Hey Friend,

A few years ago, I met a 13-year-old I’ll call Marcus.

He had just been placed in what many people casually referred to as a “bad kid school.” A separate program for students with significant behavior challenges.

By the time he got to us, the story about him was already written.

Disruptive.
Defiant.
Unmotivated.
Angry.

Adults spoke about him like a problem to manage.

But when I sat across from him for the first time, I didn’t see a “bad kid.”

I saw a boy who hadn’t figured out what to do with his pain.

Marcus’ parents had divorced the year before. It wasn’t calm. It wasn’t cooperative. It was loud, tense, and heavy. He moved between homes. Rules changed. Expectations shifted. He didn’t feel steady anywhere.

He didn’t talk about it much.

Instead, he got suspended.
He shoved desks.
He told teachers he didn’t care.

Underneath all of it was something quieter.

He felt split in half.

Over the course of a few months, we met regularly. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we just sat in the same room while he fidgeted with a stress ball and pretended he wasn’t listening.

We worked on noticing his body before it exploded.
We practiced naming anger without acting it out.
We unpacked what it felt like to live in two different worlds.

Progress didn’t look dramatic.

It looked like one fewer blow-up a week.
It looked like him walking out of class instead of flipping a chair.
It looked like him saying, once, “I’m just tired of everything.”

That sentence was a breakthrough.

By the end of the year, Marcus wasn’t perfect. But he was different.

He paused more.
He asked for breaks.
He repaired after conflict instead of doubling down.

And here’s what stayed with me most.

The label never fit him.

What looked like defiance was grief.
What looked like apathy was overwhelm.
What looked like aggression was fear.

So many parents quietly carry a fear they rarely say out loud.

What if my child is becoming “that kid”?
What if this behavior is who they are?
What if I’m losing them?

But behavior is often a signal, not an identity.

Especially during big transitions like divorce, moves, middle school shifts, or family stress, kids’ nervous systems get overloaded. And when they don’t have the words for what hurts, the hurt comes out sideways.

Marcus didn’t need harsher consequences.

He needed consistency.
Predictability.
Someone who believed he was more than his worst moment.

If your child is going through something hard right now, and their behavior is louder than their words, I want you to hear this clearly:

Hard seasons do not define who your child is becoming.

With steadiness, repetition, and support, growth happens.

Not overnight.
Not perfectly.
But steadily.

You are not raising a “good kid” or a “bad kid.”

You are raising a human who is learning how to handle feelings they don’t fully understand yet.

And that learning takes time.

All the best,
Alex

P.S. I’ve never revealed strategies for raising siblings before, but I think that maybe I should, based on some of the feedback I’ve been getting recently. If you would like to see me put together a course, then write back to me. Hit “reply” and let me know!

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