How can I get DS(11) to stop flippant rude comments/reactions at school?

[Clementini]

DS is in Year 6, he is bright, good-natured but he has this absolute inability to filter his 'smart' quips and reactions and it's getting him in trouble at school.

There are times - not every time - where anything he sees as even mild criticism/correction of him doing something wrong (eg not filling in his book correctly, or at home, putting the wrong uniform on etc) he gets very defensive and rolls his eyes, and talks back to give some sort of made-up defence. We've gone over with him at home but he can't keep these thoughts to himself (even can't help commenting when we're talking to siblings, etc) - it's like nothing can override his need to have his say or the last word.

It's getting noticed at school with him being sarcastic and backchatting when he can't seem to comprehend it's totally inappropriate. He's been sent to the office a few times, we've had a chat to his teacher, we all acknowledge that he's not super skilled at reading social situations so probably just defaults to 'quips'.

Longer term yes - he needs to accept where he's done something wrong and correction/criticism isn't going to kill him - but in the short term how do we get him to keep his thoughts/reactions to himself and stop blurting out flippant remarks? (Or muttering them to his friend!) Even if he is being told off for a "genuinely" (or perceived) unfair reason he needs to pick his time and method of challenging this rather than just being facetious.

I would say there's very rarely any real malice to it, just I can completely see how it would become infuriating and distracting at school. He's going to secondary school in September and clearly the teachers will have far less tolerance for this and he could get a name as a trouble-maker. My worry is he sees being told off for this as an overreaction to 'one word' or to 'moving my eyeballs' and resentment will build - because he doesn't grasp that it's disruptive and rude.

Bumping for you

I would start by an honest reflection on where he has learned this.

I don't mean this as a criticism, but most of our children learn communication styles by copying others. Obviously parents are the most prominent, but friends, TV etc. all have an impact. I would start by trying to figure out where he learned this style of dealing with people.

Then after that, I would just focus on segmenting his communication and heavily pushing him to understand how to divide different social situations.

For example, (hypothetical...) lets say his dad reacts like this at home a lot. It might seem normal to him, but does his dad do this at work? Probably not. Yet to a little kid, they don't see that distinction. So that is what I would be trying to guide him into. He is old enough now to be able to grasp the idea that different situations = different types of communication.

That way, you aren't teaching him that he is wrong in how he communicates, but just that he needs to adapt and keep certain things for certain situations.

I work in a primary. This is not unusual for y6 (boys) to be like this at this time of the year!!! They are getting hormones and attitude!! They have realised they are the oldest in the school Does he have a school residential coming up? Do they have to behave to be allowed to go? That can quite quickly stop the attitude. As can arriving at Secondary and all of a sudden being the youngest again.
Just stay firm with your parenting at home e.g. consequences for behaviour.
Work with the school and support them.
I'm sure he will come through this fine in the end.

Something I've learnt, though takes some restraint, is to try to count to 3 before making a remark. I did have a teacher once give out cards for me to limit the comments I made per day. It can be difficult to bite your tongue when it feels quite explosive. Better to get it sorted now when it is presumably one teacher, so able to be more personalised than in secondary.

Give him positive ways to express himself. Often people resort to defensiveness and lashing back when they don’t know what else to say. He might feel he’s being expected to apologise or defend his failure. He needs responses that acknowledge the feedback and its merit.

“Okay, that’s good to know, thank you.
“Okay, I’ll think about that next time.”
“Heard and understood, thanks.”

It sounds stupidly simple but sometimes kids just don’t know what the acceptable phrase is so they just react.

There's not enough in your post to get a sense of what might be going on for him.

What's life like for him, what's his overall anxiety level, is this a new behaviour, has he any other impulsive behaviours etc etc.

Does he get away with this at home? You mentioned reacting to siblings like this. It needs to be stamped out at home every single time, consequences if he does it so he’s less likely to do it at home.

Have him practise at home.
He has an active mind but, like all people, needs to learn to not express his every thought.

Practise him keeping completely silent.
Not speaking at all.
Zipping his mouth shut.

Challenge him to stay SILENT over dinner or for a timed half hour often, or while driving from one set place to another in the car. He will become better at self discipline if you show him it matters to you and others.

It is respect for others that grows when listening skills, taking turns in conversation and self discipline strengthen.

It might help for him to have a note book to record clever thoughts he wishes to share later.

Use a code word like ZIP IT - to alert him to be quiet please.

I agree. These quips can be acquired by avid readers from some of the books they read that are above their age level. If they are reading books centred on teen protagonists, this can be particularly true, as quite often the "whatever" and silly quips are a staple of those genres.

Giving suitable responses to correction and guidance helps them acknowledge the correction in the desired and appropriate way.

Secondary school will sort him out. He will say something in front of a group of bigger and older children and learn he's not quite so smart as he thinks.

This and tv progs of course where the protagonist rails against “the man” and any form of authority and is seen to be righteous and cool..

My son went though this although he generally saved this for me, when he was in year 7, I thought at times he had adhd or something going on because it was like it was impossible for him to control himself. It actually boiled down to stress, he’d been put in top sets at school and was also being noticed for higher level sports outside of school and if all felt too much for him. We dialled down the sports training and tight him how to relax and he’s gone back to his adorable self again. Has he spoken about any anxiety related to going up to secondary?

Sounds like me. My first thought on pretty much any comment is a witty sarcastic retort. A skill to be encouraged and nurtured in this day and age of humourless interactions for fear of offending anyone.
He just needs to learn the part about time and place to say it out loud.

Once you’ve unpicked where it’s coming from, you and DH and school need to agree a consequence and be in lockstep on doing it every time. Ideally the consequence removes whatever positive he’s getting from the behaviour. I’m guessing this is attention, from friends at school and parents at home.

So if it happens at school teacher for example puts him at the table next to her and he works by himself away from his friends for the morning. At home, he is immediately sent to his room for 30 minutes. You and teacher need to communicate and be consistent - he’ll probably do it more for a bit before he realises you’re serious.

This is the kind of thing that people think is funny and almost sophisticated in a younger child, but then they start to resent it in an older child.

It is hard to strike a balance between raising a confident child who will assert boundaries and most importantly, share things that confuse or upset them and raising a child that accepts authority.

See for me those comments coming from an 11 year old would also sound extremely condescending and smart arsed and would also be unacceptable in a classroom environment.
He is a child not at middle aged man.

What is he like generally? Is he impulsive? Does he make careless mistakes (wrong uniform)? Does he interrupt or finish your sentences? Does he follow tasks through to the end or does he get distracted and leave it once the interesting parts are finished? Can he follow a conversation that isn't particularly interesting to him? Does he seem surprised when people react negatively to his comments?

I ask because I vividly remember being like your DS in early secondary school. I got sent out of the class once for rolling my eyes. I hadn't realised my frustration had 'leaked'.

I've had to work really hard to channel all my energy into a constructive contribution because my brain was working so fast that I'd come up with the answer, get frustrated that people were still processing the information, and I'd want to move on.

As an adult I was known for sitting quietly in governance meetings, letting people debate backwards and forwards, then saying something which summarised the conversation, giving a conclusion and much of the time the issue was resolved. So I did learn to hold back and keep my powder dry, so to speak.

Earlier this year I was diagnosed with both ASD and ADHD. Not surprising, looking back, but I wish I had known earlier and could have had support to develop skills earlier.

Does he go to private school? You mention wrong uniform, which implies he has a couple to use?

Strategies:

• Could he have a timetable with which uniform for which day/time? Visual aids can help
• Some kids benefit from a 'blurt book'. if they're aware that they just need to get their thoughts out, they can write them down. It doesn't work so well for kids who aren't aware that they're doing it.
• Could you help him to identify his feelings? "I'm feeling frustrated because you're telling me off for having the wrong uniform on when I was trying to be organised by getting my uniform on."
• One boy I knew of as a governor was given tokens. He was allowed 5 tokens and he could use one if he needed to talk about something off topic.
• Could you make sure that at home you build in opportunities for him to share his opinion constructively? It might be that by doing that his frustration drops and he learns to wait because he knows that he will get a chance to share.
• Talking through the issues such as 'not everyone is going to have the right answer in class, and the teacher isn't really worried about whether people get it right, they are more interested in them joining in/thinking about the subject/coming up with an idea then whether their idea is right' can help.

If he does have ADHD, he's more likely to have something called 'Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria', which is a feeling of hurt and despair (sometimes milder than others) that leads to a seemingly out of proportion reaction to the criticism/insult/failure to meet expectation.

I might be completely up the wrong tree, but several things you have said make me think that he's probably not just being an entitled, irritating little boy.

lol my son says things like that all the time and adults think he is respectful and mature. Perhaps it’s the tone of voice you’re imagining them in.

Maybe mine were a but older but we used to just call them Kevin and Perry and take thr piss out of them when they started eye rolling etc. They learnt to laugh at themselves and become more aware of when they were being massive twats.

It is more than likely that he is fully aware that his comments are out of line. At school he is likely trying to impress his peers. At hone he is pushing your buttons and asserting himself.

Praise good reactions/behaviour, ignore silly stuff. Most of our tricky children at school have been taught how to argue by parents who enter into a discussion/argument about absolutely EVERYTHING, it’s honestly exhausting.

Have adults actually said that to you? “Gosh your son is very mature in his back chat”?

I’ll level with you: I was like this as a kid. And I hate to break it to you, but I’m still like it as an adult. And honestly? I’ve no regrets. I’m naturally sarcastic and I see the world through a lens of detached amusement. My main goal in life, really, is to be left to my own devices.

Sometimes, people are going to find your kid infuriating. Other times, he will make them laugh. My old school reports are a 50-50 split between ‘Bauhaus has a dry sense of humour and a keen sense of independence which will help her go far’ and ‘Bauhaus is sarcastic and stubborn and a horrible little thorn in the side of manners and decency; she will probably descend into outright criminality very soon’.

I’m well aware that some people find this sort of character obnoxious and trust me, I went through phases of trying to rein it in; it’s not like there weren’t consequences at school and sometimes I got into trouble. But suppressing your natural personality is quite stressful and, in news that should surprise nobody, doesn’t result in a happy, sunny teenager.

Ultimately, your son will probably learn to be a bit more selective about his responses and will discover when they get him into trouble and when they don’t. He’ll find his way.

I don’t have ADHD or ‘rejection sensitive dysphoria’. If anything, I’m probably less significantly less sensitive to rejection than average.

Puberty creeping in I would say. I remember starting to behave a bit like this from about 12, smartarse comments and trying to look clever in front of my friends. I wasnt the only one of course, looking back I cringe abiut how awful I was at times. I did grow out of it eventually though (probably when I was about 35 ) 🤣🤣🤣🤣

He's always been very quick to say something without thinking and we're usually pretty consistent and pulling him up on it... for eg we go into his room when it's time to go to school and he's in his pyjamas, he might say defensively "well I didn't know I needed to get dressed for school" just as a knee-jerk response which I will get very cross about because we all know it's not true.

Then the quips are sort of separate category! Which he probably has picked up from Beano, comics etc but also I'm sure the bloody Diary of a Wimpy Kid had contributed. He is an avid reader and I'm afraid to say as a child I also loved comics and I too probably made annoying quips but I'm a grown-up now with social anxiety so I don't!

I agree that giving him something to say instead might help. He's fairly recently started just saying "yep" "got it" in a pleasant voice which we know is a bit disingenuous (when it's the 20th time we've told him he needs to clean his teeth before school etc) but is likely to be fine in a normal situation.

So i have actually said just take a second and say "sorry" if you're being told you're doing something wrong and I think he could manage that.

Some really helpful and insightful comments on here, thanks... just working through them!

Most of the time he's a lovely child (up until about age 8 he had the capacity for explosive tantrums, which thankfully he's grown out of) .