Don't know what to do about son

[MrsSnape]

Another one about my lovely but "slightly off the rails" son.

I mentioned in my last post (and previous posts) that he's naughty at school, this is constant. Cheeky to teachers, disruptive, hyper, rough, refuses to do work, he heads a little "gang" of kids that all try and act like him, he makes girls cry, he gets into fights...he's 7 by the way, not 15...

He's bad at home too, purposely destroys things, wrote all over his bedroom door, Friday he put two toilet rolls down the toilet and caused a huge riot by blaming it on his brother. He refuses to eat somethimes, he's underweight but he sometimes steals food when he thinks I'm not looking. None of his clothes fit him as he is so skinny, this frustrates him and he goes nuts about his jeans falling down, demands belts, more buttons etc

It seems to be getting worse and I really am worried. The teacher told me on Friday that he had yet again been sat refusing to do work but what concerned her this time is that he wasn't at all disruptive like he usually is, he wasn't bothering anyone else, he litrally just sat there doing nothing.

He tries saying that the work is too hard but if you say to him "Ok, we'll do it through your playtime when the classroom is quiet" you can guarantee he'll have that work done within seconds. He refused to do his homework one night saying it was far too hard, I spend over an hour with him trying to explain it and I couldn't understand why he couldn't do it, in the end he got so angry that he grabbed the paper, crumpled it up, threw it and stamped on it. Next day I took the paper into the teacher to show her what he'd done so she gave him a new one and told him he would do it through his playtime...she said the whole thing took him 5 minutes and it was done to perfection.

He answers questions that the other kids don't know, one time the teacher asked a maths sum which she only expected the "top child" in the class to have a hope in hell of getting right and DS shouted out the answer before him in a bored tone...realised what he'd done and then started messing around trying to disrupt the class.

So we know he's intelligent but HE doesn't want us to know that...why?

Tonight I sent him to get his pyjamas on for bed and he was in a fine mood but all of a sudden I heard him sobbing...I went and asked him what was wrong and he was broken hearted saying he hated school and never wanted to go back I asked if anyone was bothering him and he said no, I asked if the teachers upset him and he said no, I asked if the work was too hard or too easy and he said no...turned out the reason was that the hot dinners are horrible???

Whats going on? The behavioral team that were involved have dumped him for some reason but they were useless anyway.

I'd say he's bored Sh*tless at school.

Because he is very clever and the teachers are so bogged down with his bad behaviour that they don't get a chance to recognise ot cater for his abilities.

Could the teacher get him into more interesting stuff, and promise him more conditional on good behaviour?

I would say he is too intelligent for the work. It is boring him and he needs closer teaching.eg more one to one or less people in class
These are my first thoughts and I have no idea how to achieve this
You poor thing - it sounds like a really trying time
Are you ok?

I agree, he has a very active mind and loves to learn facts about animals, countries, planets...interesting things you know? He told me today how many gallons of water a camel can carry around (can't remember what it was now and I said "wow you're so clever, where did you learn that?" and he just grinned and said "dunno". Its like he wants people to think he's daft but can't resist letting the odd snippet of proof out that he isnt.

He's a real animal fanatic and could litrally watch a wildlife documentary for hours totally still...but try getting him to do anything else for over 10 minutes and you have no chance.

Being bored at school isn;t an excuse, but I am sure you knw that. Plenty of intelligent kids go through school without the behavioural problems.

However he does seem bright and for some reason he doesn't want others to know about it.

You say the behaviour and not working thing is also an issue at home - so it isn't necessarily a peer issue?

Why did the beahvioural team stop seeing him? Why were they not helpful? I think you need to go back to these and push them hard to help get things on the way to being sorted for you all.

O hello Mrs. Snape, I answered your OP without noticing it was you. I remember discussing your DS previously, as I a similar sounding lad. His current teachers are great, and really seem to enjoy giving him challenging work. The previous ones were all for "taking him down a peg"

So my DS behaves pretty well at school now, but is still a beast at home.

Even his teacher has said he is above average intelligence but he really doesn't want anyone to know. His SATS for instance, she said he is capable of 2a and 3s but it looks like she'll have to mark him 1s because its so rare that he produces any evidence of having a good mind, if he does, its verbal only.

She wrote a report on him to the educational pyscologist and wrote on that that he shows a general knowledge that is rare in kids his age but his behaviour and writing stuff down is terrible.

Even during PE he messes about and ends up getting shouted at and sent to the head...one time he climed up to the top of aparatus which landed him in a whole heap of trouble but last week during a tennis class the coach wrote me a special letter inviting him to join a proper coaching class as he showed natural talent, balance, fitness and agility.

He sounds a little like my brother at the same age. He used to light fires around himself and then leave it longer and longer each time to try and escape. He did a poo in the sink. He was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

He saw a child psychologist and a remedial teacher who helped him with his reading (he is brilliant, but at maths and physics).

Can you try a different child expert? Go private. Even if it's not achieving very much it'll send out the message to him that you're desperately trying to help him. You don't want him to be unhappy. Were the behavioural team NHS? On what grounds did they discharge him?

Your son may be BORED but that shouldn't make him so upset. Frustrated maybe but not upset....

poor you.

This is a very clever kid who by the sound of it needs to be in a different educational environment. Are there other schools with a different ethos in your area? Is home ed the slightest possibility?

I have absolutely no experience of anything like this but my immediete thoughts are that he sounds really quite unhappy. A 7 year old shouldn't have to be internalising what are quite adult conflicts - he must know he's clever but has decided (or feels obliged) to disguise this by bad behaviour. It must be awful - for you and for him. I know this sounds really OTT but would a child psychologist be in order? I mean someone professionally trained to get to the bottom of why he can't accept and be proud of his intelligence. I think the sooner you get to grips with what's going on his head the better - by the time he's 10 or 12 and the real peer pressure to be cool has kicked in, the bad behaviour might be well and truly embedded.

Radical I know but have you considered home educating him? I was very inspired when I looked into it. Some kids just do get on with school and I think they have a terrible time and are failed by the system.

I have no experience of this apart from when I was at school (a long time ago). There was a boy in my class who was THE rebel. He was always in trouble and was always looking bored
But, having got to know him better he was super intelligent and could answer any question on any subject
He was just bored
I do think that being intelligent can be an excuse in this situation

The behavioral team were a joke, I had an apointment at a bad time, had to take him out of school, re-arrange loads of stuff to get there but I did and all he said to him was "father christmas doesn't come to naughty boys..." and left it at that! well duh, I tried that one!

The 2nd apointment I went by myself and he told me I just had to be consistant that the problems are school were there problems, not mine

And then the final apointment...again I arranged everything, stayed home for the entire day to make sure I was in when they came and they didn't even turn up. No phone call or anything. I've not heard from them since and TBH I'm in no rush to either. I'd love to go private but I can't afford to. I'm relying on the educational pyscologist at the moment but have been told this can take months if not years.

He sounds really unhappy. Would Home-ed be an option for you and him?

Oh dear, Mrs Snape!

SOunds like he needs something to channel all that energy and frustration into -- the tennis might be a good idea?

Must be very hard for you, I am sorry.

Not sure about home-ed as I can't even get him to read or do homework at home.

He did learn to play chess this weekend but started to mess around halfway through his 2nd game knocking pieces over and everything so DS1 refused to play with him and after a bit I did too. I think that's what he'd be like with home-ed.

He does karate 3 times a week and messes around there too. Nothing seems to bother him, being shouted at, press-ups, the entire class getting pres ups for him...he just laughs. Once a "dragon" teacher at school that all the kids are scared of shouted at him after he was yet again sent out of the school assembly...he just laughed in her face.

I am putting him into the tennis but I worry he will mess around there too, his karate teacher only puts up with it for my sake I think because I train too.

Has he only been like this since attending school?

Why don't you look into home-ed. It might surprise you. You have said how much your ds can concentrate on animals and information about them. So you have a starting point (which is more than I had when I brought my dd out of school). You could develop things from that. Have a look into it and see what you think. It doesn't have to be forever, either.

Mrssnape that's because the homework is set by someone else. Most home edders find they need a few months to de-school their kids, when they really aren't doing much learning, then follow an autonomous route .... in other words you provide your son with the tools to learn about what he wants to learn about in his own time, for the most part. The majority of home edders don't follow the national curriculuum and nor do they need to to get into university.

It would be worth your reading up about it on the Education Otherwise website just so you are informed about it as an option. It's really not how it first appears. I was very inspired when I read some books from the EO website and chatted online to parents doing it. I went to some groups too.

In the end the issue with my dd seemed to resolve itself and I decided not to de-register for now at least. I was almost disappointed as I'd really overcome my doubts and become inspired the more I read up and talked to people.

So though I haven't yet gone through with it, I have four children and it's such a comfort to me to know that it is a proper, good option should I ever again decide that school is not working out for any of them.

Before he started school he was a handful, whingy, cheeky etc but its got worse since nursery. The very first incident involved him leading a group of 3 year olds out of the nursery and into the main school. He was about 4 at the time but since then its just got worse as he gets older.

Honestly I think some kids just don't work well in large groups and they are so badly failed by the school institution.

Do you think you'd get a referral through your GP to an Ed Psych and parenting support for you?

Your ds sounds quite similar to a colleague's son, unconventionally bright in a way not recognised by the education system of testing, incredibly disruptive, except he'd also head bang and lash out.

Gp referred to Ed Pysch at hospital. She and rest of family had support about how to deal with his misbehaviour. They were also talking about referring him to a kind of PRU & even medication, but he had a male teacher the following year who he got on amazingly well with. He was a balance between firm Victorian fatherliness but also gave him challenges and tasks that suited his personality.

He's gone to secondary where the SEN team were already prepared for him thanks to the primary. He's got some older boys as mentors and there's a farm & workshop which he spends quite a lot of his lunch and break times. He thinks he'd like to be a vet or an inventor.

What I wanted to say was to keep pushing for support and help even if you think you're banging your head against a brick wall.

On top of whatever help you may be able to get for him, I would really really try to encourage his interest in animals during out-of-school hours. Because that is one positive thing he has got, so you need to stress that. Can you find him books, help him to find stuff online, take him bug-watching/bird-watching whatever? Are there nature events near you that he could attend?
And make sure his teacher knows that he has this interest as well.

He wants to be a vet too, well he has a list of jobs he wants to do, vet, zoo worker, "dinosaur bone digger", dog handler and animal rescuer. He has tons of animal books, DVDs (blue planet etc), I often sit with him whilst he searches for animals on google, I take him to farms, he has a snake...I really do encourage it, partly because its a positive interest but also because its the only thing that will hold his attention for more than 10 minutes.

I have been through the GP and they put me through to the silly behavioural team he's on school action plus at school and the special needs teacher is trying to arrange the ed psych for him.

I don't home ed but have read a lot about it.

It does sound like your son is getting a name for himself at school and, sadly, when that happens it takes a very inspired and inspiring teacher to really turn them around.

Perhaps you could try home ed for a term or so to get a clearer picture of what's really going on with him? If it wasn't right for your family it would give you a breather to think about other schools, without also worrying every day about what he's up to in class.

He sounds exasperating but a little gem all rolled into one.