I'm not actually a parent but I've been tutoring a 9 year old boy continuously since last September, although we've had some lessons here and there, and his 16 year old sister for 6years now. As their Mum wants him to catch up on Maths as well as be ready for the 11+ this year, I've been brought in to do 2 x 2 hr sessions a week.
Most of the time he is well behaved but he has a tendency to get distracted during lessons and share about his school life and friends, which I enjoy but is obviously not super productive when it's very prolonged. However, last lesson, he had a very extended break (> 30 min) during the lesson, which meant that I needed to keep teaching for a bit later so that we could cover enough material. I had told him that we needed to do one more sheet (a Mental Maths sheet - he was struggling on doing eg 45-8 quickly so I was training his speed), but for each question, he would talk to his Mum for a minute or two, meaning that it took him twice as long as he should.
I asked him to do one more as it would only take a few more mins for him, and he asked whether he could go to the bathroom. Turned out that he had locked himself in there as he didn't want to do another sheet, and his Mum asked to end it then so that he doesn't become miserable when he's told to do lessons. He stayed there for 20 minutes. He had to be dragged into the lesson at the start as well.
I get on very well with the family but given what their hopes are for this kid i.e. catching up in time (he's more than a year behind but improving) for the 11+ I can't help but think that he could develop some resilience, and having spoken to his Mum she said that he is stubborn but rarely throws tantrums and when he really doesn't want something, she thinks it's not good to push back eg lessons on weekends. On the contrary, I've never had this issue with his older sister.
He's preciously set rules for his Mum saying that he doesn't want tutoring on weekends and threw a tantrum over Christmas as he didn't want a lesson over the holidays so his Mum cancelled on the same day etc. His sister tells me that his Dad spoils him and tells him that he's going to take over the family business, hypes him up an incredible a lot etc, and that both have a bit of an ego. Obviously that's biased.
Anyway, is all of this normal for a 9yo? I know there are kids who behave worse and who behave better. Surely it doesn't set a good precedent when your kids are allowed to set rules which you can't push back against? I wouldn't have asked if I weren't close with their Mum but she said that she wouldn't have an issue if he stayed like this... From a tutor's point of view, it is also a bit...disruptive. Apologies for the long post!