A child who breaks off from or leaves his parents is likely to be defensive about his behavior. He will have several goals:

• To feel good about his actions
• To defend himself to others
• To prove to the larger world that he was good
  He may feel that this means that...
• He must prove that his parents were bad

Be prepared for such behavior. Be aware that your child may be successful in achieving his goals. In that case, he is likely to put you in a bad light.

In most cases, you can handle this situation best by silence. That means that you will not respond to his accusations or actions. If you choose this method, it may not be violated:

• No matter how embarrassing the accusations may be
• No matter who hears those accusations
• No matter what those accusations may entail

This is likely to be quite difficult for you to accomplish. However, it may be the best way for you to come out as clean as possible.

After all, your child is not likely to feel repentant just because you have presented a successful riposte. To the contrary - it is more likely to make the child be more determined to "up the ante." He may feel a need to make a public response to your statements, with even more outlandish accusations. This will not be to your advantage.

You must keep the following considerations in mind:

• You do not want to wash your dirty linens in public
• You do not want to maintain negotiations in public
• You do not want to involve a third party
• You do not want your child to respond to things that you have told to other people

If there will be negotiations, then you will want them to take place directly, between you and the child, and not in public. You cannot achieve this goal if you respond to anybody else about your child's accusations.

Think of this situation as a form of damage control. It would be foolish to feel or to believe that your reputation will not be damaged at all by this situation. After all, your child's goal is to cause damage and to hurt you. He will use all of his skills, contacts, intelligence, and efforts in order to maximize the damage. A person who wants to hurt others usually exerts far more effort than one who strives to do good.

Although your child is likely to be successful, the recommendations on this page will minimize the impact of his attack.

You can then hope that other's memory will be short, and that the present incident will be forgotten over the course of time.