“Dear parent, I need this conflict.” Frank Dubosc reads the “standard letter” that every teenager would like to write to be understood.

It was a stirring public interest letter that Frank DuBose read to his community on March 18. On Instagram, the 60-year-old comedian and actor shared a powerful text written by American psychologist Gretchen Schmelzer in 2015, putting himself in the shoes of a teenager, and published it on his website. “Here’s the letter your teenager can’t write you,” she began, addressing all parents currently having to deal with their children’s teenage crisis.

“Dear parent, here is the letter I would like to write to you. This conflict we are in now, I need it, continued the father of Rafael (14 years old) and Milhan (12 years old). I can’t explain it because I don’t have the vocabulary for it, but I need this fight. I have to hate you right now, and I need you to survive this, no matter what we’re arguing about; I have to fight with you for these things, and I need you to fight with me in return.’

And continue. “I desperately need you to hold one side of the rope and me to hold the other so that you can find support in this new world that I belong to. Pushing boundaries allows me to discover them, then I feel like I exist and I can breathe for a minute. I know you remember my sweet baby, I know because I miss that baby too. I want you to love me even when you think I don’t love you. Now I need you to love yourself and me, for both of us.’

Franck Dubosc, still a teenager, added that he can’t help at this point, urging every parent to talk to those around them to ease the pressure of the situation. “If you need to talk about it with other adults, I’m fine, but don’t leave me. Don’t give up on this fight, I need it. It is this conflict that will teach me that my shadow is not greater than my light.” Those moments of despair after criticism, during which the parent will have the impression that nothing is “enough” for his child, then “the storm will pass.” “Please hold on to the other end of the rope and know that you are doing the most important job anyone can do for me right now. With love, your teenager,” he concluded.

Mixed reactions

Comments poured in under the post. Some parents have found the support they need to better manage their emotions. Karin Le Marchen emphasized that she has been reading the work of psychologist Gretchen Schmelzer for several years, which was the beginning of the missive. “He puts things in their right place,” he wrote. “Wonderful letter. This period of youth is over for us, so to speak. my sons are now 19 and 21, but the memory of this difficult period was revived by this reading,” stated one netizen. However, some took issue with the comments made.

“As a teenager, I don’t need this conflict, only love, mutual understanding and support in my difficult moments. I don’t want you to fight me, I need my voice to be heard, to be treated as an equal, as a whole being and not a child. No ropes to grab but the one who reads us again. I don’t need conflict to feel like I exist, but love to keep me going. No conflict, I can’t take it anymore,” we can read under the post. Another young man responded, explaining that he found it “very reductive and discrediting”. “If we don’t agree with our parents, it’s not always about seeking confrontation, but simply because we are beings ourselves and that, necessarily, we don’t always share the same opinions as them. who brought us into the world, which is completely normal.” Although the letter was not unanimous, Frank Dux was estimated to have been read nearly 90,000 times.