Concerned that my son is hanging with the wrong crowd.

[MoSalahsBeard]

Don’t know what to do.

son is 14 and has never been a very smart judge of character. I am very concerned about some of his school friends. It started off that he would go to town with them after school and on two occasions I saw him and the group being followed around by security guards! There were also a couple of incidents where he was rude to me in front of them and didn’t come home when he was supposed to. He is banned from going to town with them now.

thing is, he doesn’t get in much trouble at school, but I sometimes check his phone and tonight I saw that he is having a phone conversation with a friend, someone who is on the fringes of this group but seems more sensible. He told my son that one of the boys he hangs around with ‘has gone into management’ and that if he ‘snitches’ my son will be suspended. Suspended for what I have no idea but i am now really worried.

what do i do? How do I handle this? How can i get him to make smart decisions? Despite having two sensible parents who have tried to steer him on the right path my son seems to continually make bad decisions about friends and what he says and does. I’m so sick of it.

Blimey, could it be county lines type stuff?

Trying to imagine what jargon that conversation could be connected to and that's what springs to mind... But that's worse case scenario, hopefully nothing so scary as that.

I'd be tempted to dig deeper if it was my son though, just so you know what you're dealing with.

Subtly steer him away from bad boys.

Get him doing positive and rewarding things. Use up that energy. Sport is great for this, where there’s fresh air and positive energy with positive youngsters that are a good influence.

Now is the time to do it. Good luck 💐

Update. Turns out he has been vaping. So upset with him. He has asthma and this was such a dumb decision.

he's always been drawn to the idiots at school. Always. He’s made friends with some trouble makers and been sharing vapes with them.

I got about 5 hours sleep and I don’t know what to do with him. He’s completely untrustworthy and has let me down so many times. Not sure if we should move him to another school or what.

To be honest there is only so much you can do
I would tell him if he fucks up his life there will come a point that you as parents will not be able or willing to bail him out.

A few cheap thrills as a teenager might seem like all fun and giggles now but if he gets a police record there are many countries you won’t get a visa for to even visit never mind work. If he flunks school he will either spend a lot of time trying to catch up whilst other people his own age progress with their lives and careers and have money to go out, travel, buy a car etc. or he will be in lower paid work, never having choices and again just still be behind and a life of crime might pay well until they throw you in prison and then you will be truly screwed.

Not sure how much of that is actually true but basically scare(?) him into thinking about his life choices. He wants to act like a big man, then treat him like one.