re school exclusion

[mummy207]

I posted a while back about my DS being inappropriate at school, he asked a teacher to add him on snapchat and was isolated for it. The reactions on here were split between whether this was an overreaction by the school or acceptable. I accepted it and sanctioned him at home and fully supported the school after reading all of your helpful responses. Lots of teachers responded.

Unfortunately today there has been a follow up and I have been told my son needs to be excluded tomorrow and stay at home. I totally agree he is being absolutely unacceptable , he apparently lifted his top up and asked the teacher whether she liked his abs. I know it's fucking insane, don't get me started.

They have said because this is his second "Sexually inappropriate offense" (question whether the snapchat thing was sexually inappropriate!!) , he needs an external exclusion which will go on his record. Although I agree he is in the wrong, this again to me seems really ridiculous. What is making him sit at home all day going to achieve? He will be on xbox! Also some of his peers have had several fights, bullying, etc and not been excluded. Exclusions are really rare. I am absolutely devastated. Is there anything I can do about this? It says on the paperwork I can challenge the exclusion?

As a female teacher who was really horribly sexually harassed (actually more like sexually threatened) by some year 10s back at the beginning of my career (when I was 23 and felt very vulnerable) I don’t think this is an overreaction on the schools part at all. My school didn’t exclude the boys and I got the union involved because they were not appropriately punished.

Could you take him to work with you and sit him in a corner with some GCSE revision?

Poor teacher.
You are failing your son, I’m afraid. You’re allowing him to,grow up thinking it’s ok to use sexuality to intimidate and humiliate. You don’t appear to see that this is truly offensive behaviour. You almost appear to want to laught it off as “lads being lads”.
It’s sexual harassment. If it happened in most workplaces he’d be sacked. He’s old enough to know this too but appears to have missed out on learning rightbfrom wrong. You need to reset his moral compass pretty quickly.
He needs to make a public apology to the teacher.
You need to apologise to the teacher and explain you are now taking it seriously.
You need to cancel gym. He needs to learn respect more than he needs exercise. If he wants some exercise he can go for a run or do something that instills discipline.
You need to throw his xbox in the bin. The last thing he needs is violence or sexual imagery in virtual reality.
If you continue to minimise the behaviour you’ll be doing him a huge disservice. Do you want him on the sex offenders register? Unless tackled very firmly the disrespect woman will escalate.

OK, let’s look at this from a different perspective.
If your son doesn’t learn not to behave inappropriately, and not to ignore advice and sanctions, he’s going to be in danger in a few years time.
In danger of losing a job, of becoming unemployable.
Or having the crap beaten out of him by another man whose girlfriend he has upset, or by someone like my niece who is a kick boxer (her response to being molested)
Of facing charges of harassment brought by women who don’t find his behaviour acceptable and who aren’t trapped in the same way his teacher is.
Cocky Jack the Lads often live very risky lifestyles, with their attitude to women being one . Has he discovered delights of alcohol yet?.

I don't agree with cancelling the gym membership. Exercise IS good.

I do agree with spending the day writing a sincere letter of apology.

I don't think schools exclude lightly in GCSE year.

Have you considered a referral to CABHS? Their website offers good advice as well.

I take it you’re not a teacher, @Juells?

Try imagining a boy doing that while you’re a young female teacher trying to maintain control and authority over a room of 30 rowdy, laddish teenagers.

I did teach boys in a very rough school the year after I left college. Hated it, but that would have been water off a duck's back to me. I'd have considered it 'clowning around' and harmless.

I'm not saying I'm right, I accept what others are saying, but not everyone is that shocked by teenage boy behaviour.

I assume he's currently in his room with his X Box and phone?

You need to take control of this now.

OP I actually do think you are trying your best but are/were unclear about how to react, cope and move forward with this. I do think cancelling his gym membership would be justified. My old games teacher became a bodybuilder and initially actually hulked out a lot just doing exercise at home and running outside. He doesn't need a gym membership to keep fit and if he really wants to maintain his body shape he WILL find other ways to do it.
I also massively second Teens suggestion re the essay around sexual harassment in the workplace, the law surrounding it and the effect on the victims. The #metoo is a current ongoing issue so that is something that he should know/at least have heard about. What you don't want is his laddish behaviour spiralling so out of control that in a few years or less he is up on a rape charge for ignoring the word NO. I'm not saying he would however for any young lad it's a huge possibility and he needs to have some awareness.

@mummy207 I really think your son needs time to talk to his dad about life / feelings etc in a 1:1 way without feeling rushed. At 15 he is still a child, but a child becoming a man who needs to have a good role model to base his actions and reactions on. If your husband is away a lot is there another Male family member who could take him under his wing a bit so that your son is able to open up a bit. failing that could you find time for just the two of you to talk or spend time together? It sounds like your son is falling in with the wrong crowd at school and that could be because he wants the attention that he gets from this behaviour.

If he’s this fucking brazen with an adult teacher, in public, then how is he behaving toward girls his own age, on social media?

He’s sexually harassing a woman who is just trying to do her job. Read the fucking riot act and teach your son about consent. Jeez.

You can talk to the school, support their decision and ask for help from their pastoral team, or maybe look if there are any mentoring schemes that he can get involved with nearby. At home, maybe give him a project to research sexual harassment (including how it can affect men too) and report back to you/write an essay/make a documentary etc. And you do need to enforce sanctions (no x-box, no gym etc). Ideally he also needs to apologise to the teacher - in front of the class.

If he's doing that to an adult woman, I dread to think how he treats his female peers.
I support a few year 11 classes with boys like this, in our case it's an obsession with boxing, forever flexing and sparring to show off. One a few years ago did similar to what your son did to a female colleague.(in a corridor, it was witnessed, the news soon spread round school) When she reported there was then a group of students in his year that also reported that he had done similar to them. He was excluded, but allowed to take exams. He still lives here, has a reputation as a total twat. He is still massively disrespectful to women, there's been allegations of assault. He and his family argued the toss about his exclusion, because there were worse than him.
Your son needs to learn now that other people deserve respect, it needs to be backed up with you supporting the school, enforcing the punishment, remove the Xbox and wifi, make sure he does the work set. He's got very little time before GCSEs, so he has plenty of revision to do.

This is quite concerning behaviour OP. He is crossing several lines here:

1. Pupil teacher boundary, and the normal conduct expected here
2. An age boundary, not respecting someone older (not automatically earned but pretty usual in kids this age)
3. Sexual boundaries -exposing himself. Although relatively low level this is still sexual harassment, which could have him sacked in the workplace, or having a chat with the police if just a little older.

I know he’s only 15, and I know boys do very stupid unthinking things in front of their friends. Neither boys or girls are served well by the current media influences or early exposure to porn. But, as a Mum of sons myself, I’d say you’ve got a warning here with this. An exclusion from school is small fry compared to ending up on the sex offenders register. You need to take some firm action to help him learn from this.

If he were mine -he’d have no xbox, no gym, no mobile and given the task of researching what he has done, why this is unacceptable, the wide range of behaviour that can be considered sexually aggressive/ harassment etc. Maybe you can work with the school on an appropriate piece of work (research, an essay) he should complete as a kind if “restorative justice”.

Yes, he has been a twat

Does he have a sister? I have, in the past, managed to get through to teenagers who have made suggestive comments/gestures to their peers and/or to staff by discussing how they would react if someone did that to their mum/sister.

Remove the X Box and the phone, and I second the idea of getting him to write about sexual harassment. In fact, he could do it as an exam practice essay for English GCSE tomorrow - two birds, one stone.

I've asked my DS1 (aged 18) what he made of your son's behaviour OP. He thinks it's more than teenage boy bravado or stupidity. He thought that the behaviour was intended to intimidate or humiliate in order to gain popularity with others.

Quote: "He was trying to look clever. He sounds like one of the women hating dicks who aren't very bright and no one likes but people laugh along because they're a bit scared of them. Girls will probably love him until they work out what a dick he is."

His suggested sanctions: removal of all tech (including mobile phone) for the duration of the exclusion and cancelling the gym membership. Any complaining or back chat and there is a further 24 hour ban on tech.

He also thinks that someone needs to have a serious talk with your son about respect and consent. One of DS1's peers was accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault, so he's well aware that lack of understanding about boundaries for behaviour can lead to very serious consequences.

My first teaching job was in a boys boarding school. I dealt with banter and general ridiculous behaviour from teenage boys all day every day for 5 years. And I remember in my first year a boy ‘mooned’ at me by pulling down his trousers and flashing his arse. As an inexperienced teacher I was intimidated by this behaviour and unsure what to do and told his much more experienced housemaster. He dealt with it superbly, the boy was suspended for three days and his dad had to drive a 200 mile round trip to collect him, take him home and then do the same trip bringing him back again 3 days later. He never did it again, and both boy and dad were apologetic and totally respectful afterwards. That sort of behaviour out in the ‘real world’ can get you into a lot of trouble and schools have a responsibility to act and take issues seriously.

If he has really got into going to the gym and bodybuilding, he isn't using any performance enhancing drugs is he? That might explain some of his behaviour too.

I personally think you should be taking the day off to supervise him at home. Just because you remove the computer doesn't stop him watching tv all day...

Having been a youth worker I also would have seen this as banter but having grown up with boys and also having alot of male friends I guess I am used to boys being a bit dickish. However reflecting on an incident as a young teenage where some boys kept asking me where the condoms were that frightened me..so i can also understand how the teacher may have felt threatened or just plain annoyed at the ongoing behaviour.

It needs to be addressed and he needs to know he isn't getting a day off and actually has to have a proper punishment or do revision for the school hours which is supervised so you know he is doing it.

Researching and writing an essay on sexual harassment isn't a bad idea just watch it doesn't back fire and he reads up about teachers being the abusers and tries to spin some story that she started it using the information gained and turning it into his own story...

If he has not got SEN then you need to make his exclusion at home as boring as possible. If you can't be at home, take the router and Xbox with you. His behaviour is inappropriate and very immature. He could get a teacher in trouble. Is he playing up because his dad isn't around or has no other good make role model?

It is an acceptable sanction in my opinion (teacher) but it will only be effective if you as the parent make it a negative experience.

Just to add if a kid did that to me I'd probably just laugh......

I said on your previous thread that I was delighted to hear your DS's school takes sexual harrassment seriously (sadly, unlike mine and many). In hindsight, you can surely now see that the Snpachat thing was part of of a pattern of behaviour. It was treated in the way he was because presumably his behaviour at school (at least in this lesson) is frequently attention seeking and laddish. Only an exclusion reinforces the social unacceptability.

He's been excluded for this offence and rightly so.
However, I'd bet my mortgage that he has also been a pain in the arse in class for quite some time with what they annoyingly dismiss as "low-level disruption."

Reggie that’s awful.
There’s a massive difference between clowning around at the gym comparing abs and doing this to a female teacher.
I used to teach. I was in my 20s when a male student tried to pin me in a corner and explained exactly what physical damage he reckoned he could do to me sexually.
So snapchat first.
Flashing next.
And then ....
Time to get a grip on this behaviour and make sure he stops acting like a sleazeball.

When was the last time you checked his phone ? I am well aware that he is probably very tech savvy but he also sounds stupid so he may not have deleted messages/WhatsApp’s etc..
Bet you would find some very interesting stuff...

If he’s this fucking brazen with an adult teacher, in public, then how is he behaving toward girls his own age, on social media?

This would be a real concern for me. Do you check his phone and monitor his social media, OP? If not then now would be a very good time to start.

I work in a secondary school and have been sexually harassed by a male student. He was very persistent and clearly got a kick out of making me feel uncomfortable. I am not easily intimidated (have done some work in prisons and secure units previously) but it was one of the most upsetting and humiliating experiences of my life, particularly as my concerns were initially dismissed and his actions minimised as "teenage behaviour", "banter", "raging hormones" etc until the behaviour escalated and became more serious, as I knew it would.

Your DS's school have a duty of care to the teacher that he is targeting and I'm glad they are taking this seriously. They were right to sanction him after the Snapchat incident (which despite your protestations on the other thread, OP, clearly had sexual
undertones) and as he has not learned his lesson and his behaviour has become even more inappropriate, they really have no option but to exclude him. To do otherwise would be seen to be condoning and minimising sexual harassment and would leave the teacher who made the complaint feeling completely unsupported. It would also send a message to his peers that this behaviour is acceptable and that this teacher is 'fair game'.

Don't fight the exclusion. Support the school, let your DS know you are a united front with them and you are not going to feel sorry for him or help him weasel out of this. Ask about support from the pastoral team and whether there is a strong, male member of staff who can mentor your DS, someone he can look up to. Don't cancel the gym membership, exercise is good for teenagers and if he's at the gym he's not hanging around the streets or online getting into trouble.