boarding school threat

[bananalover]

AIBU in telling my 8 yr old son that if his disrespectful behaviour continues, I will send him to boarding school?

This is a traditional threat in our family

OP, I would in all honesty stop making threats of boarding school - it really won't help!!!

I would also get CAMHS involved again and find out more about ODD, I personally think you will find this is a main option/reason for your DS's behaviour.

You have basically described my DS1, he has had a very privilidged childhood as well etc etc and he has now been diagnosed with ODD, after many years of telling GP,child psychologists, nurses etc that I knew something was not quite right. We are waiting for the YIT -youth intervention team, to come out and visit as this is an option for finding him help and activities where he can take his frustrations etc.

I would suggest trying to spend some time researching the disorders mentioned and also I would discuss it with the school.

Your son doesn't need threats of boarding school!! he needs help and only you can get this for him you will be failing him if you don't!

It is, as I know, so easy to forget that this little boy is YOUR son who you gave birth to etc when he is in full swing, trust me I know but you have to keep reminding yourself of it because it is easy to get caught in a trap.

Please contact your GP for a referral to CAMHS because you and your family NEED them to help you ALL.

would like to apologise for not responding last night to advice given, but i had to go offto bed as i was really upset. still am...sat here crying now.
i did not expect everyone to be nice and polite btw...i know how aibu works.
i just want everyone to know that i love my son deeply and want to do what will make him happy, if thatsboarding school then so be it.
i have NOT just shouted at him that he will be packed off if he does not start to behave. both my dh and i have sat him down and talked about this with him...rationally.
NO...have never, ever hit him and never will!
royal family remark was because i honestly couldnt think of anyone else who had used boarding school for their kids before, not because i think they are well turned out.
yes...teacher has threatened us with pupil refferal unit and exclusion.
just feel so useless that after 5 years we are not moving forwards.

thankyou

OP I haven't read through the whole thread so I apologise if I am repeating what someone else has said ...

Have you thought of enrolling him in some sport which will soak up excess energy/bullishness and teach him self-discipline. I'm thinking along the lines of Rugby or martial arts.

Although I wouldn't send my children there in most circumstances, I don't have problem with the idea of boarding school in the abstract.

However I don't think it is a good solution to bad behaviour on the part of what seems to be an unhappy and disruptive child.

I know a situation in which a badly behaved 7 year old was sent to boarding school by his single mother (who had other children to deal with as well). I can see that it must have made sense at the time but as an adult, that person is now so full of hate and resentment for his mother that he has no contact with her. Instead of feeling unconditionally loved, he felt totally rejected and that has had an enormous impact on his life.

I really hope you can find another solution in some of the suggestions mentioned on this thread.

have tried martial arts, football, gymnastics...all of which he chose. we paid in advance for the courses, then he gets bored after a couple of sessions and doesnt want to go anymore.
football would have been okay as he loves it, but he was sent off in first game for being too aggressive and spitting at his teammates. other parents complained about his behaviour so we decided it was for ther best if he stopped.
tried to get him interested in drama club at school because his teacher says he loves to be centre of attention but ds refused as too boring.

Banana, again you could be describing DS1, he has done exactly the same over the years.

PLEASE GET CAMHS INVOLVED AGAIN!

have been looking into possibility of asd...but he doesnt fit many of the symptons.
he does have problems keeping friends, but has no problem making them in first place, iyswim. communicates well with all other children, makes eye contact etc.
can be a little too focused on one particular subject...football, and used to collect toy cars when younger.
is very clever, especially maths and science, which have been mentioned in aspergers
but gp poo poohed aspergers when i asked her about it...not sure whether i am just putting the symptoms onto him in order to find answer to problem, iyswim.

For the third time, please try family therapy. Many behavioural issues are the result of a dynamic within the family. Negative behaviour is so easy to reinforce by mistake. Parents at the end of their tether make wrong decisions. This is just human nature.

Family therapy can help you break the vicious cycle of everyone seeing your son as a problem child. This view has a way of becoming true. A child that believes he is bad will always confirm that with his behaviour. A parent who views their child as bad will often use unhelpful strategies such as bribery, threats, inconsistent discipline.

Instead of seeing the problem as rooted in your son, and trying to fix it with everything aimed at him, see te problem as being a pattern that the family is stuck in.

The BACP is the best register of qualified therapists in Britain. Try a couple of sessions before you send your son away.

Btw I went to an independent school. The boarders loved it. But it won't solve behavioural issues. The sense of rejection is likely in fact to make them much worse.

Good luck OP.

have just made an appointment with gp to talk about possible aspergers again, but cant fit him in until 28th...no urgency there then, could already be excluded by that time!

YABU. That won't sort out any problems but just make your DS fel that he isn't loved or wanted.

There are many children who are unmanageable when young, but go on to be responsible adults. Just as there are many who were little angels, but end up in prison. You just need to find the solution - but don't give up on believing there is an answer just because you've not found it yet.

I thought Chicken's post was really helpful. The main thing is not giving up, as he's still young. Good luck.

Have you tried 'I am going to call social services and get you to live with Tracy Beaker in that awful childrens home'? That works, cos you can see the cogs working in his brain about how he thinks it is possible and it would be terrible if it happened.

"'I am going to call social services and get you to live with Tracy Beaker in that awful childrens home'?"

I confess to not reading every single post on the preceding pages but the above suggestion is quite ridiculous! It is bad enough to make threats that are unlikely to be carried out but are at least based on real life. To suggest this small challenging boy be threatened with a wholly fictitious establishment strikes me wordless.

("insert what the fuckwit?"emoticon here).

bananalover, I went to boarding school. It was a nice sort of "posh" school but there was one particular girl who was sent there because she was a "problem" for her parents. A bit wild, wouldn't study and seemed to be madly "in love" with a local guy and with hindsight I think the parents probably wanted to get her away from him. She still didn't study, during study periods the nuns used to try to get her to but without much success and IIRC she became pregnant by the boyfriend in her final year. I think her parents believed that the nuns would sort her out but IMO they just made her rebel more and feel rejected by her parents. Would second family therapy.

muumee: why will taking ds to see gp again make him feel unloved?[cofused]

I don't think she read the thread, just the op and was commenting on that Banana.

Hope you're feeling better today.

yadefbu he may well resent you for life and it may well cause him problems. he will feel utterly rejected. it may well sort him out. you should have said 'what fun, you are off to boarding school to have a great education' not 'you are a nightmare, you are going to boarding school.'

sorry sounds harsh but true imo

"I am going to call social services and get you to live with Tracy Beaker in that awful childrens home?"

Sounds like a promise, TBH. Children would be queuing up to go into care if it really was like that.

Occasional empty, dramatic threats are perfectly OK imo. Like the occasional furious outburst, they serve to demonstrate quite how seriously pissed off you are with their behaviour. I accept that I am possibly the only person on MN who thinks this though. I wouldn't recommend it as a strategy and certainly not with younger DCs, but I don't think it does DCs good to have parents who are reasonable all of the time, particularly when they (the DCs) have behaved outrageously.

OP - Sorry, this isn't terribly helpful of me. I just get a little riled at times with the notion that parenting is about forever being reasonable, calm and rational and that people are not forever reasonable, calm and rational with their DCs are somehow failing.

Hear, hear TBWaSORNedMX5. I sometimes threaten to cut ds's plugs off and brandish the scissors at his PC and PS3. It works - what I want gets done.

...and before anyone says I'm cruel and nasty, ds is rapidly approaching 15 and is taller than me.

'I sometimes threaten to cut ds's plugs off and brandish the scissors at his PC and PS3.'

quite right too

very different to saying i am going to send you away and get someone else to cut the plugs off cos i can't deal with you anymore

imo, however twatish this little boy is, he will feel utterly shite for having been sent away, if indeed the OP carries through the threat.