Dc and toxic friends

[Takethemdown]

Sigh.

My son is 15 and has some sen. He has always struggled socially. He is desperate for friends but can't maintain friendships. We have tried all kinds of clubs and classes. Ds has always been a really well behaved boy at school and well liked by teaching staff.
Last year another child we will call Joe started at his school.

Joe is a troubled boy who self harms but is also quite manipulative and can be quite nasty.

Joe saw Ds as an easy target to latch on to. Within three months ds and Joe became close friends.
Ds went from a quiet well behaved, lovely boy to one who lied about stuff that had happened to Joe to 'keep up' with Joe slagging his family off and put himself in danger by lying about where he was.
At home ds became really quite nasty and scornful to me.
To add to this ds started to play up at school and Joe was constantly telling him that there was no point in trying as they were both going to fail anyway and that they were the silly children that the head teacher scowled at. This couldn't have been further from how ds previously was.
Only come end of year exams Joe had been revising and ended up in higher sets and ds ended up dropping grades dramatically.
Joe was talking constantly about suicide and self harm all the time and encouraging ds to join in, until he reached a point ds scratched his arms. Joe even give ds orders he 'had' to do.
I found some awful stuff at 2am one morning on ds phone.

It all blew up and school and school safeguarding got involved. I contacted Young Mind for help.

Ds and Joe were no longer together as a result and because it had all blown up in fact Joe bullied Ds and tried to get him in trouble with the head.

This was sorted and ds went back to being a lovely boy.

In March I found that ds was in touch with Joe again and that ds had scratched his arms quite badly and I handled it really badly I'm afraid and really shouted.
Again something happened to draw Joe away and ds went back to being lovely.

A couple of weeks ago ds went back to being horrid and guarding his phone. He won't even let me touch it and gets aggressive if I go near it.

Tonight his phone beeped and I happened to catch a glimpse and he is back messaging Joe.

I tried to get a Camhs referral and they refused it.

I'm stuck as to what to do.
School just saw it as a relationship blip last time and I don't want to move him as he has gcses next year.

Help!

We went through something similar with a manipulative and abusive child, but it only stopped completely when the other child moved schools again. Only one thing helped, I said to my DC 'Look back to when you were 6, how would you talk about it?'
Then 'In 10 years time when you look back, how will you describe this time?'

Can you get your DS some CBT and counselling? Maybe go through your GP rather than the school.
I dont think your school are taking safeguarding seriously, 'blip' is dismissive, especially for cutting. They must have info on the other child and be aware of past behaviours.

Dont think twice about getting support for yourself as well.

Thank you Upstart.
The child has I have heard had similar issues at another school. We have been to the GP who referred to Camhs who refused the referral. Young Minds were fab in fairness.
He is on the waiting list for counselling with a charity but the waiting list is long.

It's destroyed me tbh. I haven't been very well anyway and have ended up having CBT as I have developed OCD and anxiety.

Hopeful bump

I don't want to move him as he has gcses next year

I would move him. Your child not harming himself is more important than grades. If a child was texting mine at 2am telling him to self harm then the parents, the school and the police would be hearing about it. I would never let them see each other again.

If this kid is such a bad influence your DS won’t do well with him around anyway so why not move him?

I would take his phone away from him so he cannot contact Joe, and make sure school are not putting them together. This sounds very nasty, I feel that your D's will return to normal once Joe is off the scene.

As a CAMHS practitioner myself, I can understand why CAMHS would not accept this referral, as the difficulies that your DS is experiencing are not caused by mental illness -from what you describe - but are caused by his involvement with 'Joe', as you yourself identify. Nothing that CAMHS could offer would address this, as CAMHS is commissioned to provide therapy or medication for mental illness only, not difficulties caused by inappropriate friendships. I would look instead at seeking a mentor or youth worker for your DS who could help him in a more generic sense to navigate his feelings around this friendship and perhaps help him make some more appropriate friendships elsewhere. Maybe your council website will have information on youth workers in your area.

And yes, I think you need to have more access to his mobile phone and social media use.

Thank you.
I have removed his smart phone from him so that he cannot use the Internet unsupervised and he can't use social media but he has to have a phone for the school journey as two buses. He currently has an old ten pound that does nothing properly.

Thanks Seal, it was the Gps idea to refer but I understand what you are saying.

Iwasjust it's not as easy as just moving schools due to his SN sadly.
When Joe is not around him he loves school and tries really hard..