TOXIC friends - do I change my son to another school?

How is his Mum, is she approachable?

Don’t let DS know you’ve spoke to her and ask her to not say that your son said anything, pretend the Mums were snooping and found out.

So sorry your Ds is struggling, seems to be the online gaming after school predominately.

He can still play online but ‘appear’ offline. This is what Ds did when he was in a similar situation.

He needs to go to Settings and appear offline.

What game are they playing, OP?

Absolutely - you can change in year 8 - friendships are not cemented. My DC attend a non selective independent and many boys move at the end of year 8 in any case.

Much more important that your DS is happy.

Good luck!

Some schools care more about this than others. Some literally don't understand why it would be a problem.

Op, sometimes a fresh start is needed, I wouldn't rule out a school move.

OP, it sounds tough but don't engage with the other boy - you're an adult and he's someone else's child. You need to take your son out of the problem area for a bit or off the game.

It's tough in lockdown as there isn't much else to do but equally they don't have to put up with playground/corridor jostling so if he's offline or ignores the comments they'll die down. If the boy ramps up and sends worse messages to your son, then it's time to speak to the head of year.

It looks like such a dilemma, particularly this:
*all he wants to do is play games with the group of boys.

• I suggested he plays offline but he says that he doesn’t enjoy play alone or with ‘strangers’ - also all the game history and progress would be lost if he creates a completely new username so he doesn’t want that*

He will get new friends when he takes his GCSE subjects. I’d leave him there if he wants to stay.

@WilliamG66 You need to contact school. It doesn't matter what your son thinks of this and you need to stop this. The only way to stop this is to notify school.

You almost need to shout it from the rooftops and shine a light on what this kid is doing. Email school with all the details, the snowflake etc.

I have had to do this a few times with Ds1 who is now almost 18, including him being called a pussy because at 11 he didn't play games rated 18. School will deal with it. It comes under bullying. In ye olden days things like this could only happen in school, now with social media and constant contact it can happen outside school too.

Do not contact the mother, they always defend their child, you want this to come out of the blue, no warning. Sorry but it is true.

Make sure school know that your son has tried muting them etc and tried to deal with it but it is relentless. Tell them he is worried about being alone which is why he is trying to remain in the group.

Even though school is currently online, we get a phone call every week from either pastoral or a teacher who teaches my son, they send us messages every week about mental health and pastoral being available for anything we need. That is whole school, not specific to my son's year group or anything.

Also you sound completely lovely, I promise it does get easier but these are the shit issues that come with secondary when everyone is finding their feet. It is fantastic that he can come to you and tell you what is happening. A very mature attitude to seek out the help of adults.

I had an issue with my ds in year 7. I did inform his tutor, however more normal times then. What did work was a ban on the game. It was with his consent though. He actually did gradually get another set of friends and also now plays games with some old primary friends. He is year 11 now and it seemed such a big deal at the time. I have a year 7 as well. He is obsessed with Scratch though!
Time out from all chat? I know hard..Good Luck🍀

What a horrible situation for your DS. I think I'd take @LonelyBlueBauble 's advice. The instigator needs to be told this will not be tolerated. As well as threatening to discuss it with school you'll be involving parents too. I'd also encourage him to find other friends. Boys often just want to play a game with whoever is online so perhaps he could try connecting with some other lads.

My son often games with his status being offline.

None of my kids had the same friends in y8 as they did by y9/10. They aren't friends with primary school people either.

Changing schools isn't going to prevent these boys contacting him. Thanks to the Internet they can still text, message and physically bump into him at places where teens hang out. Your son may be under peer pressure at his new school from new boys. If your town is like mine then people from one school will know people at others and social media or whatever can be used to annoy your son.

You can hide your status when you are on xbox live, my sons used to do it when they didn't want to play games with their mates. They don't play xbox now but google shows you how to do it.

There were instances with Ds2 with one of his mates calling him names online in year 8 I believe. I got Ds to message the kid directly saying that I could see what he was saying and I was very angry and if it didn't stop I would be sending screenshots to school. It is good to have a parent to blame.

But definitely contact the school about it too. They have seen this a million times before. Also please don't perpetuate the whole if you snitch it will get worse. Schools have a duty of care toward pupils, if it escalated then the school should escalate the sanctions on the bullies. There should be a bullying policy either on the school website or in your son's planner. Every year in my son's school they read this out about bullying so that everyone knows what to do, who to report it to and what the punishments are if you are doing it.

Can he find other interests other than the X Box? Sorry for sounding annoying suggesting that but maybe it's time to find other more meaningful interests with boys who are a bit more sensitive. Some boys/men don't care at all about names and can give out shit and take it. But others aren't like that and are usually more sensitive when it's like that. He may well enjoy computer games because yes of course sensitive boys do enjoy them but maybe he needs to find out about the interests of the other boys in his class? Get him doing some other clubs at school where he meets other boys and forms other friendships? And definitely try to set up some activity outside of school where he can meet other people - not just boys - but people of all ages - maybe some volunteering or something like that. It would help him see that these boys aren't particularly nice and that he doesn't need to spend time around them - if he's got other better friends and activities to do instead. It might take a while but to me it sounds like he needs to spread his wings - WIDE.

Changing him school will not change the gaming situation. He should be able to block them or change the device he is using ? I.e leave the Xbox to play on computer, so reaching out to other crowds.
My DC are in great schools, so in such as case I wouldn’t hesitate to reach out to their form tutor and rely on the school pastoral care, if this an option for your school ?
In parallel could you reorganise your DC commuting to school ? I.e drive him to school for instance ?
I wouldn’t hesitate to use the current Covid situation could be used as an excuse for a variety of tricks.
Your son hasn’t done anything wrong so moving him to another school might feel
like a punishment, though it is of course understandable to consider.
Finally, he should start dropping subjects from next year (in our experience) so he will be reorganised in different classes/sets etc so if you can weather this current school year then things will be looking different next year. Good luck ! It is hard but think it is solvable

I think year 8 is the year they really change their friends and mid year 9 is when it really settles and it they then stick together until they leave school. If it’s Xbox issues I can’t see how it will change woth a new school

My DD is in Y8 also. I would say that given the circumstances, friendship groups are at end of y7 levels and definitely not set in stone. They haven't had most of their y7 and are still stuck in the 'the person I recognise is my friend' phase. DDs school has mixed classes up so she's made new friends but she was very lonely at the start, simply because she went into the school knowing no one, and continued to do so in Y8. She rekindled lots of primary school friendships in lockdown because she just didn't make strong enough friendships before schools shut.
I would definitely speak to the school and see if there is anything they can do, he will be one of many with the same problem.
However, I have noticed that there is a lot of peer pressure across the board at this age.

I know I have girls but I think from what I’m observing, in Year 8 DC are in general pushing boundaries more with friends and more resilience is needed. DD2 is Year 8 and a very polite and rule abiding kid but when I listen in on her conversations with friends she has over, there does seem to be a bigger element of teasing each other and calling each other names (usually followed by a lot of laughter). I did speak to her about this as I was taken aback listening to her and her best friend tease each other about greasy hair, spots, being short etc as in the past she’s always been very careful about upsetting people. She told me that this was the way they all spoke to each other, no one took it seriously and no offence was meant. In retrospect I remember being like this with my best friend at Secondary - we still call each other by the derogatory nicknames we called each other back then.

In a long winded way I think what I’m saying is that the name calling at this age might be a stage and might be being said without the actual intent of causing the offence it does. I’m not saying that’s ok though by the way!

My Ds2 is a similar age and we have not had any x box issues. He just wouldn't tolerate it, he's incredibly strong and twice stood up against bullies of his friends, in the playground. He's never had friendship problems.

His whole x box life is nothing but fun and squeals of laughter. He plays with nice boys. And the boys on his football team. Are also the absolute sweetest. Please believe me that what you see is not what it needs to be like.

But. There was endless problems in his year, on x box, in year 6, last year of primary. It was reported to school and we all knew about it. When I asked Ds he said he'd heard about it. But the people he played with just weren't like that. Of the say 8 mums I knew, in his year, half of them said that sons had problems - with this reported group, and half of them said that their sons had never had an issue and played with boys who were simply delightful.

Get your son off the x box.
Then. He will make nice friends. New friends. Worthy of him. Just like me Ds2.

Hope that doesn't sound cocky, (don't worry I've had my fair share of different problems with Ds1!!)
I'm just trying to encourage you to realise that this can be fixed, and before long he'll have new friends and won't give these 'friends' a second thought!

If the struggle is mainly XBox related, then moving schools won't help at all. They will still be connecting with him after school.

Can you change the settings on the Xbox so it doesn't look like he is online?
This doesn't really sound like a school issue, more of one where he is struggling to assert boundaries with these boys. If I were you I would work on strategies for that first. He does need to learn how to say no to friends - it won't get easier by ignoring it and surely it's better to get that skill now than wait until the bad influences are teenagers and the stakes are higher.
Not sure if it would work with an older child but I used to role play potential situations with DD when younger when she was having a few friendship issues so she felt more prepared for the real thing.
I get the impression from DD that boys are quite brutal in how they speak to their friends at high school. Can't be easy if your son is not naturally robust in his ways!

My DD had similar problems in y7&8. In the evening there were a lot of tears, then one week I noticed no tears and when asked she had moved on to new friends. Literally told the old group that she wasn't happy and moved to a new group. It helped that in y9 they had started their GCSEs - new class sets etc and options introduced her to new people ie music group. Also swimming club after school.(things will resume, I hope soon). I'm not an x-box expert but can he change his username? If this is happening in the evening changing schools may not help. And yes I have been used as many an excuse! All the best

Don’t speak to the mums, it won’t help.
You can try the school but if the nastiness is only happening in the evenings on the Xbox they probably can’t help either
I think the only solution is to closely monitor his online playing and remove him from it if things get out of hand
If he doesn’t want to change school you shouldn’t make him, especially as things seem to be ok at school