To remove dd from her school to try and stop her declining behaviour and risky choices?

[Clunkersthedawg]

I know people say teenagers can be a minefield but I’m really struggling with what to do for dd. She’s in year 8 and her behaviour at school is declining and she’s making worrying choices. She’s regularly skipping lessons (leading to after school detentions), has run away after school after pretending she was at a sports club, and has told me worrying things about her friend group. Her friends have apparently brought cannabis vapes into school alongside the usual vapes. She’s now told me that she asked her friends to bring her a vape into school so she could start vaping too.

At home she seems like her same self and reassures me she won’t get any more detentions since she knows it’s physically difficult for me to collect her (disabled) and she can’t walk home alone due to her anxiety. Then she goes to school and gets them anyway. At home she talks about her worries for her friends health with vaping and that she worries she will feel pressured to try them too and then she goes to school and joins in.

I’m just worried that it’s escalating and the next thing she will do is try the cannabis vapes or copy her friends behaviour in other ways (stealing, verbally abusing teachers, climbing the school fences and running off etc). She’s also said to me she worries that she’s too easily influenced by her friends. But I don’t know whether that’s just an excuse.

I’ve looked at moving her schools to try and give her a fresh start with a new friendship group but I don’t know if that would be a greater risk that she could end up with no friends at all or kids doing worse things that might inspire her to do them too. Or maybe she’s doing it all herself and the others aren’t an influence so she’ll do all this stuff anyway?

AIBU if I take her out of her school?

You need to find her another school.
And sanctions for her behaviour.
On a plus side she’s being very honest with you! But there may be more she’s not telling you.

Yes take her out if school.

try to find another one.

i have worked with kids like this and sometimes they know they will give into peer pressure and don’t want to go into the situation but in the moment can’t say no and can do very impulsive things.

I have a similar issue with my daughter. Start of year 8 she got in with a new set of friends. Hanging around him corridors, friends being rude to teachers. At this point she was guilty by association only but as time has gone on her behaviour ahead also got worse. Her friends vape, I know some drink. I don’t think she is but I cannot be sure.

She is pretty much certainly adhd (just waiting formal assessment) and this doesn’t help as she just doesn’t think of the consequences. She doesn’t mean to do stuff but she just gets caught up with it all.

If she's already curious about vaping you could try www.puffstats.com/ it helps track usage and shows real time health/money impact. Might help her see the bigger picture.