“I’ll Come Get You”: The Promise Every Teen Needs to Hear

Hi, friends. Have you ever told your kids, “I’ll get you out of there, no matter what”? Or shown them in other ways? Just in everything you do and how you act? How do you react when the school calls and asks for an urgent phone call tomorrow at exactly 12:15 p.m.? Your adrenaline probably shoots through the roof, too. You talk to your kid and ask what happened.

At first, your kid might act like they know nothing. Maybe you know the teacher sometimes exaggerates, so you ask again: Isn’t there maybe one teeny tiny little thing that could possibly have come across as odd to an adult?

And then you say the sentence that matters so much: “Sweetheart, no matter what happened, I’m behind you. You know that. We stick together here. You can tell me anything, and we’ll get through this together and come out the other side.” And then it turns out there was maybe a conflict on the playground. Or a misunderstanding. Often it’s nothing truly terrible, just stuff that comes with the territory and can be sorted out.

But do you say sentences like that? That you’ll get through it together? That you stand up for each other and show up? And did you hear sentences like that growing up? Or at least feel that it was true?

“I’ll Come Get You”

Think back to when you went out as a teenager. Maybe you weren’t even allowed out that late, but now something feels off, it’s 2 a.m., and you dial your mom’s number anyway: Can you pick me up? Something’s not right here. And she comes and gets you.

On the ride home, there are no accusations. She’s just there. And you wonder. Huh? What’s going on here? The next day, too: not a word about the night before. Just a normal breakfast together. And a few years later you ask her: “Hey, what was that about back then? How cool were you, seriously?!” And she says: “I was just glad you called… that meant I’d accomplished everything in raising you. I knew you trusted me.”

Grounded for Drinking?

Boom. And then your kid comes home and tells you someone got totally wrecked on alcohol and weed. And that none of the friends wanted to call his parents, because he’d have been grounded for at least three weeks. Calling an ambulance wasn’t an option either, since the paramedics would surely have told his parents. His big brother would have snitched, too. So this teenager just keeps lying there, close to passing out, and everyone just hopes for the best.

These are extreme cases I’m describing here. But they’re situations that happen. They aren’t made up. And they can show us how much our support matters. We may think it’s dumb when our kids overdo it, but we still don’t leave them hanging. We’re there, and we help in an emergency. Always.

“We’re Here for You!”

Tell your kids you’re there for them. That you’ll come get them if something feels off, day or night, any time. And that their lives and their health matter more to you than any crap they might pull. They can reach out. They should reach out. What they can expect is not “Your own fault,” but “I’m here for you.”

Isn’t that what we want? Not a flawless life, but making mistakes (we all do!) and then learning to face them, WITH our support, not our pushback. What grows out of feeling that your own parents are your backup instead of the enforcer? The trust that builds up there is irreplaceable. We stick together. We stand up for each other.

Or how do you handle it? Tell us about situations from your own teen years and how you handle it now with your own teenagers.