Episode 169 - Love, Not Aggression, for Delinquent Children

How do we handle the hardest challenges — like a delinquent child or waiting for soulmate?

It all comes down to one thing: trusting that everything is divine timing and purpose. When life's throwing curveballs, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed, but shifting your view can change everything.

Drop a 🙏 if you believe challenges are tests meant to bring out your greatness.

The key is to see difficulties not as punishments but as opportunities for growth and connection — with love and patience, not anger and despair.

Love your child to pieces, pray for strength, and recognize that God’s delays are often for your ultimate good.

When we accept that God is in control, we stop fighting reality and start thriving through it. That’s how we turn setbacks into blessings.

Still figuring this out myself, but it’s the perspective that makes all the difference.

What challenge are you trusting God with right now?

#Emuna #DivineTiming #FaithInGod 

Transcript

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So you think that the solution to dealing with a delinquent child is more aggression, is more yelling, is more violence, it doesn't make any sense. This child is ironclad. He's wearing a suit of armor. You think you're gonna say something that is gonna put this child in check with your aggression? It's not gonna happen. On the contrary, that armor is gonna get thicker and thicker and thicker. Nothing is going to be able to penetrate. It's a safety mechanism, it's self-defense. The child may not even realize that they're wearing that coat of armor, but you better believe that they are, because that was the reason why they became delinquent in the first place. Nothing anybody says matters to them. They've blocked out everybody else's opinion. The only thing that matters is their own or that group of corrupt friends. The trust factor is a ticket to a bad life. The trust factor shows you how to get through the life. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast. Today we're capping off this concept of marriage and family life. I'm sure, like all other subjects previous to this, it's going to come up later on because that's life. It's the core of our life. So we shouldn't expect that these concepts aren't going to come back. They will. But right now, for all intents and purposes, everything that we've covered off with regards to marriage, divorce, children, child rearing, how to do it properly, we're going to put a pin in that and then we're going to switch gears and get into social life. But for today, we're going to finish off with this concept of God forbid having a delinquent child, having a child who's what's called off the derich, off the path, somebody who is doing wrong, behaving badly, going against societal norms. It happens, it happens all too frequent. Sometimes it's not the parents' fault. Sometimes the parents have done their best, but this child has been exposed to an outside influence that has brought this child down, that has steered him in the wrong direction. Influence from your friends and your social groups is such a powerful tool, especially for children. It could lift you up and it can break you down. If you surround yourself with the right people, the right influences, then suddenly you're on the path to success. And if you just meet that one corrupt individual who's a snake oil salesperson and is looking for people, looking for victims, and they fall upon your child, your child has a real challenge. And that challenge is brought home. It's a very difficult situation. But when we're done with that, we're going to talk about a soulmate. How do you find a soulmate in this world? What's the whole idea of a soulmate? Maybe you're not supposed to find your soulmate. Interesting discussion. We're going to have that in a minute. Hopefully we'll get to it and then we'll put a pin in the subject. Worst case scenario, we'll cap it off tomorrow and get into our social lives. The difficulty of delinquency. The delinquent child is a phenomenon that breaks a parent's heart. It is such a difficult, difficult challenge. Every single day, not knowing what the new crisis is going to be, what that phone call is going to sound like. Is it going to be the police? Is it going to be, God forbid, the hospital? Is it going to be all these negative phone calls that I can get from a teacher or principal? All these difficult things that I'm hoping I'm going to avoid. Just give me one day of peace and quiet. That's what a parent of a delinquent child has to deal with. Every single day. There's no rest. Very hard. Very, very hard. This too is a test of Amuna. You got it. You're learning. Even though it's not easy, it won't be solved by depression, despair, and parents blaming each other. Just listen to this. Why add sorrow and strife to an already difficult situation? Guys, this is gold. I don't know if you recognize it, but just a simple sentence of pure logic and reason is something that is missing from today's generation. Why add sorrow and strife? You've already been handed a difficult hand. You've been given a real, real difficult challenge that you pray every day you don't get, and it fell on your laps, yours and your spouses. Recognize that. Come together, have a meeting of the minds. Honey, we're dealt a serious, serious challenge over here. And we know the Gemara tells us, the Torah says, Lefum Tzahara Hagrah, which means according to the challenge, the difficulty level of the challenge will be your reward. The harder the challenge, the greater the reward. That makes sense. So God is looking to give you a tremendous victory by giving you a difficult challenge. But you have to overcome, you have to win at that challenge. So putting stumbling blocks in front of you before you've even gotten started, you're not doing yourself any favors. You're doing yourself a massive disservice by not having a meeting of the minds, by not coming together and being on the same page or recognizing that you're a team, that you're that much more powerful as a unit to overcome this challenge, you're going to do yourself that disservice. The only way to win is to come together, to add fighting and depression and to be in a state of constant despair. Look at me, poor me. Why did I have to deal with this? Why did God have to give me this challenge? You've already failed. It says frequently, delinquent children are beaten, cruelly, or humiliated when they were younger. That's a big part of the reason why they're delinquent in the first place. Maybe they were bullied in school. Maybe they were pushed around and belittled and locked by their friends, or maybe even, God forbid, at home. So you think that the solution to dealing with a delinquent child is more aggression, is more yelling, is more violence. It doesn't make any sense. This child is ironclad. He's wearing a suit of armor. You think you're going to say something that is going to put this child in check with your aggression? It's not going to happen. On the contrary, that armor is going to get thicker and sicker and sicker. Nothing is going to be able to penetrate. It's a safety mechanism. It's self-defense. The child may not even realize that they're wearing that coat of armor, but you better believe that they are, because that was the reason why they became delinquent in the first place. Nothing anybody says matters to them. They've blocked out everybody else's opinion. The only thing that matters is their own, or that one or two, or that group of corrupt friends. Threats and anger will not work with them now. The preferred way is to shower them with love. That's it. You have a child who's delinquent. You have a child who's been beaten down. You have a child who's had to put up their defenses and build that iron wall. Why? Because they're scared, because they're terrified of life, because they've been hurt one too many times. And that one too many times, depending on the child, could have been once. And it could have been just from the wrong person, even a parent, that it was intolerable for them. They could not take it. The person that they trusted, that they built up, that they put their faith in, let them down in a big way and hurt them. And that could have been enough for them to build an iron wall. The only way forward is to undo the negativity. How do you undo the negativity that happened to that child is with love. That's it. Love the child to pieces. If the parent reinforces their own faith that everything is from the Creator and for the very best, that's how you do it, while implementing the principles that we've learned up until now, rectifying themselves and investing as much as they can in their own personal prayer and their own personal character development, then God will have mercy on them and save their child. They will merit seeing their child return to the upright path. It needs to be with love. God, give me patience. God, give me the ability, give me the clarity to be able to hold my tongue, to be able to not get mad, to be able to not lash out, to not shoot from the hip, to not be reactive because it upsets me. It's not about me. If it's about you, you're going to be reactive because now you're on the defense and you're taking it personally and negatively. If you've turned it upside down and you realize it's not about me, it's about my child. The only thing I care about is that child becomes the best version they can be of themselves. It's not about me, it's about them. And God is doing this because He wants to reward me. It's an opportunity for personal growth. And that personal growth will then translate over to my relationship with my child. The child will win and I will win. Everybody wins. The way we started this off with this idea of sorrow and strife and despair, nobody wins. Everybody loses perpetually. Not a good situation, one that is all too common. On the other hand, a person who doesn't view such challenging situations through the eyes of Amuna is destined to see yet further deterioration in the situation. He'll fail the test of Amuna and succumb to sorrow and despair, God forbid, a million times. Let's switch gears. That's it for the delinquent child. Let's move on and switch gears to this concept of a soulmate. People walk around their entire lives asking themselves, when am I going to meet my soulmate? Asking their rabbis, when am I going to meet the soulmate, the one who was set aside for me? When is that going to happen? I'm in my 20s, late 20s, I'm in my 30s, I'm in my 40s. I haven't met them with the soulmate. All they're thinking about is their soulmate, their soulmate, their soulmate. When am I going to meet them? They're so preoccupied thinking about that that they're missing out on the very fact that God held back their soulmate for a reason. Let's read. One of life's tests that many have difficulty with is the area of one's soulmate. This is also a test of Amuna that lasts sometimes from the searching of a mate until way after the wedding, throughout their entire lives together. It's not enough until you get married, even after you get married, when the difficulty comes, when the arguments come, when suddenly you're not seeing eye to eye, when suddenly you're wondering to yourself, this isn't marital bliss. Maybe I didn't marry my soulmate. Maybe there's a better person out there for me. That's the question. You remember we talked about that earlier on. Figuring out how to work in that relationship instead of trying to exchange that relationship for another, fixing yourself in that relationship so that you become that perfect soulmate. It's not a plug-and-play system where you get married, you found your soulmate, you flip the switch, and now you live a life of marital bliss. It's a lifetime of work, nonstop as we grow and as we face situations together in business and at home. We have to grow. We have to respond to these situations and we have to do it together. If we're not, if we're making different decisions, then we're growing apart. We're not growing together. So it says that in this test of finding a soulmate, there are several points that need strengthening. What are they? One is the long-awaited period until one finds your soulmate. That's the first phase. When you're not married and you're looking for your soulmate because you want to get married, that's phase number one. Don't forget that the creator's precision in individual divine providence is tailored to one's spiritual correction in this world. When you find that soulmate is not random. Whether you find them at a very young age or at a very late age is not random. And it's got almost nothing to do with you while it has everything to do with you. In other words, if you haven't found them, it's for very good reason. They're not supposed to be a part of this chapter of your life. As long as one is still single, this is the divine-sanctioned optimal situation for the meanwhile. God knows what's good for you, much better than you could ever dream of knowing. And so he's withholding things and he's giving you things. The things that he's giving you that you have now in your life, know with absolute certainty that they belong in your life now. You couldn't do without them. You have to have these situations in your life. Everything from a book to a job to a parent to a child to a soulmate. If they're there, it's because they need to be there and you cannot function without them. And if they're not there, it's because they're not supposed to be there. They will be a burden for you. They will be a stumbling block in your personal growth. So Hashem and his love for you says, no, not now. The key is to recognize that. The key is to have worked on yourself enough to have the eyes to understand the amuna to know that God is running this world and it is perfect, and he's doing a job that nobody else could do. This is the best way for him to get closer to the creator at the time. Ultimately, that's what it's all about. If he's withholding from you anything, including a soulmate, it's because you would be able to get closer to him much more effectively than if you had those things. Because that's ultimately what it's all about. Recognizing that there's a creator, building your amuna, having eyes to see how this world really works, understanding what your purpose is, following that purpose, trying to achieve it. That's what this life is about. It's not about eating at fancy restaurants. It's not about having the best job in the world, the best boss in the world. It's not about having the nicest-looking children of the world or living in the biggest house. None of those things matter. They are a means to an end. The real purpose of your life is to be able to build your amuna, to acknowledge a creator in your life, that he's intimately involved in your life on a millisecond by millisecond basis, that he wants you to succeed, that he has all the tools to be able to give you in order to see you succeed and to connect to those things, to be able to bring those ideas together. So if somebody's in your life that God forbid shouldn't be in your life at the time, that could be a wedge in between you and your creator. So in his love for you, he withholds even your soulmate. The same goes for any other deficiency to any person at any time. One's deficiency is his perfection. Perfectly imperfect. We are taught with our secular eyes and the news on the radio and what we see online that you're not allowed to have any imperfections. You need to be complete and perfect. You need to be a role model. You need to be the example for everybody. You can't make any mistakes. Because if you do, that means that you're deficient, God forbid. And people can't deal with that idea that somebody's going to look at me as though I'm deficient, that I'm not perfect, that I failed. It is the biggest fear that exists in humanity, especially in this generation, where all we see is this facade of what we think or what we've been told is true when it's not. It's the exact opposite. Just like it says over here, your deficiencies are a part of your perfection. Think about that. We'll leave it there. So, what do you do in the interim? So now you don't have a mate. So now you don't have a home. You don't have a car. You don't have a job. You don't have all of these things that you aspire to having. What do you do in the interim? A person's task in that waiting period is to focus on his current mission, to attain emuna and to pray for a soulmate. Each prayer he prays will directly influence the subsequent married life. When you find that soulmate, all of the prayer, all of the planning, all of the personal growth that you're undertaking now, while you're not married, while you don't have your soulmate, is going to continually build who you are, build your character, and build your connection back to your creator so that now you're prepared. It's an idea of having a vessel. You've probably heard of this before, right? Everybody prays for wealth. Everybody prays for all these material things because they're important. They can make life a lot easier, a lot more comfortable. No question. It takes money to make this world go around. You need to keep the lights on and the heating and air conditioning on. You got to pay the tuition for the kids. You got to buy them new shoes. You got expenses. Life is expensive, especially today. So we need to pray for these things and God gives them to us. But we often find ourselves praying for an enormous amount of wealth. Give me the millions, give me the billions, let me compete with Elon Musk, let me be that guy, because I've equated that with power and honor, which is a whole different conversation. But the idea is not about just give it to me. Because what happens when you receive it? Are you able? Are you capable of managing that wealth? Of managing that materialism. Most people are not. You should know that. 95% of the world's population is not capable of managing that type of success. And you see it translated in the news. When you turn on the news and you see all of the corruption at every level of life, government and corporate and all different areas of life, you see the corruption. That is a result, a direct result of the fact that we were not prepared as a solid vessel to receive those blessings. Sometimes God gives it to you as a test. Sometimes you have to have it because it's there to help you with your mission in life. But that doesn't mean that you're going to do the right thing with it. How do you train yourself? How do you become prepared to manage that kind of wealth, that kind of material life? You have to work on yourself, get connected back to your creator, figure out your purpose in this life. When you've done that, what you've done is you've reinforced your vessel. You've reinforced the individual that you are. You now have the proper outlook on life that you can meet situations head on with a calm mind, relaxed. You don't get nervous and fall apart at the seams under the slightest amount of pressure. Why? Because you know who runs the world. You know where it's coming from. And you can appreciate that. You don't think that it's all you. And therefore, if I had to sacrifice and I had to give up so much, including my morals and my values, in order to achieve this, then because it came at such a high price, I'm going to hold on to it with my kung fu grip for dear life that nobody should get near it. And as a result of that, I destroy all of my relationships. That's the world we live in. But in reality, when you know it came from my creator, the one who loves me and he's got so much more to give to me. And all I did was show up like everybody else did. All I did was go to work and make decisions like everybody else did. But as Shem decided that I should be the one with the millions and the billions, then suddenly you realize that it was a task. And it's part of your test in this life to be able to see what you're going to do with that money. Where is it going to go? How is it going to change you? If you've got a vessel that is broken, like a pot, a clay pot that is full of cracks and fissures, and suddenly you put the smallest amount of weight in there and it crumbles, then all of your wealth goes out the window. Then suddenly you make a dollar and you spend two. The money that you get doesn't have a blessing with it. It brings only problems to your life. Why? Because you didn't work on yourself. You didn't reinforce your vessel. That's what you're doing when you're building yourself up in these lulls, in these points in time where you don't have your soulmate, when you don't have the job, when you don't have the millions, and you're praying for it. You're getting perspective, you're building your relationship with your creator so that when it comes, and it will come one day, you will be ready to receive it and you'll make good choices with all the goodness that you receive. And that will help you and your family in this and the next life. Have an amazing day. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.