How to help 5yo being influenced by “naughty” kid

[tiredoutmum11]

Posted on parenting but it’s quiet. Sorry I don’t apply the words naughty in real life when talking to my child but it was hard to find a title that sums up the issue.

Sorry this is long. TLDR: how can I teach my son to stop being influenced by another boy?

Context is my son is 5, August born if relevant, just started Year 1. He has quite a lot of friends and is sociable and a very confident child. He has a group of friends who he plays football with after school and they are all really lovely boys.

However, there is one boy in his class Tommy who can be quite a handful. I’ve seen him around after school and at class parties, et cetera and he is quite a troublemaker on those occasions he regularly hits other children just for fun pushes them etc and likes to be the boss. For context he’s October born and has 3 older brothers so is very “streetwise” or so he thinks - in terms of kids stuff.

Tommy makes the decisions about what is okay and what isn’t what is cool and what isn’t, what everyone else should be doing at parties or whole group activities etc He can often derail things. The parents don’t really intervene. It isn’t just me - few of parents in the class have the same issue I noticed and have complained to the parents about Tommy hitting their child or breaking their toy etc at after school meet ups in the park opposite the school.

His dad is really nice and I’ve chatted to him a few times and he told me that Tommy has been getting a lot of behaviour logs at school this year. I haven’t said anything to him, just nodded.

My son has been doing really well at school and has never received any negatives and has received lots of reward points from his teachers so all good - we are pleased with how he settled in. At home he is a typical five-year-old can be challenging and not want to do things because he’s incredibly strongwilled but nothing serious. He’s a lovely happy boy overall.

However the issue is that my son switches and changes as soon as he comes into contact with this boy Tommy, and it’s frustrating to watch. So for example for my son will be playing really nicely with his friends playing football for half an hour, then Tommy will turn up and say something like this ball is for babies and my son will laugh and join in and go yeah ha ha ha, then decide he doesn’t want to play anymore.

Tommy also has a knack of leading my son astray which is obviously down to my son to learn to say no, but even though he’s very confident and is happy to say no to me if I ask him to do something he doesn’t want to, he never says no to Tommy.
I’m sensing a lot of bravado and feelings of peer pressure. Tommy is very alpha.

Another example - Tommy will say something like let’s run away and hide or this game is so boring let’s go and run over there and steal the football or whatever and my son will follow and join in. I have tried to intervene gently and said things like it’s okay Tommy my son is happy playing football and he will say oh go away you’re so boring, bore off, and my son will laugh. At home he has started copying some of the rude things Tommy says which I have clamped down on swiftly.

They do a Friday afternoon sports club which parents attend and on the days Tommy is absent my son does well and often gets a reward, but as soon as Tommy turns up he encourages my son to run away or he sabotages the exercises and my son laughs along. At school pick up time Tommy seems to make a beeline for my son and encourage him to do things they are not allowed like climb on the equipment etc or hide behind the school building. I dread pick up everyday now!

So my main question is how do I encourage my son to be more assertive and not be so easily influenced by this boy? To stress again my son does not have issues with assertiveness in general! He is confident and can use his voice effectively however, he just seems to be in awe of Tommy and really looks up to him. After such a good start to school, I am just conscious that I don’t want him being led astray and starting to pick up behaviour logs at school unfortunately there are no parents evenings at our school until January which is not great.

To be clear I am not excusing my son’s part in all of this behaviour whatsoever. But I know that if he’s somewhere (after school play time, class party, club) and Tommy isn’t there then he will simply play nicely and have fun, but if Tommy turns up the whole dynamic changes and is often spoiled.
How can I teach my son around this? Any tips?

You need to ignore Tommy and what he is saying/doing and just focus on your son.

If he's taking the ball and running off or saying another child's game is babyish or climbing on equipment at school then you reprimand him in the normal way. I would imagine this is telling him to stop said behaviour and a warning that continuing/doing it again will result in him being taken home from the park/party/club. Then following through with this. Is that what you're doing?

Thank you. Yes I do this. It’s hard because he’s big and strong, and I don’t want to battle, but I have to persist. I have done so this week when I warned him and then took him to the car whilst he was kicking and fighting to get down and go back to Tommy.

I just don’t know how to encourage him to move away from Tommy and his games.

Focus on your son and leave Tommy to his own parents. Tommy will not be the only child your DS is ‘influenced’ by.

Speak to your son and Ask him why he was happy to play 5 minutes ago and now he doesn’t want to. Remind him that we don’t call people names or laugh at them.

if he ‘sabotages’ disrupts games, remove him. Explain that it’s ok if he doesn’t want to join in, but it’s not ok to ruin the game for others / listen to the teacher etc. keep doing this until he gets the message.

You can speak to the school at anytime if you have concerns, but they will not discuss another child with you.

Just physically keep him away from Tommy. The problem is that some children do have a specific dynamic with each other and if it's not productive then you need to socially engineer it otherwise. DD has lovely friends where she can play unsupervised for hours, and other friends where I need to run after her shouting stop every 2 minutes. I don't actively set up playdates with the annoying friends and also keep contact to an absolute minimum.

Kids come out of school at the same time but it's not mandatory for them to walk together, go to the playground or whatnot. Whisk him away before he has a chance to do stupid things with Tommy. However don't actively tell him that Tommy is a bad influence or that he needs to be more assertive. 5 is too young to understand that and the worst case scenario would be him telling Tommy directly you don't like him and it will only escalate the situation.

The simplest way is just to reduce the time they spend together and encourage other friendships. He surely has other friends in his class so do your best to befriend those and set up playdates. Get to know the parents and socialise as much as you can outside school. Once kids meet certain friends a few times privately, they immediately tend to get closer. If he never meets Tommy outside school then the friendship will eventually fizzle out.

Thank you @User987439that's helpful. We are avoiding whole class play in the park now. Unfortunately a lot of his friends are in another class, but he does have a few friends we can encourage meet ups with in his class so I will try that.