apologized but things are still difficult. I think he’s just very uncomfortable with life. Maybe he feels like the black sheep of the family. My wife and I are professors and both his sisters are doing well. I just don’t know what to do. I’m trying to pull back now and be more lenient. I punish him less. I stopped taking away his phone when he doesn’t do his schoolwork. I don’t want him to rebel any more, but when I back off, it’s hard to be strict again and provide structure. So I just don’t know. I’m reading books to figure out how to reach him. I want him to understand that it doesn’t matter to me if he’s successful in a professional way. I just want him to have some sort of purpose.”

(Santiago, Chile)