Teenager behaviour or oppositional or...?

[rhettbutler]

My son is 12 and in year 7.

He has always been hard work and opposed the rules at home.

At primary and secondary school he has always been well-behaved. He's an intelligent, funny and quite popular lad. He currently claims that I am going to find out on parents' eve that he acts up and gets "yelled at" all the time by teachers who "hate" him. However, the good written reports I've received don't tally with this and neither do all his good behaviour points.

For months we have had a huge homework problem. He refuses to accept that it has to be done. It turns into hours of fuss with him ranting and raving. He tells me and his dad to "fuck you" and starts kicking stuff around. It's quite extreme. This is despite having one or both parents willing to help him. He monologues about how children shouldn't have to go to school and that education is pointless. He claims there should be no rules in society and everyone should do what they like, when they like. I could go on, but it would be a long post.

Yet, during the week, he goes off to school quite happy, gets ready on time without my input, clean and smartly dressed, and comes home saying he has had a nice time with his friends . I've also noticed he's a lot calmer in the week. It's weekends and holidays he plays up. Lack of structure?!

Eventually he will do his homework but it is hell for us getting him there. It doesn't make him happy either having got himself into a state.

I don't know how to sanction the appalling behaviour WE get because his teachers have asked him to do homework.

I don't want to say "don't do it then" as I don't want him getting into a cycle of getting into trouble at school, then caring less and less each time and just giving up. I've seen this happen to other kids and it's not a good situation.

Anyone got any bright ideas please? Am I alone in this problem?!?!

We have tried:

• taking away screens
• taking away sweet treats (he's got a sweet tooth!)
• early bedtime
• long discussions about what is going on from his point of view
• long discussions about how we could help him
• ignoring him
• bribery
• getting angry back
• remaining unflappable and calm in the face of all the abuse

None of it gets anywhere.

What this sounds like is anxiety. Massive anxiety. And you can't reassure him, not directly, because he wont take in anything you say. If he's anything like my DS (and me at the same age!!!) he'll just dig his heels in and argue back. Cue swearing, punishment, and all the rest of the fuss.

So one thing to try is to reassure him by your own behaviour - by acting very calm and cool and unbothered. But with a twist. He doesn't want to do homework? He wants to rant and rave about how unfair it is? Let him. Make sympathetic noises, even. But while he's raving offer to do something that makes it feel a bit safer. Yes homework is a pain, but would he like to sit at the kitchen table for half an hour and have a go at a question, while you are cooking? If he agrees, that's fine. No fuss, no comment, just let him get along with it. Interfere as little as possible. Don't ask any questions or "help" or make any suggestions. But make the odd neutral comment - "ah you have your books out, nice one" (smile and get on with cooking). If he doesn't agree, that's fine too - let the ranting continue. It may be that the ranting is a necessary stage before he feels ready to start work. Arguing only makes the anti-homework rant turn on you, so you might as well agree with him.

You can also fine tune your bribery a bit. You can bribe just him to get his books out, and read a question - one question! - aloud. That deserves a sweet. Then act the daft lassie. "Do you know how to answer that? I haven't got a clue/we never did that when I was at school". The point of the bribe and chat is just to get him started - to get over the anxiety hump.If it works, once he has started you can let him get on with it. If he's in his room leave him to it, if he's in the kitchen just get on with cooking tea. He might need another bribe to get the next question started, in which case repeat. Or he might even go right through the rest without more bother.

Just some thoughts, feel free to ignore if you've already tried and it's been a disaster! {flowers]

Thank you. I will reflect on what you've said and try it next time. You're right - he is an anxious child but it is masked by displaying other emotions (anger, silliness, over-exuberance etc etc).

It's so hard to help him because he doesn't know why he's behaving a certain way and just keeps saying it's us and not him that's wrong. For instance he has just repeatedly whacked my coffee table with a wooden sword and apparently that's a) a lie even though I saw him do it and b) it doesn't matter because it was a waste of money me buying it. This isn't even over homework, it's because I said no to him about something else

It does sound as if he is saving up all his anxieties for you and DH and venting his anger and frustration at home, probably becaue he feels safer that way. And I'm sure he has no clue why he's doing it. You might need to look at some de-escalation strategies so he doesn't lash out so much.

Saying he didn't do it even though he obviously did, at least means that he does know he did wrong. "No" was a real trigger word for my DS. He found it very hard to ask for things so rather than just saying "no" immediately I would find some other way to slow things down and give us both time to consider our options. A lot of it was about giving him time to think and time to adjust to things. I still get a much better result by saying "we need to do X, shall we do it now or in 10 minutes / after tea / at the weekend?" than by just saying "do X". DS always says "10 minutes" but it saves hours of fighting! And if your DS likes structure it does no harm to make up a rough timetable or schedule with him for the weekend and follow it.

Have you looked at Explosive Child at all? I used that a lot with DS. The examples in the book are kids who are (probably!) more extreme than your DS but it's very good on de-escalation and on helping kids to get past this hitting out.