Best strategies for parenting bad behaviour in 11 year old DS?

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DS started secondary school in September. I feel like it started ok but went downhill before Christmas. He has recently moved class as he was unhappy - he said some kids didn't like him and were being mean to him.

Since Christmas he has got a few referrals out of class (none last term). Some are for being disruptive in class, one for being disrespectful to a teacher.

He struggles with attention in class (this has been the case for a while), and has had an ADHD assessment, but he didn't get a diagnosis. At the same time he had an ASD assessment and came out with a diagnosis. This was not a surprise as he has always had ASD traits in causing obsessions and poor emotional regulation.

His target grades are very good, but his actual grades are a bit under, and way under in one or two subjects.

He is at quite a progressive school which is very well thought of, good pastoral care and outstanding Ofsted etc. They don't give out a lot of homework, and try to "understand" the reasons for a child's behaviour and talk to them about it rather than just punishing them.

He tends to play the victim quite a lot - eg complaining about teachers who don't like him, friends, and even us (parents). The friends he hangs out with aren't "bad", but they aren't the most hard working, and tend to have looser restrictions on technology and gaming etc.

I'm struggling to know how to respond, as he gets very upset when told off (sometimes full on meltdown), and has this impression that we don't like him. Therefore telling him we are disappointed, or acting in any way disappointed, doesn't seem to help. At the same time we can't do nothing. I just wonder whether he cares more about what his friends think than parents and teachers, but I don't know really.

Any ideas welcome.

He’s becoming a moody teenager. They often become very selfish and develop a victim complex at this age - the world is unfair to them, they have the worst parents ever, school is awful etc etc.

The ASD emotional regulation may play into this but don’t be suckered into thinking it’s only driven by his ND traits. Teens this age need boundaries, they need calm and rational parenting which allows them to make their own mistakes within a safe bandwidth.

Don’t bring emotion or guilt trips into it. Just lay out the ground rules of what’s acceptable and what’s not. Then coolly stick to it.

When he’s rude, just calmly say “that’s not how I expect anyone to speak in this house. Why don’t you leave the room for a few minutes and come back and try it again.”

You have to weather the angry storms calmly yourself - which is very hard. My dd was very hard to live with age 11 to 13 and the amount of backchat and shouty arguments was surprising. Now she is 15 she have subsided to eyerolls and non-compliance - tricky but not emotionally exhausting like the earlier years of adolescence.

When he is angry and slams a door or whatever , you tell him the behaviour is unacceptable and there will be a consequence. Give it ten minutes to calm down then go and give the consequence eg loss of screen time, extra chores etc

As a parent to an 18yr old with ASD I would be looking into what is triggering your son's responses in class. ASD, at it's core, is difficulty with social communication and interaction and it sounds like both of the issues you refer to (friends not liking him, disrespect to a teacher) fall under the social communication umbrella.

You will need to adapt your parenting to include strategies that support his difficulty in social communication and I would advise you contact your local ASD support group (National Autistic Society usually have local groups which are free) which will have a wealth of knowledge and experience in this area.

I will say that neurotypical parenting strategies rarely work with ASD teenagers. Seek out local support and you will find you are not alone and will gain some helpful strategies to help you and your son.

I'd also be having a conversation with the school around what support they have in place to facilitate his social communication and interaction with students and staff. Our child had that specifically written into their Education Health Care Plan because it was an essential part of achieving success in school.

Happy for you to message me directly.
Good luck.

Thanks. I agree I don't think it's just ASD that is the issue. However I think it is part of it - it's probably why he has the victim complex, and has gravitated towards certain friendships rather than being friends with the well-behaved kids. And it definitely makes discussing anything with him highly complex.

I do agree he needs some consequences and boundaries. I was thinking immediate consequences, like not being able to use the Xbox that day. However I'm not sure about escalating consequences when he has a meltdown, I'm not sure it would be effective and might just escalate things more.

@SparkleSoiree thank you, I do need to contact local groups, it's been on my list these last couple of months but I regularly feel overwhelmed with everything that I haven't got there yet. The last couple of months I've been interacting with school and trying to get a CAMHS referral through the GP as DS needs support for his meltdowns. School have been good in some ways, eg accommodating class move, allowing an exit pass etc, but I haven't specifically talked to them about strategies to improve social communication - I'm not sure what that would look like? With DS and ASD, I often feel like I'm know what the problem is but have no idea of the solution. Thank you I may contact you by DM.

A lot of what you’re describing actually sounds like social overload rather than deliberate bad behaviour.
In secondary school there’s almost constant low-level social judgement like where you sit, who you talk to, how teachers react to you and i believe kids who struggle to read social cues get labelled very quickly. Once a child feels a teacher or a group already sees them as “the annoying one”, they often lean into it because it’s easier than trying (and failing) to fix it. The disrespect incidents you’re hearing about are often panic/frustration moments, not planned rudeness.
One thing I’ve seen really help is giving them a structured reset point in the day. A specific lunchtime club, library duty, music room, chess club so anywhere with a clear activity and a supervising adult. Kids who float socially tend to end up in the corridor/drama loop; kids with a defined place calm down a lot because they aren’t spending the whole day guessing social rules.