Peer pressure is a big part of being a teenager.
High school is a time where kids explore themselves and find out who they are. Everyone remembers going to football games, school dances and the like. Still, sometimes there would be an after party where someone would bring the booze (or worse).
Although this happens all the time, these situations can be difficult for parents to handle. Fortunately, one creative family came up with a solution they call “The X-Plan.”
Bert Fulks is a pastor, a former pastor’s son and a father.
As a result of his own experience growing up, he knew how difficult peer pressure can be to stand up to—especially when saying no would mean risking looking uncool.
To get around this problem, Fulks told his teenage son Danny that if he was ever caught in a compromising situation that he could use the following text and phone call script:
1. Danny texts his dad (or any of his family members) the letter X.
The initial step is an innocent way to alert the family that something is wrong. After receiving it, the family member on the other end has to spring into action.
2. After a few minutes, the family member calls Danny and pretends like there is an emergency on their end.
This is the ingenious part of this plan. These conversations typically go something like this, as outlined on Fulks’ website:
3. Within five minutes, Danny gets picked up—with no embarrassment.
While the #xplan (as Fulks coined) is a graceful solution to a hard problem, it does have a few requirements.
Part of what makes this solution work for both parents and children is that it’s based on a foundation of trust and respect. Rather than forbidding children to associate with their friends on the chance that something bad might happen, this method simply requires children to use their own judgment as to how they should behave.
There’s also another catch: once the X-Plan is in action, no questions are asked—no matter what.
That means even if Danny was not where he said he was supposed to be, for example, he would still be picked up without punishment. Though this may be a harder one for parents to accept, Fulks says it remains an important part of the process.
The full explanation of the X-Plan is available on his website and the post has gone massively viral.
If you have kids, what do you think of Pastor Fulks’ plan?
Is it worth it to forgo punishment in favor of keeping your children safe? Or does this method actually encourage some dishonest behaviors in itself? Leave your reactions in the comments below!
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