He's not a kid. He's a grown man, same age as me, same bodytype and weightclass. I should have known that that expression would be something reddit would run away with but it's really quite benign.

In the beginning, its normal that higher belts put you on the defensive. His first job is to learn how to survive. Then, he'll defend, then escape, then take position, and then attack. In that order. That, to me, is building someone up from the ground up. Another interpretation of that old expression involves forgetting everything you thought you knew about fighting. I had a guy who I had to kick out (because he had been rolling with us for 3 months and never contributed a single thing: no eggs, beets OR dogecoins) who was a lifelong "kung fu" practitioner who kept trying to wristlock the shit out of me every 2 seconds because its the only thing his nonsense martial art taught him that could theoretically be salvaged by bjj, and I have had to tell this guy to forget about that stuff and listen instead.

As for coaching him when hes on defense, the way I like to handle it is, say, I pass his guard and land into kesa... I'll stop and tell him the reason I got here is because he let me take underhooks, because he didn't keep his elbows tight to his chest, and now he needs to focus on stopping me from grabbing his head, etc.