how would you handle this behaviour from 13yr old DS?

[inesj]

I've just had a message from school that my DS has not registered today. It's the end of term and he was moaning last night about going to school as "we will just be watching films". We said, as you do, that he has to go to school, don't be silly.

He's generally quite a good lad. Not particularly rebellious but full of hormones and attitude as 13 year olds are. He's never done anything this duplicitous before and I'm a bit nonplussed really. I think I'm shocked, I wouldn't have thought he would do this; it feels so out of character.

I've tried phoning him, but he's switched his phone off. I want to ground him for the rest of his life, but that might be a little dramatic.

I've just bought him a load of new clothes for the summer. They're off the table now, until he's earned them back through chores and good behaviour. No phone and grounded for a week, plus a talk about responsibility and respect.

Does that sound about right?

I'd tell the school that clearly he wants more academically challenging work and not to join in with any fun activities in the last few days. I'd also find him lots of work to do over the summer. After all, you wouldn't want him to be bored in front of the TV, would you?

It’s the curse of our modern times that everyone thinks they have the right to know where their teens are at all times.

Rubbish. I was a teenager in the 80s, my mum always had us let her know where we were going. Just as she had to with her mum in the 50s.

There is a world of difference between tracking your teen, and having a general idea of roughly where they are. If a parent thinks their child is at school, surely having a concern about where they actually are if you discover they aren't there is fairly basic parenting? If you discovered your child hadn't registered at school are you seriously telling me you wouldn't wonder, or care where they were?

It happened to me once. I got a call saying my 15 year old daughter had been seen leaving the school at dinner time on the arm of a boy in the year above.

I phoned her and ’t get hold of her.

The school then informed me that the boy had been heard telling his friends he was taking the girl back to his house as his mother was out at work and they could be alone!

I managed to get hold of a girl my daughter was friendly with and she came back to me with the name of the boy.

I found the boy on Facebook and then his mother. I messaged his mother asking her to phone me.

She did and then she phoned her son and was happy to tell me that her son was indeed at their home but was with his girlfriend and they had her permission.

So it wasn’t my daughter at all!

School still insisted my daughter was not on the premises.

About an hour later I managed to get through to my daughter on her phone who was sat in a maths lesson and she informed me she had not left the school and the maths teacher was duly put on the phone and informed me she had seen my daughter during the lunch hour!

I have to say my daughter could not have been mistaken for another girl as she was the only one there with a huge head of waist length dreadlocks brightly adorned with beads and she used to wear a full length Chinese robe instead of school uniform (that’s another story) and walked around like some kind of sci fi Fu Manchu!

So yes the schools do get it wrong!

......
I made reference to your saying your son had a pea brain and I apologise for having a go, I can see that you were just very upset and worried and it’s not something you would normally say.

Glad he is ok and you are relieved!

“I made reference to your saying your son had a pea brain and I apologise for having a go, I can see that you were just very upset and worried and it’s not something you would normally say”

I would. I called my ds a peanut brained dingbat this morning.

@BertrandRussell - God Almighty, no! Can you imagine - he would never talk to me again.

@Soola. No worries, although to be candid, I’ll quite happily call him a peabrain to his face if he’s being particularly dense.

@Livebythecoast - I know. You called it straightaway!

This thread has genuinely been helpful and made me think hard.

There’s no way he’s going to get out of his teenage years without doing something wilfully stupid and this is almost a dress rehearsal. I was so shocked that I immediately went for the nuclear option (which is unlike me as I’m a negotiator by temperament and inclination) and that’s not necessarily the right way. He probably would have sucked it up because he’s quite biddable, but it wouldn’t have helped in the long run.

He’s gone to a friend’s house and he gets to stay out later, by an hour, than usual (to ease the guilt 😂) so he’s feeling just fine and dandy 🙂

When they behave in such a manner, and it's out of character, it's a bit of a shock. And it does mean that you're a bit unprepared for how to deal with it. So yeah, a good dry run!

I call mine utter numbskulls on a regular basis. Also been known to observe that for smart girls, they can be a bit bleeding dim. (Of course, they've made similar observations about their mother on occasion - with good cause. . .)

OP that is terrible that the school put you in this worrying state. I hope they apologised.