Comment by tolerance

Look, I get what you mean. Sort of watching out for where the puck is moving instead of worrying about where it’s at now.

Maybe it would help not to think that your son is out on the ice with you right now. Because I feel like that’s how you’re treating him. And at least in the situation you described he’s beginning to skate circles around you!

If he’s smart enough to outwit you then maybe he’s smart enough for you to start explaining to him whatever the reasons are you don’t want him to do certain things. I get it. You don’t want him to do some things but at the same time you don’t want to curtail his ambition and agency to do other things. Am I on the right track?

I won’t tell you what to do about that. I mean I could, but I hope that this was useful enough, whatever I mean to be doing here.

Maybe you need to take a step back and revise your feel for the game that you’re playing on your own before you intend to prepare him to start too. The ‘game’ of life and making one’s living.