To tell DS1 and his school he will NOT be taking part in anymore after school activities

[TheLadyEvenstar]

UNTIL his behaviour at home and NOW in school improves drastically!!

He went back to school Wednesday - Thursday i had call from school he had been acting a prat in class - spoke to him about it all seemed ok.

Fast forward today at 5.10pm dp's mobile rings its THE SCHOOL he was acting a prat in class again on friday.

So now i have to go to the school to discuss his behaviour. I have told him he will be going to school and home again until i see a marked change....do you think IABU?

Just wanted to say my brother was always in trouble at school. Not for anything awful but just general mucking about because he was bored. Can they not give him some more work? My brother went on to get 5 A grades at A level and a fantastic physics degree. I think the banning after school clubs is a good idea so that he understands that his actions have consequences but the school has to deal with the problem. Good luck to you.

I think you have done the right thing, however why is he being like this? is it just pre-teen vileness or is he worried about something? Surely his school don't expect him to sit with his hands in his lap if he has finnished his work - is he doing his work properly though or is he, because he is bright, bashing something out when he could maybe add to it?

Knife happy??? That would be come down on him like a ton of bricks material in this house - did i misunderstand that?? Thats serious and should be nipped in the bud, but then i dont need to tell you that.

Thing to do is wait until you have spoken to the school, then get him to earn back his activities - does he enjoy them or will he, like some, think, thank god i dont have to do that now

porphy he is already in the G&T but is still finishing work before others. I have stuck with the punishment because he needs to know i mean what i say.

MEME he is always saying he is bored, the school are very impressed with his grades in the teacher assessments. We are waiting for the rest of the assessments...which i am hoping will be as good.

LEM Sadly this is not pre-teen vileness, his behaviour has been shitty since he was around 4-5. The problem is i have spent far too long making and accepting his excuses which have been everything from wanting a pet to wanting a room of his own (when we moved in with my mum).
The school expect him to either add more to the work already done or to sit and read quietly. But in some subjects he is bashing work out which while it is of a high standard could be better if he added more to it iyswim.

As for knife happy yes you read it right it started a couple of months ago when i found gauges [sp] in the hallway wall along with scrape marks from the serated edge of the knife. I took him into his room and asked him calmly if it had been him and after a few minutes of his denying it he said "yes it was me", then about 5 weeks ago he was emptying the dishwasher which is in the hallway (very long hallway and wide) and i could hear a noise...when he brought in a wooden spatula which he had clearly been scraping against a carving knife and he said "Mum have you seen what has happened to this in the dishwasher", and then on the 30th January he got hold of a very small knife, its like a stanley knife and came with a sewing kit of mine, and carved the top of an antique cabinet we have. which he denied. yesterday he found my nail scissors and came into the living room, i didn't see what he had in his hand but then saw the scissors as he pointed them at DS2 and shouted at him "Bogeyman" I took them off him and sent him to his room removing his television.

As for the afterschool clubs yes he enjoys them and I am hoping this will teach him he has got to change to be able to do them...

TBH i am very worn out and at my wits end. The previous child psychologists (2) have diagnosed ODD and as time goes by it is becoming more apparent that he is displaying traits of this more and more.
Many sanctions which i put in place are pointless as he just continues anyway.

However this behaviour is never apparent in school the worst thing he does there is talk when he is not meant to or fiddle with pens on his desk.

Sorry for the long reply.

YANBU. IF he loves his activities, stop them until he behaves. Or take away his phone, computer access, Nintendo etc. Whatever he is going to miss the most.

I do think though that the school should be giving him something to do if he has finished his work. It is very hard for a child to sit still and do nothing. Does he like reading? Maybe if he had a book in his bag and could read it quietly when he's finished the set work?

he needs an outlet for the knife thing - there is potentially some creativity there. remove the taboo - get him a set of carving chisels and some wooden blans i think they are called - he can use them UNDER SUPERVISION and t\ake away the mystery - my DP is into knives in this way, when you said knife happy i thought you meant weilding knives ala gangster rap or something. Lots of boys like to do this sort of thing - we have a whole collection of knives in this house, but not for violent purposes i hasten to add - more of a boys toys sort of thing.

really though, if he is bored in school you have to question if the school are doing enough?

When he is not at his activities what will he do? not go on the x-box or computor, but homework and or helping you out around the house, else its not much of a punishment.

For me, with my DD the holy grail of possesions was her mobile phone - oh the power of the mobile phone confiscation - but he is only 11 so may not have one yet?

Jeez, no wonder he's bored in school if he's still finishing first in G&T

Knife thing, don't be too overly concerned about it I'd say, I done quite a bit of carving when I was younger because it got me attention. I carved my sister's name into an antique chest of drawers at one point Though Lucyellens idea is brilliant.

In my experience (15 years teaching) no teacher calls a parent to be the bearer of bad news if they can possibly avoid it - phone calls take time and after the teacher hangs up they probably have to fill in, photocopy and file multiple copies of the phone call record in various places.
Nowadays I'm on the other side of the fence as a parent and not a teacher, but I still think that at his age he should be taking (forced to take) responsibility for his behaviour. The nonsense about being bored should be rejected out of hand. The moment you start to buy into his justifications for bad behaviour in school he has divided and conquered! Being bored is a fact of life and he (like all of us) has to learn to deal with it. If he needs to be entertained to behave decently you are in for a lot of grief in the coming years. I would suggest to him that he keeps a book in his bag and reads if he's finished before everyone else.
As for concerns that he's being punished twice for the same thing...I don't see a problem at all! the point of punishment is to make the consequences for him so dire that the bad behaviour stops, and in his case it hasn't yet.
Also, 'ODD' does mean that he is just being naughty! It is a profiling tool that describes the actual behaviour and not the root causes, so don't make the mistake of thinking that because the Ed Psych might give it a name that all of a sudden 'it isn't his fault'. Think of it like dyslexia. Some kids have all the various skills needed to learn to read easily but others have various areas of weakness and need to be taught slower or more intensively, and have work harder to master the same skills. The same is true for behaviour. With behaviour some kids naturally want to 'please' and learn boundaries easily. Others need far more effort to reach the same goal, and the way we teach kids to behave is through consistent consequences and positive reinforcement, when genuinely earned.
And finally, if you have concerns about the school and how they handle him, then raise them with the teachers involved, and the headteacher if needs be, but NEVER undermine their authority in front of your son or you will leave the school powerless to help you achieve your joint goal of a happy well adjusted boy who does his best at school.

Emma. he is now being assessed for Aspergers as well as having a diagnosis for ODD.....as i always say things are not always as clear as they seem.

Only noticed the second page after I'd posted, so please excuse the repetitions.
Also, am guessing that it's a state school?
This may be depressing and cynical, but don't expect too much of the school. The way the system and league tables work there is very little (and that's being generous) emphasis on academic excellence at KS3, and not much more later on. They will make all the noises about him reaching his potential etc, but the reality is that the political pressure on schools from OFSTED (and above) focuses on different things' such as league tables, attendance (as you have discovered!), student voice and the one that really irritates me is the need to pack lessons with entertaining gimmicks rather than teaching kids the nature of proper hard work. It shouldn't be that way (and it certainly isn't in the private schools I've worked in), but if you leave it to the school because they 'should' be pushing him, the likely outcome is that he will coast his way through. If you want to keep him challenged you may need to set him targets yourself...one thing that I found worked with brighter kids was to give them lower tier GCSE papers and get them to search out and do the questions they have already covered. They usually love the Idea that they are doing Y11 work. It's frustrating having to do it yourself, and if he's lucky he probably has some tougher teachers that do push him, but I wouldn't trust the school to go the extra mile that I would as a parent for my kid.
Good luck with the new school year!

He may be bored. To an extent, the teacher should be differentiating between her students' abilities and have challenge work or extension work for him to do if he is finished.

HOWEVER it is not up to the teacher to deal with bad behaviour because he is bored past a point - it is also part of education to learn how to cope with these situations. I agree with emma that if the teacher is calling home, he/she is probably at the end of their tether.

Explain to the teacher that he would love some extra activities, make sure you send him to school everyday with a reading book and a puzzle book. If he is finished, he needs to rehearse and be clear on how to put up his hand, wait until the teacher comes over and then tell her he is finished. She will then either have extra 'challenges' for him or he can read his book. He is still learning.

Being bored may be the trigger, but it is not an excuse