I’ve read and heard a lot of times about this problem. Parents are simply mad because their offspring, who yesterday was sitting on their lap, has today become an unrecognizable individual. They are astounded that their angels are no longer talking to them and they can’t deal with them. (btw, I was recently browsing an interesting book by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish called “How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk“. I recommend it to all parents, it’s an easy read.)
I was one of those kids. For this reason, I believe that parents should read what I have to say here, for the sake of their own and their children’s good.
… so ….
DEAR PARENTS!
First of all I wish to congratulate you for the fact that you are worried. It seems like something normal? Yes, it is, but not so many parents do this step of searching for an answer, but rather prefer to solve it by themselves, in their own way, usually badly done.
I understand your worries, and I respect your worries.. and I want to help you with some advice, if you are truly interested in your child’s behavior.
Children, actually, adolescents.. between ages of 13 to 18 suffer a lot of changes. Not only hormonal changes, but physical and… mental. You don’t need to be a psychologist to recognize this fact.
Between these ages, the young man or lady no longer recognizes him/herself, his/her body with which they got used to. The world seems to change, they start seeing it differently, they start having various disappointments.. with friends, with lovers, with school. Suddenly, their world changes and they need to change along with it. Thus, they are searching for an identity, one which could help them get through these problems of adolescence, of puberty.
As such, teens begin to manifest a seemingly, apparent deviant behavior. Apparent needs to be emphasized, because it is not really deviant, but as normal as it may be. In my opinion, if your dear child has not yet given at least one sign of rebellion specific to his age, it means that exactly that behavior is deviant. ALL teenagers go through these changes!
Probably because of certain fears, certain embarrassments, certain internal factors in their young souls, they are searching for methods of protecting themselves and facing, at least apparently, these factors.
Even if in your eyes they still remained children, they no longer identify with this status. The simple fact that they are being called “small” and “immature” drives them crazy. They want to affirm themselves!
Therefore, we get to the subject of this article.
In most cases, teenagers are attracted by unorthodox or ill-famed ways to affirm themselves, in order to make themselves known and acknowledged. They want to be heard, seen, listened, understood. Thus, they resort to any method: getting drunks and getting into fights in boys cases, sex and fancy clubs in girls cases… Some seek to affirm themselves just as rebel rockers, tough and crazy, yet others go further… to Satanism. No way! Timmy worshiping the Devil?! Go on!
It is a normal process. It is the curiosity specific to the age. They want to find out, they want to seek, they want to revolt against the teachings they received, which kept them in “chains”, not allowing them to express themselves as human beings and individuals.
You see him today wearing a leather spike bracelet.. tomorrow he comes with a t-shirt with an inverted cross… in a week you find him with black candles in his room and websites with 666 in the homepage in their browsers.
What is he/she doing? Why is he/she doing that? Is it bad? Is it my fault? How should I react? are some of the parents’ questions.
Allow me to respond to each of them.
What is he/she doing?
Experimenting. They are seeking for something new to identify with, preferably something different from everyone else and totally different from who they were until that point, to show he/she is more than he/she looks. If at a certain age they question why and what is that, now they are questioning what is good and what is bad. No matter what you’ll tell them, they will continue to search for answers, because they know you are not like them, even if you too have been a teenager once. This period is different and experienced different by each and one of us.
Why is he/she doing that?
As I was saying, they are searching for something… they don’t even know what exactly they are searching for and what they want to find. We are all seeking answers no matter the age, only the questions differ. They see in Satanism something new, provocative, different. They seen that what is normal is not always special… so they look, in other words, for something special to make themselves seen and get attention. Something to belong to. Something to identify with. They are looking for their place, my dear people!
Is it bad?
Yes and no. It depends on many factors. Generally, Satanism is not something bad or not worse than any other religion present on the market. If the youngster is looking for the answers alone and does it seriously, it is certainly not something bad. The information about Satanism present on the internet is very friendly and really doesn’t have a hidden intention. That I can guarantee, as a grown up man who studied and practiced Satanism for over 10 years.
When can it become bad? When they don’t search in the right places… to be more specific, I’m talking about groups of teenagers, as immature as they are, who also wish to affirm themselves.
In the case of a group, rebellion becomes a contest, and the one who is most rebel (or more “special”) is the coolest and most admired in the group. For this reason, teens can begin to compete in unorthodox acts who can lead to serious outcomes. Especially when no one in the group knows about the traditions and philosophy of this religious current called Satanism.
Instead, as I was saying, the internet mostly contains good information about Satanism and what is promoted is totally legal. Of course, there are black sheep on the internet too, as there are everywhere, even in schools, but we can’t keep our children out of school for that, can we?
Even if not all, but the majority of adolescents will do something out of common at some point. Maybe even something illegal. And usually, until they don’t hit the problems, they don’t learn. As I was saying, many adolescents get into drinking and smoking, but that doesn’t guarantee they will become alcoholics or they will die of lung cancer. Many start to skip school classes, but that doesn’t mean that one day they won’t be at college. Many paint the walls with graffity and get arrested by the police, but that doesn’t mean they will be delinquents and will get in jail.
Is it my fault?
Yes and no. In most part, it is not your fault. The problem is as such: The more a teenager has been kept on a short leash, the more will he revolt. In fact, nobody has a real fault, because it is something normal. Curiosity and the other factors that led to this could’ve led to other manifestations as well, not only to Satanism.
Generally, parents who force and intoxicate their kids with religion will have problems with exactly what they promoted.. religion. Most cases I came across started from this point. It is a revolt against the religious obligations imposed by parents.
How should I react? What is to be done?
Remain calm. The chances of seeing your kid at the news are minimum. If you’ve seen news about Satanists who devastate cemeteries and kill cats, you’ve seen them because they are connected to the groups of adolescents that I’ve talked about earlier.
It’s best to just tolerate it and let them do whatever they think. In most cases, it is only a period of juvenile extremism.
In case the teen really admires and finds his place in Satanism, you can always talk to him in order to see what he understands of Satanism and try to understand him and his views. Who knows, maybe you will hear interesting stuff instead of macabre stories!
If you want to know what is happening in the soul and mind of this little human, you need to listen to him/her. No matter if we’re talking about his religious or sexual inclination. People are different, boys and girls alike. In the case of adolescents, it is a totally different universe from ours and in order to observe it, we need to ask for permission. If you try to rush at it authoritatively, they will close the door in your face and the kid will no longer speak with you.
I know, it is frustrating. You wonder how he didn’t fail school, you wonder what the neighbors or your friends think when they see him dressed in black, with long hair, or your daughter with her mini skirt and nose piercing, how they kiss on the street or swear or smoke. You want to throw him out from home, but you’re afraid he might get in trouble. You want to kick his/her butt, but you pity and love him/her too much.
Another important thing you could do, although pretty hard, is to leave him with an older Satanist who is more mature and has more knowledge of this religion. He would be able to educate him in things that you no longer can, not only because you don’t have the knowledge, but because the teenager no longer listens to you.
If the teen talks to someone who is like him, who believes in the same things, he will be more receptive with him than with you who are not like him. The fact that the mature Satanist has gone through adolescence guarantees the fact that he will keep him away from illegal stuff. Believe me, I’ve met such people who really took care of teenagers. Of course, you probably already thought of mature Satanist = Pedophile. But again, the chances are minimum.. there are bad people in every religion and Satanism is no exception, nor is Catholicism.
Psychologists recommend that parents offer support to their child, to remain calm, loving and sympathetic. That has proven to be effective many times, even in my case, having positive outcomes. Now, I’m not asking you to support your child in being a Satanist, I’m asking you/encouraging you to trust him/her and to be patient. We all know that adolescence produces many fights and arguments in family like no other period. We all need to be patient, either if we are parents or adolescents.
If you’re going on Christian discussion boards asking for advice you’ll mostly receive impertinent and dogmatic answers, because those people aren’t too practical in such cases, and if they are, their advice is too dramatic to apply. If you carry him/her by force to some church or monastery to make him confess his sins and give him to some crazy priest, again, you won’t solve anything but only making the child rebel even more.
Don’t beat them and don’t punish them. It won’t solve the problem, it will only aggravate it. Patience is the key, understanding is imperious in such cases.
In conclusion, stay calm, try to understand your child and try to guide him to do good, no matter if he is doing good in the name of Satanism, Christianity or Scientology. Before we are Satanists or Christians, we are humans, and humans should be appreciated by their deeds not by their religious beliefs.
P.S.: the following might also be of interest For young and adolescent occultists.
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