9year old son has the worst behaved friends ever (LONG)

[BustyStClaire]

Son is 9 & overall a very good kid, always good reports from school, has some SEN, some ADD, but no problems. He is friendly with everyone in his class, but sticks with two particular boys who are horrendous. One is so badly behaved he is constantly in trouble at school, parents always being called in etc etc. The other has better behaviour but outside of school he has no boundarys at home. He is treated like an adult, has every electrical device in his room, and uses fb & internet unsupervised.

Boy 2 goes onto his FB & asks to speak to my boy, I have let him, but can see the convo on my phone. Boy2 asks my boy to sneak out to meet him. My boy makes excuses & refuses. I tell boy2s mum, who doesn't care.

This week, for the first time in all his school years, my son & boy 1 are sent to the headmasters office for hurting a girl in the playground. My boy lied to me, and I heard it third had from boy 1. I am horrified. I sit & chat with my son about what happened, what he did, what he should have done etc, and how disspointed we were that he didn't tell us firstly.

My question is really can I somehow encourage new friendships for my son, can I butt in that much? Three days of school left, and should be distanced from these kids in the holidays, but how can I make my son think its a good idea for find some new friends. can I?

[brettgirl2]

Could you ask for him to be moved to a different class next year? The three don't sound like a great combo for the teacher either. Of course this depends on the size of the school.....

[BustyStClaire]

We talked about that, but would it be like punishing him? Making him move. Was going to talk to new teacher to see if she could trying to keep them more separate in class, not on same table to put in same groups.

[BrummyMummy2012]

Teach your son to be a shepherd and not a sheep and you won't have that problem. Your making it sound like the son shines out if his arse tbh but if he's been diagnosed with ADD then your ' no problems' statement really can't be true. You call the other children 'horrendous' but I guess to the parents of the girl they hurt probably think the same about your boy. Don't blame someone else's child for your child's bad behaviour, blame your child and yourself.

[BustyStClaire]

Thanks for the help Brummy! Cheers for the support.

[cory]

I wouldn't have put it in the same language as Brummy, but according to your OP both the boys were involved in hurting the little girl, your son lied about it- yet, you want to move your son away from his naughty friend and encourage other friendships.

So how can you be sure the other parents will be any more enthusiastic about friendships with your son than you are about your son's friendship with this other little boy? Won't they have exactly the same feelings about wanting to protect their children from a bad influence, i.e. your son?

Brummy does put her finger on it (if rather harshly): the only way to break this vicious circle is for every parent to make it clear to her child that it doesn't matter what the others do, I will never be interested in excuses or hearing about what others do, I will punish you for what you do. And for each single parent to do that regardless of what the other parents are doing. A lot of parenting is about not looking over your shoulder.