Need some help and advice from parents with teenagers, or from parents who have been through the teen years.
In year 8, DS was part of a friendship group of 4 boys including him.
They were really close, hung out together every break/lunch at school and met up socially regularly after school, at weekends and in school holidays.
DS used to love being part of the group and always talked about how much fun he had with them.
1 of the boys, let's call him Fred, was mischievous and did a lot of things that he would get him detentions at school. His mum would refer to him as 'naughty'. In year 8 I was aware of Fred's behaviour and was monitoring DS's friendship with him closely. But DS said he was funny and made him laugh and that he was fun to be with and was full of character/charisma even though other aspects of his behaviour pushed boundaries and saw him get into trouble at school. In summer of last year they were still a close friendship group.
Then in September, starting year 9, DS went through a real step forward in development and maturity. He suddenly grew about 5 inches taller, voice deepened, and he started maturing in his views and opinions. Meanwhile, simultaneously, Fred ramped up his poor behaviour. His previous 'mischievous' behaviour turned into antisocial behaviour and DS started to dislike it. Fred started permanently disrupting lessons and DS started disliking this, coming home saying to me that loads of teaching time was being taken up by teachers managing Fred's disruptive behaviour which was stopping the teacher from teaching and causing frustration amongst the class, and DS was taking issue with this because it was impacting on his learning. Fred started acting up in class by being the class clown and deliberately winding the teachers up and trying really hard to catch DS's eye to try and get him to laugh along. But whereas in year 8 DS would have chuckled at what was then much more lower level miscievous stuff, now he doesn't want to engage with Fred doing this level of disruption in lessons because Fred's behaviour has escalated and is much worse now, and because he wants to apply himself and learn in his lessons, and because he doesn't want to be seen to be laughing along to this level of disruption. So in November DS stopped sitting next to Fred in their classes, moved seats and started ignoring Fred's loud class clown disruptive behaviour.
He says Fred is now being sent out of lessons daily. Then DS started hearing lots of other year 9 boys talking about how annoying Fred is and how much they don't like him. Fred got suspended in October for 2 days for something he did in school. Now he's just been suspended for 3 days for something else he's done. DS overheard some year 7 boys in the lunch queue talking about Fred saying they were all scared of him because he's mean to them and bullies them, and then they pointed at DS and said to each other "that's one of the Fred's friends we've seen him with him!" and DS was horrified by hearing this (he hadn't known this boy was being mean to year 7s) and was horrified by them associating him with Fred being mean to them. DS then witnessed Fred throwing stones at a year 7 girl at school, hitting her legs, which was reported. Other examples of behaviour are Fres walked into our back garden whilst he knew we were out and wrecked some of our garden property. He came along to a PTA event at DD's primary school and vandalised school property which caused uproar amongst parents. He vandalised some public toilets. There's lots of other antisocial behaviours I could list, too long to go through.
By November DS was saying he no longer wanted to be associated with Fred's behaviour because he didn't like what his behaviour had developed in to and he didn't want it to affect his own reputation. He started standing up against Fred, started calling him out when he behaved badly at school, and then consciously walked away from him.
This led to Fred's mum texting me angrily having a go at me about my DS confronting Fred and ranting about my DS moving seats away from Fred in lessons. It was a really hostile, attacking text.
DS walking away from Fred made Fred angry and in December he spent weeks leading up to Christmas bullying DS, he literally broke DS with the level of abusive personal insults and incessant bullying behaviour towards him. The things he said to DS were terrible, he used personal knowledge he had of difficulties and bullying that DS has endured in the past and used this against DS to break him emotionally. He started a smear campaign against DS and told another student that DS had called him a "F*ing immigrant c**t" when it was FRED who was going round saying this about the student concerned!!! The mother of this student reported my DS to the HofY for saying this (he didn't say it) and suddenly DS was being framed for saying something he NEVER said. It ruined Christmas for us because DS was crushed as a result of how nasty and vindictive this boy was being to him daily throughout December. He was out to tear DS down and it worked.
But DS still loves the other 2 boys who were in the friendship group. He was really close to them and really valued their friendship. Their behaviour was normal, nothing Fred's behaviour. And these 2 boys have stuck by Fred. They are still hanging out with Fred daily at school. Still socialising with him out of school.
I have explicitly told DS to stay away from Fred. No talking to him at school. No engaging with him. DS has blocked his number. I'm telling DS regularly to stay away. I have had the behaviour lead at school telling me to advise DS to stay away from Fred.
But the other 2 boys are permanently with Fred. So by avoiding Fred in school and outside of school, it means DS can't hang out with the other 2 who he still wants to be friends with, and who I don't have a problem with.
What's worse, is that these 2 boys have now taken issue with DS for 'ditching' them (in their words). They see DS as ditching them because of his problems with Fred. And they are annoyed with DS about this, because as far as they are concerned they should all 4 of them carry on hanging out together, and the other 2 are cross with DS for never hanging out with them anymore. They see DS as the one who's left all of them. I have texted one of the mums to explain the situation and have told her DS still wants to be friends with her DS it's just that he has been told by me to avoid Fred at all times which means he can't get to her DS cos they've always together, and I've tried really hard to make social plans for DS to see this other boy outside of school, but whilst she said she understood what I was saying, her DS doesn't want to meet up with my DS. I happen to know these other 2 boys (who DS wants to still be friends with) had a sleepover together last night and DS wasn't invited. This stings, because a few months ago he would have been and they boys regarded DS as their best mate.
I'm worrying that Fred is influencing these 2 away from DS. I know Fred is a liar. I've had him look me square in the eye and lie to my face when I've asked him about things in the past that I know he's done. I know he lies. He is extremely convincing. My gut feeling/instinct is telling me he's telling lies about my DS to the other 2, as payback for DS calling out his behaviour and pulling away from him.
So now I don't know if I've done the right thing in telling DS that he can't hang out with the other 2 boys IF Fred is with them. I've explicitly told him he cannot socialise with the other 2 if Fred is with them. But DS says Fred is always with them. So now it has ended up cutting him away from his other 2 friends, and he has ultimately lost their friendship too.
And now they've carrying on having fun as a 3, and DS is isolated with no friends and is spending half term alone with me. Before all this, he would've spent half term with them.
DS says all the other friendship groups in year 9 are already formed. He's tried really hard to chat to other boys and has tried to get to know others and hang out with them at school, but he says they've all been in close friendship groups or close pairs since year 7 and are all a bit closed off to him coming along and joining.
He's told me this week he's feeling really sad and lonely and so now I'm questioning my decisions. He loves seeing friends and socialising, he isn't happy being alone.
I don't know what to do to help him. He's the loveliest boy and he really wants to have friends.