At the end of my tether: no sanction harsh enough for yr 7 DD

[PermaShattered]

I need help. My 12 year old is in Yr 7 (first high school year). Her behaviour has rapidly gone downhill at school. She gets detentions regularly (2x yesterday) for throwing things, and other incidents, for forgetting homework, uniform breaches, etc. The school is, as far as i can tell, dealing with it really well. But i've just taken a call from head of year who i have met with previously about my DD. She was with DD and it's clear she doesn't care what sanctions she receives. As head of yr said, it's very concerning that a year 7 pupil doesn't care if the most severe sanctions are imposed.

Her behaviour at home is also bad. Essentially, she has no respect for authority, whether home or at school. Any advice will be so welcome.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Are sanctions the answer or is there something else going on here? Is she depressed? Has she seen a GP? Is there any disruption to her home life e.g. death of a grandparent or is she being bullied?

I would look at possible underlying problems before assuming its just bad behaviour, although it might well feel like that when you are on the receiving end of it.

DS1 is a bit younger but blows up spectacularly sometimes and for him its a confidence issue. If something has knocked his confidence or he has been teased in school we sometimes get a real explosion later that evening.

[TheWave]

Can the Head of Year say anything about her peer group and friends? - Year 7 is sometimes very hard in terms of finding the right people to hang out with.

Any "spies" in the school -other children whose parents you know?

[PermaShattered]

Chaz if you saw the threads last year on the offer of a place at grammar that was withdrawn a week later, this is the child concerned. Her self confidence is very low. She also has major problems sleeping and is on melotonin. We think there's more to it.

TheWave she has - had a word with some of the children who have been teasing her. We don't think she's being bullied but it's being dealt with.

[DeWee]

Is she trying to be expelled in the hope the grammar would then "have" to take her?

When I was year 7 there was a lad who decided he didn't want to go there and was an absolute pain for the first year. It was almost unheard of for a year 7 to get a detention in their first half term-he was chocking up 2-3 a week (which meant headmasters detention).

After a year, he decided it wasn't as bad as he'd thought, and was okay, although still occasionally had bad episodes in years 8 and 9. By year 11 he was positively responsible though.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

I do remember those threads that must have been an unsettling time for everyone. I know you were challenging it - did your DD get to keep the GS place because too much time had passed?

Is she trying to get excluded from school (perhaps because it's the "wrong" school)?

I wonder if she would benefit from some therapy, I'm not sure if CAMHS would be of any help or whether you would have to pay privately. I would speak to your GP.

[LaVolcan]

Do you think a fresh start by moving to another school would work? I remember that because of the mess over the grammar school place last year you also lost the chance of appealing for your 2nd choice school. Is it possible to see if they have any spaces for year 8?

[DeWee]

Another thought. My cousin was badly bullied at seondary by a group of boys who had failed the entrance exam to the independent school they'd been at the prep for. Turned out they were bullying him, because he would have clearly got into the school they failed to, so they resented him badly.

I am not saying that she is bullying them at all, but is it possible she is looking at others and thinking "they would have got in..." and is taking out her anger and frustration in bad behaviour?

[nipersvest]

i have a yr 7 dd too, so am wracking my brain to answer how i would deal with this is it were dd. the crux of it is to find out why she is behaving like this,

was she like this in primary or has her behaviour changed? can you pinpoint when it began?

has she made friends at the new school?

did she make her mind up to dislike this school before starting given what happened with the withdrawn school place?

[LaVolcan]

Just thought - how did your DD feel about going to her current school before the carrot of Grammar School was dangled in front of her and then taken away?

Just going by remembering your thread from last year, it sounds as though it could be a mixture of being denied the GS place coupled with teenage problems kicking in.

[PermaShattered]

I'll try to address everything! LaVolcan at the very beginning she didn't want to go to this school, but she adapted quickly. She was fine for the first few weeks, then it's been downhill eversince.

I'm unsure about ringing 2nd choice school. She says she wants to change schools yet she's happy going in the morning which is a bit perverse. And we tell her that another school could bring the same issues, or there could be other problems and no school is perfect. We've seen children moved from 1 to another - just because they dont' like it. Also, this current school is proving impressive in trying to get to the root of the problem. They are trying to help and support her but she is throwing it back in their faces. She just doesn't seem to care. Maybe a different school would snap her out of it, i just don't know.

Primary school - she was golden, no trouble at all. Yes, she has at least 2 close friends at this school.

We wonder if part of it at least is to do with her feeling inferior to her sister who is at the GS. Particularly as she's pretty much top of the class in everything. This week she's been getting exam results all A* and in one case 3 marks below 100%. So of course, we're giving her praise, and she hears this and i do hate to think of what she's going through inside. My heart breaks for her, but at the same time whatever is happening at school/her sister, etc, it's no excuse for bad behaviour.

Therapy - i do wonder. Maybe a trip to the GP is in order.

[nipersvest]

ok, you're saying she's not responding to sanctions the school are putting in place, what sanctions are you using at home?

i think before addressing potentially moving schools, you need to find the cause of the behaviour change. dd has found some of the other girls she was at primary with have changed, wearing make up, swearing etc, year 7's go from being the oldest to being the youngest at school, some deal with it by acting older than they are to feel grown up again.

how is she with your authority at home?

[PermaShattered]

At home, privileges withdrawn (ie no laptop, phone, tv etc). She's grounded this week. We've had disobedience, lies and more lies, disrespect, etc. Things just don't change.

Authority at home? She argues about everything, is disrespectful etc . but she knows the score: unacceptable behaviour has consequences. But she doesn't get it.

[lottysmum]

I remember your post too about Grammar school and judging by what you have said this may be behavior brought on by feeling inferior to her sister and she's behaving the way she is to get your attention ...its a CRY for help ...saying how about me ......

I'm not sure how you can deal with this ...without facing it head on ...perhaps finding a way to build up DD2's self esteem ...Is there anything that she does that surpasses her sister.....so difficult ....

[LaVolcan]

It does sound as though the bad behaviour is her way of trying to get attention, and she does sound desperately unhappy. Can you try to stop some arguments - count to 10 (100, 1000!) or walk away? Ignore me if that is a stupid suggestion.

[PermaShattered]

I'd rather have stupid suggestions than none at all :) If I try to avoid getting into an argument and ignore her, she's chip away at me, and if i still ignore her i get a mouthful. So i then have to deal with that because i won't have any of my children speak to like that and get away with it.

Catch 22! :(

[Blu]

I also wonder if her self esteem / confidence is too dented to risk 'trying and being seen to succeed' and so she is doing the opposite - taking the only control she feels she has by making failure a self fulfilling prophecy.

Sanctions clearly aren't working. And look as if they will only push her into an ever esclating defiance against them.

I would be working in finding her a mentor of some kind (maybe the swhool can help?), seeing if the school or your GP cna arrange some kind of counselling, taking great care to give her praise and affirmation whenever she does anything good or tries, and finding ways for her to do well and not be incompetition with her sister.

[Moid1]

Could you take her away for a weekend, just you and her, girly break and see if you can reconnect. Once a bond is disrupted sometimes you need to work hard to reconnect. DH had lost bond with DS1 over 4 or 5 years, he took him away for the weekend, they stayed in a hotel, went swimming etc.. It wasn't an immediate solution but now they are the best of friends.

[MissSmiley]

I think it's to do with low self esteem and to do with her sisters success. Having an older sister that you can't compete with can cause huge problems. She needs to feel loved for who she is. Take the emphasis off school and make sure she's happy with who she is.

[DaVinciNight]

Sanctions don't work so why carrying on with them? I mean if you were taking a medicine for headaches and you still had some headaches and on the top if it you were getting bad stomach cramps, you would change the medicine wouldn't you?

Concentrate on the positive and try and ignore as many bad behaviour as possible. Ignore the abuse. She is trying to push your buttons so she gets a reaction. Use the opportunity if a trip in the car to have a chat with her. And maybe have a look at that GS school again (don't know what had gone on but wonder if she could get in next year or the year after, esp if she still has such good results)

[SpeedwellBlue]

I think it sounds like it is anger coming out. If she was completely different at primary I'd consider asking the GP for a referral to CAMHs. My dd went for one session as she developed a phobia in Y4 that was beginning to really escalate. We only needed to go once, but the woman we saw really delved and got to the bottom of things and gave us strategies for dealing with it. It was very useful and it did turn things around once we knew how we needed to work on it.

My parents' next door neighbour had a daughter who failed her 11+. The family had moved specifically to be in the catchment and paid for lots of tutoring for her. Her behaviour became quite out of hand in Y7. It may be nothing to do with it of course and i'm sure lots of people who fail the 11+ are fine, but i did wonder if the two things might be linked in some way. Maybe not, i don't really know.

[TheWave]

Maybe emphasise the positive more as mentioned.

Is there a club or something she could get involved in out of school? Don't know what she's into but dance, musical theatre stuff? Gymnastics? So that she widens her horizons. Ask her what (obv don't know your financial situation).

Maybe trip to a craft store, get a craft magazine, see if she'd like to make and sell homemade cards (to frfiends and family).

[HercShipwright]

You say she has said she wants to change school. Has she specified which school she wants to go to? Is this a real possibility. If not, does she know this isn't going to happen. Is she trying to force your hand? Do you think your negativity about her current school has rubbed off on her?

[LaVolcan]

I am not sure where Perma lives, but I think it's somewhere near Kent, where the 'comps' are really glorified secondary moderns, so I don't think that bigging them up would necessarily work. Of course, some are better than others and some children would get to a good university from one, but probably not all that many.

From last year's thread I seem to remember there were three Local Authorities involved so it sounds like South London somewhere. In that case if there are superselectives, then relatively few from the locality will be selected out, so the comprehensives will reflect a much fuller ability range and bigging the school up might work.

She is getting very good marks despite the bad behaviour, so I wonder if she is being stretched enough? Are there any particular lessons which she is better or worse in - that might give you some clues?

[HercShipwright]

I thought the marks quoted were for the older daughter, at the GS?