Gangs and peer pressure.How can I get my child to think for himself!!

[Tigermoth]

Hearing my 7 year old talking to his friends at school can be really frighening! They sound like members of the mafia, with all their threats and counter threats. In the playground, most of the boys separate into gangs and, while fighing is actively discouraged by the teachers, they all seem to get up to plenty of other stuff. My son seems to be so easliy led. If he's caught (a recent example was giving a playground helper 'the finger') he blames his friends, who then blame him etc.

I know he has a good sense or right and wrong. He has a pretty good brain. He knows he will get punished at home if he misbehaves at school - and rewarded if he's good. But he does the most stupid things when he's with his friends. He just has to go one better. When he's alone with us or with his quieter friends he can be lovely. How can I get him to be more independently-minded when he's at school?

tigermoth, i have a son quite a lot like that and we have been trying to get him to stop being a fool in the playground (and in class, quite often, in his case) since he was in reception; he is now in Y8 and he still does unnecessary stupid things because that's the way he is. so i don't suppose that will cheer you up much!
on the other hand, he is actually a lovely boy too, and the primary school staff and playground supervisors etc generally liked him even while he was doing their heads in. he has never really been punished by us for being in trouble at school, because they did that! but we always made it clear he was on his own and would get no sympathy from us.
when he left primary school we pointed out that he was starting fresh, without his reputation for being naughty, and had the chance to go through secondary without one; but at parents evening this year there were several complaints about his "immature attitude" - saying silly things in class etc - and we did threaten him with withdrawal of privileges if we heard any more. we haven't.
when you say your son is 7, is he still in Y2 or has he gone up to Y3? i think being in the juniors sometimes goes to their heads...
if your son is anything like ours, you really can't MAKE him not do the things he does in the playground; but so long as he is getting "clear moral guidelines" at home, he will be ok in the long run.

Thanks for the reassurance, Janh. He's in year 2 at present. I just don't know if he'll get better or worse when he's mixing with older children next year when he's a Junior. We will find out in the fullness of time.

I hate getting those notes from school. He had one about using 'the finger'. When my husband saw it he took it very badly. He's been very involved in my son's upbringing, loves him to bits and often gives him 'man-to-man' talks on how to win friends and influence people etc etc So when our son does something stupid, husband takes it very personally.

All last week my son was grounded as a result ot the note. So he couldn't play in his garden den, despite all this sunny weather. Just as his grounding was coming to an end, son does it again!! He was caught with another boy at school hiding behind the dustbins. Why?? Didn't they think someone would soon miss them and find them? Another note is on its way to us.

Son is petrified. He knows he'll be punished with more grounding or privileges taken away and Daddy will be VERY upset. Mummy's not too pleased either.

So son 'hides' the note in his classroom wastepaper bin. Tells mummy not to tell daddy. I can't do this, of course, and have told my son that daddy will find out anyway via the teacher.
I have asked him to retrieve the note. If I don't get it, I will have to phone the head. I have promised son I will pick a good moment to tell my husband about this latest round of events. I know he will be fairly reasonable about it, but it really does get to him.

Men, boys, ugggghhh....

trouble is, when they're little, and especially when with someone else, they just don't think these things through. i got in quite serious trouble at primary school for things that just didn't seem bad to me - eg, 2 examples :

there was a craze for tiny "babies' bottles" with tiny sweets in and when they'd been eaten we filled them with water and squirted them - which was then banned. i subsequently filled one with water with the honest intention of drinking out of it...you can guess the rest!

and, during the annual roller skating craze (does anyone else remember these cycles? hula hoops - marbles - jacks - roller skates - skipping - handstands/backbends/cartwheels etc...?) one year it had been quite wet and we were told not to go on the grass in them. but at the very edge of the grass was a strip of mud about 2 feet wide and i thought it was ok to go on that...you can guess the rest of that too! i was about 8 or 9 when these 2 happened (i wonder if this is where my son gets his lunatic attitude to rules from???)

what i'm saying is that kids' minds don't always operate in the way an adult's would...what was the hiding behind the dustbins about? did he actually have a reason?

anyway, knowing he would be grounded didn't stop him doing it - he probably forgot - like they forget really basic stuff like washing hands after using the loo, or in the case of 2 of mine, on a regular basis, even flushing it!!! so, despite your husband's perfectly understandable feelings of disappointment in him, i'm not sure punishing him at home will stop him doing silly things like this again.

my silly son used to drive his friends nuts, too, when he was younger and used to get left out of things because of it - and even THAT didn't stop him!!! i mean if peer pressure doesn't work, nothing will! but the same boys are now his best friends (and think he's hilarious - ohhhh noooo!)

Tigermoth it sounds like your son is quite a sweetie, especially if he is terrified of being told off by his Dad but just has a very impulsive sense of adventure and fun. My son is too young to have a parent's experience of this but I do remember that my brother, who is nearly 4 yrs younger than me, was constantly in the sort of trouble you describe. Nothing really evil but just unacceptable stuff. The real thing with my brother was that he simply didn't think when he did these things at all. He was so involved with the "there and then" that he didn't think about what he was actually doing. I'm sure that this is no consolation to you but my brother is the sweetest guy now (got all the way through school and university) and does very few silly things, whereas my husband was a model child, never in trouble and is now a grown-up maniac!!!

Bugsy, thanks for telling me about your brother. I didn't grow up with small boys in the family so any information I can get on them is very welcome. I think you've hit the nail on the head about their tendency to live in the 'there and then'.

Janh, Looking back I too had my lunatic moments as a child. Eating polystyrene packaging was a favourite.

In answer to your question, he was hiding behind the dustbins in order to extend his playtime and miss a lesson, so not good, but I appreciate what you say about not punishing them at home if they have already been punished at school. Sometimes I feel I'm taking my cue from the school rather than following my own judgement of what constitutes very punishable behaviour. But when we get a note from school we feel we have to act.

Anyway the second note turned out to be a red herring. My son retrieved it from the wastepaper bin, covered in gunk, stuffed it in a hidden part of his schoolbag and gave it to me to open in the evening. All it was was a request for £5.00 dinner money that we owed. You should have seen his face. And husband can remain in blissful ignorance. Just goes to show that it pays to wait and see if a threatened storm will blow over.

The other happy result was that my son was so careful to be good yesterday that he won a certificate for sitting still. A major achievment for him. Think his class teacher had an inkling of all this and felt he needed cheering up.