A parent’s story of bringing their son home from a violent movement
We lost our son twice.
First, to the streets. Then, to a war we didn’t understand.
He was fifteen the first time he ran away. Angry. Withdrawn. Getting into fights. Drinking. Stealing. There was so much rage in him, and we didn’t know why. We tried everything—discipline, counseling, tough love. Nothing worked. He just got better at hiding.
Then came the ideology.
He joined a group that claimed to fight for justice. But what we saw was chaos—violence, vandalism, street fighting. He idolized destruction. We found messages, masks, weapons. He wasn’t just protesting. He was preparing for battle. And we couldn’t reach him.
One night, he disappeared. We filed a missing person report. Weeks passed. We found out he had flown overseas—to join a militia fighting in a foreign war.
He was sixteen.
We were terrified. Powerless. It felt like we’d lost him for good.
That’s when we found Parents for Peace.
They didn’t promise quick fixes. They offered something harder: hope. They taught us how to rebuild trust—not by debating ideology, but by reconnecting with the human beneath it. They helped us focus on the pain, not the politics. The isolation. The unmet needs. The loss of direction.
We stopped fighting him and started showing up for him.
Eventually, we got him home.
He was changed. So were we. There was no switch to flip—just small choices, every day, to stay present. To listen. To set boundaries without pushing him further away. Parents for Peace supported us through it all.
Today, he’s in recovery. He’s working. He’s helping people. He’s still figuring things out—but he’s here. He’s alive. He’s with us.
We got our son back. And we’re not alone.
We thought we were doing everything we could. Therapy. Medication. Monitoring his moods. Trying to keep our son safe from himself.
But we weren’t prepared for what we found online.
He had always struggled—with focus, with connection. Diagnosed with ADHD and autism. Prone to emotional extremes. Sometimes angry. Sometimes completely withdrawn. He didn’t have many friends. He didn’t talk much. But he prayed. And he spent a lot of time on his phone.
Then the FBI showed up at our door.
They had found violent videos. Execution footage. Extremist propaganda. Messages promoting acts of terror. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe this was my child. But I also knew—deep down—I had already been afraid.
We tried taking away his devices. We tried reasoning. We argued. We cried. Nothing worked. He got more secretive. More devout. More angry. He told us we didn’t understand. That we were hypocrites. That everyone was.
That’s when we reached out to Parents for Peace.
They didn’t judge us. They listened. They helped us understand that our son wasn’t just angry—he was in pain. That what he was drawn to wasn’t just ideology—it was belonging. Control. Something that made the chaos inside him feel orderly.
We were paired with two interventionists. One had lost his father to hate violence. The other had once been radicalized himself. They met him where he was—through his faith, his frustration, even his silence. And they worked with us too. They helped us shift from fear to connection. From control to communication.
We learned to set boundaries without shutting him down. We learned to show him affection even when his views felt unbearable. We learned to listen—not to the hate, but to the hurt underneath it.
And little by little, things changed.
He started exercising again. He rejoined his football team. He opened up about his dreams—what he wanted for his future. He stopped idolizing violence. He made real friends. He even started dating. He made mistakes, and still does. But he began to rejoin the world.
He’s not the same kid we were afraid of losing. And we’re not the same parents who were scared to face it.
We still have work to do. But we’re doing it together. And thanks to Parents for Peace, we’re not doing it alone.
We were just a regular family. The biggest thing on our minds that week was refinancing our mortgage. Then the FBI showed up at our door.
They told us our 15-year-old son had been talking online with a terrorist group—about building bombs.
I couldn’t even process the words. This wasn’t who we were. This wasn’t who he was. But it was happening.
At first, we thought it might be a mistake. Our son used to be so social—into sports, always surrounded by friends. But over time, he had started to pull away. He spent more time alone in his room. He was bullied at school, and we knew he was struggling, but we chalked it up to a phase.
We didn’t realize how far he had gone online.
We tried everything—religious counseling, therapy, taking away his internet. But nothing seemed to help. He just found new ways to access the same content: violent rhetoric, extremist messages, footage of attacks from around the world. The more we tried to intervene, the more he withdrew.
Eventually, we were connected with Parents for Peace.
It wasn’t instant. It took fourteen months before he even agreed to speak to them. But unlike the other paths we had tried, this one worked. They didn’t just talk to him—they talked to us. They saw us as a family. They helped us understand the root causes: the isolation, the shame, the vulnerability to influence. They gave us tools to reconnect, to reframe how we approached him, and to stay present even when it was hard.
For the first time, we didn’t feel judged. We didn’t feel alone.
Today, our son is in college. He’s talking about the future. He’s thinking about work, friendships, and relationships. There’s joy in his voice again. A few years ago, we didn’t think that would ever be possible.
We still carry some fear. But we also carry hope. Because we’ve seen what support can do—and we know that if it happened to us, it can happen to anyone.
I never thought I’d be afraid of my own child.
She had always been strong-willed. Independent. Rebellious, even. But when she went off to college and started making cruel, hateful comments—about immigrants, about people of color—I knew something was deeply wrong.
It only got worse. The clothes she wore. The music she listened to. The people she surrounded herself with. She wasn’t just acting out—she had joined a Neo-Nazi group. She found a boyfriend there. And then she cut off all contact with us.
She filed a restraining order against me.
I was devastated. I didn’t know how to help her. I didn’t know if I even could.
That’s when I called Parents for Peace.
They didn’t judge me. They helped me understand how groups like this work—how they isolate, manipulate, and control. They explained how vulnerable young people, especially those who are neurodivergent, can be pulled in when they’re angry, hurt, or looking for belonging.
They didn’t try to fix her. They started by helping me.
I had to learn how to manage my panic—how to stop trying to force my way back into her life, and instead prepare for the moment she might come back on her own. They taught me how to listen. How to talk in ways that didn’t push her further away. How to rebuild trust without control.
And then the call came. She was pregnant. Her boyfriend—part of the same hate group—had become abusive. She was scared. She didn’t want him to have access to their child. She chose to terminate the pregnancy and come home.
She came back to me.
But coming home wasn’t the end. The work began again. Parents for Peace helped me see how some of her pain stretched back years—even to a moment I had ignored: a time when she told me about being harmed by someone I had trusted. I hadn’t believed her then. And that betrayal had stayed with her.
This time, I listened.
Slowly, she began to shed the beliefs that had consumed her. She covered up the look she had once adopted. She started looking for a job. She wasn’t just rejecting hate—she was finding herself again.
We still have a long way to go. But for the first time in years, I feel like I have my daughter back.
My son dropped out of one of the best universities in the country.
Then he started carrying machetes and chains.
I wish I were exaggerating. But by the time I called Parents for Peace, he’d already been arrested five times and charged with two felonies. He talked about revenge against corporations. He thought he was at war with the world.
At first, I thought it was just the drugs. He had started self-medicating after a suicide attempt, and things just kept spiraling. But when I looked closer, I saw something else—a deep wound he didn’t know how to name.
He had been accused of something serious back in high school. It was never proven, but he was expelled. Everything unraveled after that. The shame. The isolation. The rage. And that’s when he found his ideology. Something that made him feel righteous, even while he was falling apart.
I didn’t understand how any of it connected.
But Parents for Peace did.
They didn’t tell me to cut him off or shut him down. They helped me see the pain underneath the behavior—the real reason he clung so tightly to an extreme identity. They showed me how to stay connected without enabling him. How to hold boundaries without letting go.
For a long time, it felt like I was parenting in the dark. But suddenly I had light.
They helped me communicate in ways that opened doors instead of closing them. We stopped yelling. We started talking. And over time, he started listening. He started showing up.
Today, he’s still in recovery. But it’s real. He’s connected to a therapist. He’s off the hard drugs. He’s joined a mainstream environmental group—not a radical one. And he’s thinking about going back to school.
We’re not just surviving. We’re rebuilding. And I don’t feel alone anymore.
I thought he was just becoming more religious.
Our son was home during the pandemic, like so many kids. He started getting more serious about Islam. At first, we tried to support it. But then it became more intense. He started policing what we ate, what we watched, how we dressed. It didn’t feel like faith—it felt like control.
We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t even know what we were seeing.
Then came the phone call.
The FBI had arrested him. He was on his way to Yemen after pledging allegiance to a terrorist group. He was just a teenager. And he was gone.
I didn’t know how to breathe.
We found out he’d secretly gotten married. That he’d been planning this for months. We didn’t see it coming. Not because the signs weren’t there—but because we didn’t know how to read them.
That’s when we found Parents for Peace.
They helped us stop asking, “What happened to our son?” and start asking, “What was he missing that made him so vulnerable?” They worked with us to understand our family—our communication breakdowns, our inconsistent parenting, our silence around things that should have been said.
And they worked with him too. Even while he was incarcerated.
Two of their team—one of them a former extremist himself—started meeting with our son. Again and again. Over 50 sessions. They didn’t argue with him. They listened. They asked questions. They helped him trace his beliefs back to his pain: the loneliness, the confusion, the feeling of not belonging. They helped him name the things that ideology had disguised.
At the same time, we were being coached. How to talk to him. How to stop debating and start connecting. How to show love in a way that made it harder for hate to grow.
And slowly, it worked.
He started asking his own questions. He picked up books. He started exercising. He looked inward instead of lashing out. He even talked about how our parenting had shaped some of his pain—not to blame us, but to understand it.
We know he’s still healing. So are we. But something has shifted.
We didn’t just get our son back. We found our way back to each other.
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