12 year old slipping out of our hands… help!

[Amkotbj]

First year in secondary school and our always well behaved boy with lots of friends suddenly with the wrong crowd and there is no turning him back. How do we deal with it?? We have got to a stage where we have to say no to him going out with them and he is hating for us for it. He has lovely friends who he suddenly wants nothing to do with and I’m heartbroken 😔

Ime inviting them round will allow them to see the real ds. And that he isn't a right fit for them.
Have done this many times!

Get the friends to your house.

Are the new friendships impacting on school behaviour?

They are trouble makers and have a bad reputation. Unfortunately they are in the same football team as him so he has to associate with them weather we like it or not. We tried the soft approach offering him pocket money if he did more of the school clubs which would reduce the amount of time he is spending with them but today been informed about an incident where he was with the same group during a birthday party (the party wasn’t for any of them but were invited) and actually my son was the one who behaved inappropriately towards a staff. I have just taken e everything off him. No phone, no Xbox. Told him from Monday im driving him to/from school (so he can’t walk with them) just cancelled his match tomorrow. I feel awful but don’t know how else to deal with it. I was not expecting to have to deal with issues like this, this early on?? (Not from my first born anyway)

Spoke to his form teacher who said he had seen big changes in his behaviour and not positive way

Can’t you just take him off the football team? So he doesn’t have chance to associate with them?

They also all live practically on our streets so going to and from school they end up seeing each other plus i can’t monitor break time at school. The only sport he is still interested in doing is football so feel it’s healthy to keep a sport going. Also feel ultimately i controll every little aspect of his life but unless he comes to his senses he will always finds the rotten ones to follow?!

I had this with my daughter. Luckily she came to her senses but it was a tough year.
In my experience the more annoyed I got the closer I pushed her to them. I punished bad behaviour but didn't try to dictate her friends. Eventually she moved away from them herself. It wasn't a pleasant time though. Not at all.

Punish the behaviour but not being friends with them is a good strategy.

Can be find a different team?

Sounds like you have a good system of consequences at home. However paying him to do things you want isn't a great idea.