2022年9月——迦勒的初次约会经历
● 人物：14岁。因为2022年12月1日就是他的生日，所以快15岁了。
● 事件：当迦勒决定去贝尔明预科（BCP）——一所天主教男校——读书时，部分原因是他认为女生会让人分心。有趣的是，在他作为新生进入BCP的前三周内，迦勒竟然开始约会了。原来，在每个学年开始时，BCP都会与其他女校（如圣母学院、Presentation学校、Castilleja学校）一起举办许多联谊会，让学生们互相认识。显然，这些联谊会的目的是互相获取尽可能多的Snapchat联系方式，以便日后可以交谈和联系。
那时，迦勒已经结交了一群越野跑的朋友（他们在学校正式开学前几周就开始一起跑步了）。他们一起去了联谊会。迦勒是个自信的年轻人，他主动走到一群女孩面前开始和她们交谈。当女孩们开始让迦勒提供他的“Snap”（Snapchat用户名）时，迦勒说他不使用Snapchat。不幸的是，这些女孩感到非常尴尬，就走开了。
在第二次联谊会上，迦勒注意到了一个吸引他的女孩。后来发现，他的一位朋友在中学时就认识她（简称K），并将她介绍给了迦勒。迦勒和她进行了一番愉快的交谈，然后要到了她的电话号码。之后，迦勒和K开始通过手机短信和Discord互相发信息。我从未见过迦勒在生活中如此频繁地发信息。他可能连续两周每天都会和K发短信/Discord三个小时。
在我们给迦勒手机之前，他就知道我们会监督手机的使用。条件是，如果我们想，我们可以查看他手机上的任何内容。我们还在他所有的设备上都安装了Covenant Eyes（监控软件）。我们向他解释了原因，他也同意了。因此，雪莉（Shirley）和我都在早期阅读了他的短信。短信的数量令人担忧，但迦勒在学校表现良好，睡眠也充足，所以我们决定保持沉默，继续观察。
接着，他开始每周花3个小时和K在一起。他们会共进午餐、一起喝奶茶、在公园野餐、玩纸牌游戏、共度时光。这一切发生得如此之快，至少对我们父母来说，是令人不知所措的。
在与迦勒的交谈中，我们聊到了K。她是个怎样的女孩？他为什么花时间和她在一起？本质上，迦勒想学习如何与他喜欢的女孩交谈和建立友谊。此外，他的很多朋友经常谈论有关女朋友的话题。因此，他想探索那意味着什么。此时，迦勒和K还只是朋友。迦勒被K吸引，并告诉我和她谈话很愉快，在一起很有趣。迦勒也说这种吸引力是相互的。
此时，我的思绪纷乱，关于事情会如何发展，有太多的可能性和排列组合。经过大量祈祷，我们决定继续观察，让迦勒自己做决定。
几周后，迦勒告诉我们，他和K正式地、排他性地交往了。K和迦勒成了男女朋友。
这时，我和迦勒进行了多次谈话。首先，我问迦勒是否知道K是基督徒。迦勒认为不是。我们已经讨论过基督徒与非基督徒通婚的问题。迦勒正确地指出，圣经并没有命令禁止与非基督徒约会。然后我们讨论了“求爱”（Courtship）——定义为以结婚为目的的严肃交往。迦勒说他和K绝对不是在“求爱”，那也不是他的目标。他高中第一个女朋友最终结婚的可能性几乎是0%。因此，迦勒和K约会的原因保持不变：他正在学习如何与他喜欢的女孩交谈、如何做朋友、以及了解有女朋友是什么感觉。
然后，我们讨论了这种类型的约会以及分手的可能性。由于迦勒从未经历过分手，他说他觉得如果分手了，自己会没事的。我告诉他，我不担心他分手时的情况，但我担心他会伤害K。他绝对不想伤害她。我们讨论了在这种约会中，身体上的亲密肯定会增加分手的痛苦。迦勒和我一致同意他不会和K发生身体上的亲密行为。如果发生任何情况，我们都会谈论。
我们继续观察，继续祈祷，我每天都跪地祷告。迦勒和K又继续交往了好几周。他们之间的交流逐渐减少到每周发信息1小时，加上周末见面3小时（迦勒会骑相当长一段距离的自行车去见K）。因此，我之前对花大量时间发信息的担忧不再是问题。
后来，在一次谈话中，迦勒开始告诉我，持续给K发信息变得有点负担了。基本上，每次K发信息来，他都觉得需要回复。这占用了很多时间。此外，迦勒参加了学校的其他活动。
在另一次谈话中，我告诉迦勒，到目前为止，我一直为他所有的约会买单。在某些时候，他也需要开始部分承担费用。在库比蒂诺带女孩出去吃顿不错的午餐和喝奶茶可不便宜。如果他继续这样，他将需要找一些收入来源（比如找份工作）来资助他的活动。
最后，迦勒来找我，说他正在考虑和K分手，并想征求我的意见，如何最好地处理。我问他为什么，迦勒回答说在高中阶段谈恋爱需要投入的精力太高（High Maintenance）了。不是说K很难伺候（High Maintenance），而是这段关系本身需要投入太多精力。他的很多朋友谈恋爱是为了性，既然他知道那违背上帝的旨意，那就不是他的目的。他知道自己将来想结婚，但由于高中同学结婚的可能性很低，在高中阶段投入一段感情在他看来似乎没有意义。而且，他已经向自己证明了他有魅力（“Rizz”）。因此，他想只专注于学业。
我说，如果情况是这样，他应该对K坦诚相待，不要继续拖延这段关系。我们就此进行了更多交谈，但他觉得我在如何最好地与女孩分手方面没有提供太多帮助，所以他告诉我他会和雪莉谈谈。雪莉给了迦勒很好的建议，主要是向K解释，K值得一个能真正全身心关注她的人。分手的原因不是K做错了什么，而是迦勒无法给予K一个男朋友应给予的全身心的关注和关怀。
迦勒非常紧张，他害怕伤害K，让她哭泣。我们做了祷告，迦勒通过Zoom与K进行了面对面的谈话，过程还算顺利，然后他们就分开了。
在后来的一次谈话中，迦勒说他高中阶段不会再谈恋爱了，但大学时很可能会，因为那时的恋爱是以婚姻为导向的。
● 经验教训
每个做父母的都忍不住会担心，并试图预先阻止任何可能发生的坏事。因此，我们往往对每一种情况、每一个细节都过分操心，我们太想灌输我们认为会发生的事情、所有各种不同的情况，以至于变得过度负担和控制。这反而会适得其反。
例如，我可能担心迦勒会受诱惑与K发生性关系。为了防患于未然，我需要和迦勒进行更深入的性谈话。然而，这对迦勒来说甚至都不是个问题。因此，如果我过早地试图预防那种情况，我实际上是在提出性的想法，而当时这甚至不是问题。这需要大量的祈祷和管住自己的舌头，才能在适当的时机讨论手头的正确问题，并相信上帝对迦勒的爱和关怀远超我的认知。与其喋喋不休地试图预防每一个可能根本不会发生的情况，我们不如把精力花在祈祷上。
26. 9/2022 – Caleb first dating experience
n Who – 14 years old. Almost 15 since 12/1/2022 will be his birthday.
n What – When Caleb decided to go to Bellarmine College Prep (BCP), an all-boys Catholic school, part of the reason was that he thought girls would be a distraction. Funny enough that within first three weeks of him starting BCP as a freshman, Caleb actually started dating. It turns out that at the beginning of every school year, BCP, along with other all girl schools (Notre Dame, Presentations, Castilleja) holds many mixers for them to meet up. Apparently, the goal of these mixers was to get as many snapchats from each other so that later on they can talk to / connect with each other. At this point, Caleb has already had a group of cross-country friends (they started running together a few weeks before official start of the school). They went together. Caleb, being a confident young man that he is, went up to a group of girls and started talking to them. When the girls started asking Caleb to provide his “snap”, Caleb said that he does not use Snapchat. Unfortunately, these girls were mortified and walked away. In the second mixer, Caleb actually saw a girl that caught his eye. It turns out later that one of his friends knew her from middle school and introduced her to Caleb. Caleb had a nice conversation with her (K) before he got her phone number. After that, Caleb and K started texting each other over phone and discord. I have never seen Caleb text so much in his life. He probably texted / discord K probably 3 hours a day for 2 weeks straight. Before we gave Caleb a phone, Caleb knows that we monitor the phone. The condition is that if we wanted, we can have access to anything on his phone. We also use Covenant Eyes on all of his devices. We explained why to him and he has agreed to it. Therefore, both Shirley and I read though his texts in the early days. The amount of texting was worrisome, but Caleb was doing well in school, he was getting enough sleep, so we decided to stay quiet, continue to observe. Then, on a weekly basis, he started spending 3 hours a week with K. They would have lunch. Have boba together. Have picnic at the park, play card games, spend time together. This is all happening very fast and it was overwhelming for us parents to say the least. In conversation with Caleb, we talked about K. What she is like? Why is he is spending time with her? In essence, Caleb wants to learn how to have conversations and friendship with a girl. Also, a lot of his friends talk a lot about having girlfriends. Therefore, he wanted to explore what that means. At this point, Caleb and K are just friends. Caleb is attracted to K and tells me that she is great to talk to and fun to be with. Caleb also said that the attraction is mutual. At this point, my mind is swirling, there are so many possibilities, permutations on how this will go. After much prayer, we decided to just continue observing and let Caleb make his decisions. After few weeks, Caleb told us that he and K are officially dating each other exclusively. K and Caleb are boyfriend and girlfriend. At this point, Caleb and I had many conversations. First, I asked Caleb if he knew K was a Christian. Caleb didn’t think so. We had already discussed marriage between Christians and Non-Christians. Caleb correctly pointed out that there is no biblical command against dating a Non-Christian. We then discussed courtship – defined as serious dating with a mind to marry each other. Caleb said that he and K are definitely not courting each other, and that is not his goal. The possibility of marrying his first girlfriend from high school is pretty much 0%. Therefore, Caleb’s reason for dating K remain the same. He is learning how to have conversations with a girl that he is attracted to, how to be friends with each other, and to understand what is like to have a girlfriend. Then, we discussed this type of dating and the possibility of breaking up. Since Caleb has never experienced a breakup before, Caleb said that he feels that he will be ok if there was a breakup. I told him that I am not worried about him during a breakup, but I am worried about him hurting K. He definitely does not want to hurt her. We discussed how in this type of dating, getting physical with each other will definitely increase the pain of breaking up. Caleb and I agreed that he will not be physical with K. If anything were to happen, we would talk about it. We continue to observe, continue to pray, daily, on my knees. Caleb and K continued for many more weeks. Their communication with one another gradually decreased where it became 1 hour a week plus 3 hours of meeting up on the weekend (Caleb would ride his bike, decently amount of distances, to meet K). Therefore, my concern of amount of time spending on texting was no longer an issue. Then, in one of our conversations, Caleb began to tell me it is becoming a bit burdensome to keep up with texting K. Basically, every time K texted, he felt he needed to respond. It is taking a lot of time. In addition, Caleb got into other activities at school. In another conversation, I told Caleb that so far, I have been paying for all of his dates. At some point, he needs to start contributing partially to the bill also. It is not cheap to take a girl out for a nice lunch and boba in Cupertino. If he continues this, he will need to find some source of income (potentially get a job) to fund his activities. Finally, Caleb came to me and said that he is thinking about breaking up with K, and he wanted my advice on how best to do it. I asked him why, and Caleb responded that having a relationship during High School is just too high maintenance. Not that K is high maintenance, but the relationship is high maintenance. Many of his friends are in it for the sex, since he knows that is against God’s will, that is not his purpose. He knows he wants to get married, and since there is low possibility that he will marry someone from High School, to invest in a relationship in High School just does not seem to make sense to him. Also, he has proved to himself that he has “Rizz”. Therefore, he wants to just focus on school. I said that if this is the case, he should be up front with K and not continue the relationship to drag it out. We had more conversation on this which he didn’t find me very helpful on how best to breakup with a girl so he told me he is going to talk to Shirley about it. Shirley gave Caleb great advice, essentially explaining to K that K deserves someone that can really give her full attention. That the reason to breakup with K is not because anything K has done, but rather that Caleb cannot give K the full attention and care that she deserves from a boyfriend. Caleb was very nervous, he was afraid the hurt K and make her cry. We prayed and Caleb had a face to face conversation via zoom with K and it went well enough and parted ways. In a later conversation, Caleb said that he won’t be dating in high school, but will likely do so in college since dating then will move towards marriage.
n Lesson learned
l The temptation for every parent is to worry and preempt anything bad that could happen. Therefore, we tend to fuss over every situation, detail, we want so much to impart what we think is going to happen, all the different, various situations that it just become over bearing and controlling. This is counterproductive. For example, I may be worried that Caleb will be tempted to have sex with K. To preempt that, I will need a more in-depth sex talk to Caleb. Well, that is not even an issue with Caleb. Therefore, if I tried to preempt that scenario too early, I am actually raising up the idea of sex when it is not even an issue. It takes much prayer and taming of the tongue to discuss the right issues at hand at the appropriate moment and trust God that he loves and cares for Caleb more than I will ever know. We would be better off spending our energy praying than on talking and preempting every situation that may not happen.