To stop my son hanging around with this boy

[jaffacakesaremyfave]

My eldest DS (12) started this year at the local comprehensive secondary school.

At first he was walking to school with a group of children (one of which he went to primary with) but now they all seem to take the bus and he's started to walk with our next door neighbours DS who is the year above. My DS has a bus pass and I give him money for the bus each day but he walks and spends it on junk food. I work FT so leave before him in the morning.

Since he started walking with just him, he's been late several times and 'lost' £15 dinner money. The school have made several comments about this child that they think he is a bad influence on my DS. The school must have reasons for saying this but obviously won't tell me why.

My DS has had a troubled past with his father who he no longer has contact with and I'm worried that he's looking up to this older boy and getting up to things he shouldn't. He's no angel (bullies his younger brothers) but up until Now he's always been extremely well behaved at school and wouldn't have done anything to get into trouble.

WIBU to stop my DS from 'hanging around' with this boy and how do I handle the situation? Obviously I don't want to upset our neighbours or this child as he's clearly been labelled as a bad egg and I don't know the background story. I don't trust my DS enough to make the right judgement as he's very easily influenced by older males

If they want to hang about together. There's no really much you can do.
You can't stop 2 children being friends

Surely you should if one is stealing from the other?

The school have made several comments about this child that they think he is a bad influence on my DS Not only does this sound like the school are labeling a child, it also sounds like your DS has no responsibility for his actions (but the other child does?).

Deal with the behaviours, without scapegoating the other child. The money, you need to be sure he isn't either having it taken, or spending it on things he shouldn't. Does the school not have another system for dinner money?

You say he has a bus pass but you also give him money for bus fare. Why is that?

It's tricky, he's at the age where he'll be open to new experiences and trying out stuff that challenges himself perhaps not always in a good way. You can't choose their friends for them. Can you take practical steps to limit the others lads influence and reduce opportunities for mischief?. Can you try and strength your relationship with DS? Spend more one to one time with him, sign him up for after school activities? Can you cut back on the cash he has access to? If he's walking don't give him bus fares, pay dinner money direct to school or do packed lunch? Really I think all any parent can do is to try and instill a basic level of decency, compassion and humanity in children and then keep your fingers crossed that if they deviate from it for a short while while the find their feet as they move towards adulthood, they will eventually return to those values and grow into lovely people.

So tell him he must take the bus, and that you will collect his ticket from him every day after school and/or be calling school to check he was on time.

And that if you find out that he's been late or he hasn't taken the bus, you will take a week off work to take him by the hand and personally deliver him to his class and pick him up from his class every morning.

i was in a simalar situation with my ds
i drummed it into him that he knew right from wrong , just cos the other lad does something doesnt mean he as to do it, hes got a brain use it, hes responsible for his own actions
(this is what i told my son btw)
op your son will come across other kids that you might think are a bad influence throught out his school life , you wont be able to keep him away from everyone, just get him to think for himself

Yes.

The harsh reality of life is that you need to look out for you and yours. I have compassion for others but it decreases extremely quickly as I move beyond close friends and family.

Whilst you don't want to label the other boy as a bad egg, it seems to be the best thing for you to do and to remove your son from the situation.

How do you guess your son would react to you being absolutely honest with him? Children (boys especially) at this age have huge variance in their maturity. Some would understand.

The problem is your son, not his friend.
Stopping him walking to school with this boy won't change him. Most kids have friends who are a bad influence but you have to teach your child not to follow their behaviour.
Your neighbour could just as well blame your son for being an influence on her son. This is what parents do instead of tackling their own child's behaviour.
You say your child has had problems so deal with those.

So if he's late for school, or loses his money then take away some privileges like time on the computer/has his phone taken away for a certain time or whatever.
There is no doubt that older kids can be an influence on younger kids. The younger kid is not in a position to stand up for themselves in some cases. Being late for school can be seen to be 'cool' by some kids who don't value school that much.
Can he bring a packed lunch instead of money?

Well If you think it ok to leave for work before you kid go to school . You don't have a clue what he up to . Your choice.
Parent or let him get on with it .
Your child is getting drugs or something worst listen to school and parent your child .

Summer... Not helpful if OP has to get to work on time and may have no choice but to leave before DS.

Most schools use parent pay or accept payments from parents for school meals, it should be an option to sort that out. Don't understand why they need bus fare as well as bus pass. Might be best not to let them access the money if they are 'losing' it.

At first he was walking to school with a group of children (one of which he went to primary with) but now they all seem to take the bus -

Well of gets the bus again he'll be with his other friends? Might be the solution.

Well If you think it ok to leave for work before you kid go to school . You don't have a clue what he up to . Your choice.
Parent or let him get on with it .
Your child is getting drugs or something worst listen to school and parent your child

Do you have kids summer?

Oh course I have kids . Have seen this happen too many times .
If you are not there you cannot sort out the problem.

Op your son is getting in trouble take time off work and sort it out .

So how do you feed your kids if you don't go to work?

Homeless kids do so much better. How do people pay for housing not working? Baffled.

I was a latch key kid. Perfectly well adjusted, thanks.

I think it's unfair of you to blame another child

I would get your DS to take the bus, and tell him to be wary about this boy. But keep the conversation open, ask him what he thinks. He is at an age where he's having to learn so much about social relationships and how you view the world.

Use this as a way to get him to think about who he wants to be, the person who is always late? No, tell him he can do better setting his own standards. If he wasn't late before then he is responsible for getting back on track, with your support.

Summer that is not necessary. Obviously she 'parents'.

OP, does the school have a system where you can pay them directly for the school dinners , so he doesnt have to carry that amount of cash on him?

The first step would surely be to stop giving him money?

Give him a packed lunch and bus pass. If this boy has flopped on your son because he has money, he'll soon grow bored if there is none.

It's not clear from your op whether your son is actually in trouble at school? It's likely that he doesn't mix with him in school, just to and from?

The late marks need to be punished by you. I don't mean to be harsh but I've heard a million times parents of children in trouble at school say "they're in with bad company" which sort of removes all blame from their own child.

All the suggestions of ways to stop Op's son are pointless (fun story to follow). I concur with eatdrinkandbemarysfairy

When I was about 11 or 12 my father had to leave for work before me and I had to make an hour's trip to school. It was decided that this was not okay for me to do on my own. My parents hired a live in opere. I HATED that I had to be baby sat on the train. I refused to walk with her. Ran ahead, got earlier trains or later trains or changed somewhere else and got the bus. Ran down side streets so she would lose me. I even changed the clocks one morning and left two hours early and sat outside school in the park for hours before casually walking in to school on time.

She always made the journey anyway, often a few seats away, keeping an eye. But that was totally pointless. ANYWAY. it doesnt matter what system you put in place if he wants to walk to school he will.

I feel terrible for that poor girl now. What a brat I was.

Summer has a point. If the op thinks it's bad now wait until he hits 13/14 . See how much grief she will get from school and the other parents. She'll cop all the blame for her " poor parenting" then.
Op says her son bullies his siblings and looks up to other males. He'a prime candidate for getting into trouble.
The other posters are right that her DS needs to take responsibility for his own behaviour and make better choices. However it probably needs some more proactive parenting at this early stage even if work has to take a hit.

He has a bus pass which reduces his fare to half but our local bus service doesn't offer pre paid school bus passes hence the money and a pass. I would much prefer to just have a pass as I know he's walking to school so he can keep the money.

I have also now set up a parentpay account for dinner money.

He's not in trouble at school, he's very bright and has always done well academically although admittedly he is very lazy. I don't think he sees this boy during school and doesn't hang out with him at weekends. It's just sad that he used to be part of a group which he has distanced himself from, but I cannot force him to catch the bus and he won't open up as to why. He got very defensive when I asked why he was late and where the money had gone. He doesn't really open up to me although we have discussed activities to do together one in one.

I wish I had the money to hire an au pair Summer or to quit my job and stay at home but unfortunately I'm a single parent who has bills to pay. Even if I was at home to take him to school, I have 2 DC at a different school 10 minutes in the car in the opposite direction so eldest DS would have to spend some time on his own at school waiting for it to open.

He can be quite mature for his age but admittedly I've allowed him to be quite sheltered leading up to high school and didn't let him go anywhere alone prior to this so he's not very street smart. I have always been able to closely monitor his friendship group so I'm finding it difficult to not to be able to control this now.

I am fully aware my DS looks like a prime candidate for getting into trouble, hence my worry. I'm not saying he's not responsible for his own actions but looking back at my teenage years (I went to the same high school), I was definitely influenced by certain friends and did things I wouldn't have normally done due to peer pressure.

I don't want to label this child but let's be honest, the school have concerns and they must be founded from somewhere otherwise they wouldn't have said anything. They have noticed a change in my son since he started to walk with this boy so I'm not trying to scapegoat him. I'm pretty sure any parent who had this phone call from school would be concerned and want to do something about it.

I think it's a good suggestion to punish him at home for being late at school. He was getting detentions for it so I felt I would be punishing him twice but maybe this is my only option.

He did ask this morning if he should leave without the boy if he called late for him (as he usually comes over to ours) and I said yes so I know DS is aware that I won't tolerate this.