What is wrong with my son? At absolute wit's end. He is not nice!

[Rominy]

We have moved, in large part to give DS (just 11) a 'new start'. Just had first parent-teacher conference at the new school. He will be at this school right through til 16 unless we move again (don't want to do that, have younger DCs)

I was so pleased - DS was invited to three parties since September (first parties in YEARS), kids were coming up to us in the playground to say hi, a couple had asked if they could come over and one child in particular seemed very keen to be DS's friend.

DS previously (at old school/in old area), convinced that everyone 'hated' him, very black and white thinking about people, expecting them to like him but making no effort to be likeable etc etc. He was referred to an ed psych who said there wasn't anything but made noises about confidence etc which we have done our best to address. The move was a big part of that. He was getting into a victim mentality and lashing out.

So, new school, DS IS the 'cool new kid'. He's doing well academically and every day he says he had a great day at school. Can't tell you how amazing that is to hear.

But now we find out that he's been standing up and yelling during class (stuff like "I love Maths!"), that he stole a pencil from a classmate and lied about it (had very obviously stolen it and was lying in the face of the whole class knowing he was lying - the kid he stole it from is a popular kid too, so this is not good), and that in lunch on Monday he HIT another child (apparently he said "you mean like this", and karate-chopped the child's neck) - his class teacher was the teacher on duty and it is for that reason that he wasn't immediately taken to the office and potentially suspended.

Again, other kids horrified, again he lied saying he was reaching for his juice and accidentally hit his friend. The kid he hit is the same child who's been really keen to be close to DS.

At home he is similar, vicious towards his younger siblings, overrreacting physically and seeming to take any opportunity to be nasty iyswim. And now the younger DCs are beginning to exhibit that behaviour which terrifies me.

Last night - and this scared me and is why I am writing really - DH and I were watching TV and suddenly all the lights and appliances in the front of the flat went off. I thought a fuse had gone and DH went down to check. DS came out of his room (he should've been alseep), and said "did something happen?" I could tell from his voice something was up. He said "I found some metal in my plug socket, I don't know how it had got there". He had put the metal bits from his potato battery kit in the plug socket and they had touched, causing a short-circuit.

He kept lying and saying it wasn't him. On and on. He could've DIED ffs.

He is just not NICE. I feel shit saying that but he's not. I love him so much and I 'lovebomb' him and it does help. But he's causing us so, so much stress.

[Rominy]

bump

[HullyEastergully]

Oh blimey.

Poor you.

I think I'd drag him off for more psyching.

[Donki]

I don't know - but if there are problems with social communications, round here it is the Speech and Language Therapists that assess (and help with) this, not the Ed Psych. (No they don't have to have a difficulty with spoken language_

[GrendelsMum]

From reading what you've said, you said that at his last school he had developed a victim mentality and was lashing out. Presumably that's what he's still doing at his new school - he's getting in quick to be the cool, badly behaved kid who's too tough to bother about anything. Because it's a defence mechanism - he's showing that there's no point in bullying him because he's tougher than they are.

I'd guess he's lying because he's so lacking in confidence that it makes more sense to deny the patently obvious than to admit to it. I did similarly stupid things as a child - and partly because it was just so confusing and embarassing to admit to the thought processes behind sticking bits of metal into plug sockets. (Which does seem quite understandable - presumably he wanted to see what would happen if he put two bits of metal into the plug socket, but could suddenly tell from your voices what a stupid thing it had been to do.)

[Rominy]

In his head, people are being horrible to him if they're not being nice to him (iyswim), but he gets really angry at the suggestion that he is being horrible (in someone else's eyes), if for example he hits them or steals their stuff. Like they should give him the benefit of the doubt he never gives anyone.

The experience with the edpsych was so depressingly pointless I'm not mad keen to repeat it but I think we need to.

[bubby64]

One of my 2 went through something like this last year, wanted to be seen as "cool" and ended up just being annoying and attention seeking, all the wrong ways of getting people to like him. He also lied at the drop of a hat, even is it was obvious to all around him he was lying, this became a real concern. We spoke to the school, and they arranged for him to have a few sessions with the Ed Psych, and this really did help. It came about that he was jelous of both his twin sibling (who had suddenly "bloomed" academically, and this had elevated him socially as well), and of some other boys in the class who had physically matured fast, and seemed very grown up. He wanted to be the "popular" one again (TBH, it was only in his eyes that he was unpopular), but did the wrong things to try and gain this popularity He knew when he had done wrong, but lied as an automatic defence mechanism, thinking that lying would get him out of trouble faster than telling the truth, even though this was not the case, in his mixed up pre-pubesent brain, this seemed to make sense! The Ed Psych lady was brillient, and made him see where he was going wrong, and how to put things in perspective. He has occasional lapses, but is bettter, but I have been warned to expect problems again as he really hits puberty, as their brain goes into chemical overload with the hormones kicking in!