Dear Katie,

This is my first time doing something like this haha. I can really relate to your worries for your brother. I have a younger teenage brother who currently just transitioned into public school. He’s quite popular and I’m worried that he’ll make bad decisions but at the same time, if he decides to take that path, then I won’t stop him. You have to learn from your mistakes and if you won’t let your brother have the freedom most typical teens have nowadays, he won’t be able to understand your perspective in the future.  Like you, I also had a not-so-good phase, but I had to learn and prevent it from repeating. I’m sure your brother will do fine. If you try to prevent or control him too much, your brother might do those things as an act of defiance. You learned from your own experiences, and he should learn from his own too. Who knows, maybe he won’t do the things you did when you were his age?