A WWYD: bad influence on ds behaviour

[Leyani]

A really tricky one.

Very good, longstanding friends - known them since well before kids - have an 11-year old DS with SEN, quite severe behaviour problems. He's going through a particularly rough patch, for all sorts of reasons, and he's quite volatile and likes playing fairly violent games with lots of killing. He is also very rude, doesn't listen etc.

We've got a 7-year old who adores the older boy, and loves playing with him. We like to spend time with the parents but watching the boys is stressful and our ds copies his hero for a few days at home. We usually just accept this as a side effect of visiting them or having them here, but recently it's been quite dark, disturbing stuff that our ds can't make sense of. He's also told our firm Santa-believer that it's all a lie.

Anyway, not sure what to do. We don't want to lose friends, want to support them as it's not easy for them, but having an out-of-sorts ds every time for a week afterwards means I'm more hesitant to see them during the day. Any advice?

I think I’d be leaving your DS at home with his dad and visiting my friend by myself for the moment.

It doesn’t sound like a friendship that will benefit your son, and it could potentially be quite harmful.

Definitely don't take your DS to see him. You have to put your child's interests first.

The Santa thing happens. Frankly you are lucky a 7 yo still believed in Santa.

When you say 'violent games' do you mean him being violent towards your DS or make believe games involving imaginary violence? The former is a problem, I would keep your DS away. The latter is just imaginative play.

Do you have examples of the dark disturbing stuff?

Booboostwo It's imaginary play but involves him shooting at his parents and me, pretending we are evil and must be killed, which my son goes along with but then is quite disturbed by it. Or he plays that he's going to take revenge on teachers etc for putting him in detention (school's SEN support seems to be a nightmare, they'd hoped after diagnosis things would improve but not so). My son's still quite naive and is both awed and horrified that you can think about teachers like that. He still wants to go though, if he didn't I wouldn't have made him. But yes, it's not really doing him any good.

I think it's just really isolating for my friends - they could really do with a break as often as poss. But yes, probably needs to be evenings and one-to-ones or me visiting without dh and son.

Even NT eleven year olds are often unsuitable company for a 7 year old, they like to show off their superior knowledge of swear words or technology without a huge amount of thought. My 11 year old is incredibly compassionate and sensible yet still occasionally initiates unsuitable talk or play with her younger siblings and their friends. What I'm trying to say is, even without the behavioural problems your friends son probably wouldn't be a great play mate for your son on a regular basis, and judging by what you've said, he definitely is not a suitable playmate.

What you describe does not sound very disturbing per se, however if your DS is disturbed by it then that in itself is reason to keep him away.