I'm desperate. I'm a serious progressive and that's how I raised my son too. We always taught him the importance of tolerance, progressive values, and compassion for others. Since he was little, I have taught him about white supremacy and the importance of helping the less privileged. It goes without saying that feminism has been strongly promoted in our household. A few months ago I suspected he was exposed to radical ideas online. He likes to watch Pewdiepie (yuck) and I saw him watching Ben Shapiro videos on his laptop. I really didn't like that, but what should I do? If you tell your children not to do something, they are more likely to do it. After watching an anime called "Attack on Titan", he came out as a white nationalist. He told me to check it out, but I'm not interested and it doesn't make any damn sense how he got this message out of it. As far as I can tell, it's about giants that eat people. I asked him to explain and he said I should take a look. He says that the whites have been lied to and that everything he was taught in school is wrong. He doesn't believe in women's rights and he thinks that some races are less intelligent than others. I kept crying. What can I do to stop my son from going down this path? I don't understand what the hell is going on here.
Let him have his opinion, he has the right to think and believe what he wants and not what is presented to him
I'm not 25. I don't reveal my real age on the internet!
We always taught him the importance of tolerance…
It's kind of hard for me to believe. If you were a tolerant person, you would be able to accept attitudes other than your own. But you can't, so you are not a tolerant person either.
Fifteen days ago you were 22 years old and two years ago you moved out of your parents' chain-smoking household. What do you call your disorder?
As I said, I deliberately do not give my real age.
If you call yourself tolerant: Yes!
But you only tolerate your own views. And that's basically the definition of intolerance.
But no worry. You're not the only one trying to fight intolerance with intolerance.
From time to time children tend to do exactly the opposite of their parents in order to set themselves apart from it. Whether that is good or bad is an open question. It is a completely normal process that every teenager goes through when they can.
I would tell him clearly what you think of it without devaluing him as a person. It is his opinion. He's got to stand up for it when he messes up. YOU don't want to know anything about it in your household and also don't want him to try to change your mind. YOU have your opinion and he has his. That's fine. Tell him that very clearly. But distance yourself clearly from his opinion. There can be differences between you. The topic is initially outside.
And then ignore the subject. The less you give a headwind, the more freedom of choice he has. The less reason he has to express his opinion. Afterwards, just trust him that at some point children often agree with their parents' opinion. And if not, you can't stop him anyway. But usually when children grow up in a "mind-free" household this is not a problem.
The whole thing may well have come about because you pushed this topic way too much in the family. Any kind of "extreme" CAN trigger the opposite. Because it is a point at which you can start well as a teenager in order to set yourself apart from your parents. The more "energetic" parents deal with a topic, the higher the probability that a child will distance themselves from it.
But it is also a good sign. Children who are "allowed" to set themselves apart are initially free enough in their heads to change their attitudes again. Just trust that he'll figure it out for himself at some point. Because if that shouldn't be the case, you can't change it anyway.
