12 year old y7 disruptive lazy rude at school and home. Suspended and multiple detentions

[Itsajungleinhere]

Hi All,

I’d really appreciate some advice.
DS always got ok’ish grades and I’d never been called in to discuss behaviour until the beginning of Y7, when we moved from Manchester to a rural location.

His behaviour at home is offensive, he calls me names, slams doors, refuses to do as he’s told and antagonises his much younger brother. ..At school it’s been non stop. I have been called in countless times. He got suspended at the start of the year and has had countless detentions. I’ve spoken to head of year. It’s mostly disruptive behaviour and extreme disorganisation leading to poor contributions in lessons, not completing hw.
He’s just got another detention and I’m so upset. What can I do to change this?
He’s a lovely boy. What have I done wrong.
I think I ‘ve not followed through on consequences and been too soft. I just don’t know what to do.

How did he feel about the move? Does he have friends at the new school and if so are they also in trouble a lot? Can you put some things in place to help him organise himself? There is a big step up in organisational skills needed for secondary. Is he struggling academically - is the disruption a way of getting out of lessons he doesn't understand?
If he has basically been a good kid up to now then look for what has changed.

His friends are mostly lovely and well behaved. He obviously found the move hard. I could do more to help him be organized. I was thinking of a chart bu the front door. But I do need to punish him. He alwYs talks me down. I do give in more than I should.

Does he have consequences at home?

I'd have gone nuclear after detention 1. You don't have that option, but you can put consequences in place.

Quite frankly if he's rude and disruptive, then he isn't a lovely boy.

The move has obviously unsettled him but that doesn't mean he can behave like this for ever.

Sit down and talk to him first, if that doesn’t work take his phone and PlayStation off him for x amount of time. If you don’t get a grip of his behaviour towards you know you’ll not be able to get it back.

I should have reacted sooner, with more force. I made a lot of excuses for him. I thought as the move had been so hard on him I should take it easy on him. I’ve also let him play on the computer more than he used to. I told myself he missed his friends and his old life, but actually it’s all going wrong

I think as pp said, the key to this is the move.

I think I would take some time with him, and unpack how he feels. Is he missing friends? Is he finding it hard to fit in? Does he feel like an outsider because the slang/clothes etc are different here? So, my first step would be to listen, and empathise. Just so he knows you get it, it wasn't easy, you understand.
Step two, do something positive towards changing one thing in his new life. invite someone over or to the cinema. Join a club. just one positive step forward so he feels as if he is making progress on settling here.

Then, look at his organisation skills. What does he struggle with? Is he forgetting books etc? Not doing homework? How can you help structure him?
eg - bag packed night before. You have copy of his timetable on the wall, double check pe days if he has his bag etc, give him a morning check list.

Address the boundaries, but not as first thing. Put in some ground rules for how we speak, and have a low key but enforcable consequence for breaking that, eg name calling. Turn off internet for the rest of the evening for example.
Structure time at home, eg meal, homework, etc but build in chill time. What did he used to do after school? Is he struggling with not being able to hang out with his friends?

Finally ask to go in a talk to school. Be clear, this is new behaviour, ask them to look past the detentions and say what they think is going on. Is he happy? Is he struggling with friends? Is there some bullying going on?

The school say he is happy. He has made a nice bunch of friends and I invite them weekly to our house. He does miss his old life. A lot.
I could do more to help him organise himself.

And he’s so rude and unpleasant to me...

ask him. It sounds as if he has got issues that need sorting out. I am not sure it's about you not having been to soft with him. Mental health support, pastoral care. Anything else we don't know about? Has he moved away from loved ones/family/friends that he misses? Seperation? loss of job from a parent maybe?

As a mother of a fairly organised but def hormonal 12 Year old its hard. My DS would not do his homework without a shove from me - I didn't want him to get into trouble at school in Y7 so my approach atm is 'when are you doing X homework' / have you done it / show me and you can watch tv / have your mobile etc etc

He certainly couldn't be left to his own devices to organise himself. I am slowly stepping back and this term he hasn't needed reminding to get his PE kit on the right day he just does it?

But if he does misbehave / slam doors / swear he has been sent to his room without any electronics on more than one occasion and often goes for a bath to have a sulk!

Its hard. I have other friends who are able to let their boys get on with things but as my DS isn't particularly motivated (despite my best efforts) to learn he needs a gentle nudge in the right direction

Perhaps slightly unpopular opinion, but I don't think 'coming down hard' will help. The move is the point at which his behaviour changed, and it's a big shift to a rural environment. He probably feels like this was forced on him, a bit trapped and like his feelings perhaps weren't taken into account to the degree he'd have preferred. I think being strict will only cause further resentment, and it's important to keep that line of communication open. Help him get organised, keep an eye on him, spend more time with him one on one if possible and make sure the family has a schedule - don't single him out, it'll only make him more isolated.

I suspect that will fix a lot of this, but also he's 12 - and so this is likely to be the beginning of teenage years. Joy! It's also worth noting that when I was at school, the same kids got detention all the time despite being in general no naughtier than the others, just more obvious about it and that attracted ongoing attention. I've never had a detention, but was far from well behaved - I just knew how to be discrete. Being new is automatically going to attract more attention.

take his phone and PlayStation off him for x amount of time

Yes because that will work.

If he's a lovely boy (and acting up for a few months does not mean that he isn't, to the snotty poster above) then there are probably reasons he's acting up.

OP I would suggest that you ask for this to be moved out of AIBU as you'll just get the sanctimonious keyboard warriors here.

The school should not just be calling you in constantly, they should be putting strategies in place to address the situation. They are the professionals, they have the training, they have the experience. You are "just" his mum!

Sort out the issues at school and he'll probably be nicer at home.

On the punishing, punish him for things he does wrong at home. Not double punishments for school misdemeanours. I don't agree with double punishment except for really serious issues. Not just forgetting to hand homework in (or not doing it).

And it depends on the school, but at ds' school they handed out detentions like confetti. And they come down on everything in year 7 and then ease off in year 8, they put in the boundaries and make sure they are understood.

And it's not you! I say this a lot on here, but kids have their own personalities and free will and are not clones of their parents and don't always or even sometimes do what they want them to do.

Or maybe he is trying to show off in front of new mates. THere's a lot of hyerarchical issues with kids in schools, who will be 'queen bee' or 'alpha male'. Address that maybe. I agree with pp about not coming down too hard on him, work together with the school to suppport him. Nothing wrong with clear boundaries though.

99% of me goes with the majority on this thread, he's unsettled by the move, but I have a nagging doubt.

This is just on the off chance that your son genuinely struggles with all the extra organisational skills he needs for secondary school. On top of changing area and moving to secondary and coping with raging hormones.

Sit down with him OP and see what his organisational skills are really like.

Get him to show you what he needs for all the lessons he will have in one particular school day.
Get him to talk you through where he keeps these things at school, in a locker or all in a jumble in his bag, does he put stuff down and not remember where it is, does he lose stuff?

Can he describe how he organises everything he needs for each lesson?

Can he follow instructions? Forget for a minute that everyone thinks he just doesn't want to, look beyond that and see if he actually struggles.
If so, it may be worthwhile asking the school SENCO to look at his executive function skills.

Blank I htink most have said move + help with organisational skills?

Secondary school is a huge jump, and they do need help. Just at the same time as they are pushing us away as they find their teenage selves.

100% what steppemum said in her first post 👐 and others about the move. If he's having a hard time adjusting to the move then he'll act out. When kids can't tell us how they feel, they'll show us. Boundaries can still (have) be in place though. Not being punitive doesn't mean you're a push over.

Please help him get organised. I think schools are too quick to punsih year 7s for not being organised when actually many of them have a real problem with it at that age. DS had the same issue. This is what we did:
Put up his daily timetable on the fridge and a separate timetable for homework beside it.
Bought ziplock bags for each subject and put exercise and text books in them with the right equipment (eg compass and set squares set in maths, coloured pencils in art and geog etc. Even if it meant duplicating.)
We put a crate in the kitchen where all the ziplock bags were kept.
Every night we helped him pack his bag, checking from his timetable which ziplock bags he needed. Because the text books and exercise books were already in them, there was no scrabbling around trying to find stuff. And at school, he just had to pull out the right bag and everything he needed was in it, so there was no hunting for stuff left behind.

It meant he used lockers less, and carried more on his back, but it transformed his life. He stopped getting told off or detentions.

We'd also sit down with him and check what that night's homework was. He often 'forgot' to copy it from the board and we soon realised his handwriting was too slow, so made sure he was allowed to take a photo of any homework put on the board. Or anything else he was supposed to copy from the board.

We also persuaded the school to get teachers to habitually post homework online, so he could access it through the intranet and not rely on remembering what was said at the end of a lesson.

If there was gym kit etc needed, we'd know from his timetable and make sure it was ready the night before. We also asked every single evening at diner: anything unusual this week: any mufti days? Field days? Money or forms needing to be handed in for school trips?
If you keep asking every day, they remember.

I'd also check if he's struggling with anything specifically. The jump to secondary school is massive and some children feel they need to put on a show to cover up what they think are inadequacies - academically or socially. I used to drag DS out for walks up the hill and then to a cafe to chat about stuff like that over a hot chocolate. He'd open up when we were walking, whereas at home he felt cornered.