Yr 2 DS has a coercive controlling friend

[abcd321]

To preface this, we are going to reach out to the school, probably directly to the headteacher but would really appreciate any advice as to the best way to approach this, what to expect as an outcome as well as any other advice as to how to support our DS.

DS has been at current school since Reception and has been for the most part relatively happy. It's a small school with a slightly out of balance boy/girl ratio in his year but he has found a friendship group and teachers have reported him as being happy.

Since Yr1 DS has had a frenemy, let's call him A who believes he's the leader of their friendship group and likes to command the group on what games to play, how to play them, reprimands other boys for not following his instructions etc. DS really struggled with this at the start of Yr1 believing the way that A bossed everyone around was unfair and was frustrated that the rest of the group would just follow A's instructions even when they clearly didn't want to. We advised DS to just let it go, that he couldn't control others but that he could control whether or not he wanted to follow along or play with other people. Ultimately, DS gave up the struggle after Christmas it seemed and toed the line along with the rest of the group. We didn't think much of it as DS appeared to be happier although there was one incident right before summer holidays where DS came home asking for money as A had told DS that he had to give him money to stay in the gang. Needless to say we didn't give him the money but we also didn't think much of it.

Fast forward to the start of Yr2 3 weeks ago and DS has started complaining about A again, except this year the behaviour has become a lot more sinister (for lack of a better word). A now seems to operate a dictatorship over the friendship group telling them what they can/can't do, who they can/can't play with or speak with. The boys live under the constant threat of being eliminated from the group unless they can abide by A's constant barrage of rules and are increasingly isolating themselves from other friendship groups under A's command.

What we have found even more alarming is particular targeted acts towards out DS, namely:

• A now requesting tangible things in return for DS remaining in his favour e.g. DS's chocolate cake at lunch which DS dutifully gave him
• On one particular day, having eliminated DS from the group, A subsequently taking issue with DS being sat at the Yr2 table, commanding him to stand up and move to the Yr3 table in front of every single child in the year. DS obliged and moved.
• A requesting DS to lick a half eaten cucumber from the floor in order to not be eliminated from the group - DS refused so A requested he just lick the floor instead which DS obliged to. DS later still got eliminated anyway.
• DS and the other friends often play with another older boy who, likely given his age, isn't bossed around by A. A has commanded them all to no longer play with the older boy resulting in all of them not being very nice to that boy when he approached them to play. Later when A was gone, they all went to ask the older boy to play but he no longer wanted to, probably because he was hurt by their prior rejection.

We have spoken to DS lots about drawing boundaries and not obliging to these requests but it just seems that the drive to remain within A's favour is too strong for sense. DS has had some prior trauma before starting school for which he is under CAMHS to help resolve. We worry that A can sense some vulnerabilities in DS somehow which is why he's targeting him.

We are worried that this behaviour has escalated quite rapidly in the short space of time that school has started. We don't know how schools typically handle these situations - we don't want DS to lose out on playing with his other friends. Any advice would be much appreciated.

He's 7, right?

You’re applying very adult language to a year 3 child. Yes I’d be speaking to school, but your choice of words is a little extreme.

When we described the behaviour to CAMHS, they called it "sadistic". One of my personal worries (not shared by my DH) is that I am overblowing this. But after CAMHS affirmed my DH's beliefs and even amplified them with the word "sadistic" and others, he believes we should go charging into school.

It's bullying behaviour and school need to know.

My DS had a friend a bit like this. Luckily he changed schools but he still sees him out of school. My ds is autistic. This boy has ADHD and ASD and I think his behaviours stems from a need to control related to his neurodivergence. He lacks empathy and can cause stress for ds.

Unfortunately, as with adults, people appease this behaviour for an easy life. I encouraged, like you have, my child to say no or to walk away but this was probably easier at an older age. E.g. one day he made DS carry his bag all day . Their bags are really heavy so for ds to carry two was dreadful.

Hope you will get a sympathetic ear and some ideas from school.

Email the school
teacher, head, safeguarding, pastoral lead if there is one
this needs stopping it is belittling , bullying and horrible for your poor son
be factual with what has been happening with dates if you can remember and what do they intend to do to stop this behaviour before it escalates even more
if brushed off
go to the governors and higher if need be

What do the parents of the other boys in the friendship group have to say about the matter? I know you probably want try to avoid 'gossiping' but right now your priority is to advocate for your son.

One of them sees A as a leader - says his son looks up to him. His son got scratched by another boy and told A and A made this other boy apologise. This particular boy supports A in everything, almost fanning the flames for the most part. He probably gets eliminated from the group the least as a result. I don't know about the other boys.

Thank you for this. Do you have any idea what I should expect? What is the typical way for a school to handle something like this?

I think your son asked for help last year. Without sounding harsh, no one thought much about his request for help. Then he bent to the boy because he appeared to the stronger than anyone else…possibly including his parents.
Now we have a very toxic dynamic and personality…I would change school because this is not going away. The “group” needs to understand that if the all walk away, A is alone and powerless. But this would require a concerted action and strong will from a group of 7 years old.
I am sorry for your child, and that he has to suffer this. I would really consider moving him.

Sounds absolutely horrendous. A sounds deeply troubled for being what, 6 or 7?

Is moving school an option? I think this would be extremely difficult for school to fix, especially as it’s a small school, ie I assume 1 form entry?

I'm sorry but for me one of the things you described would have been enough to talk to the teacher. Since it has gone this far I would ask for a meeting with teacher and head. This is serious and can leave lasting emotional damage to your son. He's basically being humiliated every day. I think I would keep him home until school can guarantee that this boy will be under surveillance. He sounds very disturbed and I wonder what's going on in his house for him to act the way he does.

It sounds like a nasty situation, but again, I think many of the responses have been lead my the language you have used, which has been led by what you’ve been told by your son (not saying this isn’t true at all). It’s very adult language, as another poster said, I wouldn’t have expected your year 1 son to follow what you have said and when you say “gave in”, or other words, I think, no disrespect, you are creating the story for him.

I am a psychologist - so am viewing it with this lense too. There will always be children who act like A, I’m afraid, who enjoy the control and having people listen to them. At this age calling someone sadistic is in itself questionable. I think you do need to go to the school and set this all out - but moving schools seems huge - your son is always going to come up against difficult characters. I agree, if the school then don’t respond helpful then it’s another rethink,

You need to get your child to speak to a member of staff at the time this is happening. You also need to speak to your son's teacher, any one of these incidents is a reason to speak to them. You now have a big list that the teacher may need to escalate to the head but your first point of contact is always the class teacher and I would advise that this should have been done for each of these incidents individually.

I’d also advocate moving schools. It’s a toxic environment which won’t change , you’ll just waste the next year fighting a losing battle

I am confused.
Where do CAMHS come into it? Why did you discuss another child with them?
Sadistic is a pretty extreme way to describe a 6/7 year old and I am surprised a MH professional is bandying it around about a child they have never met.

There are often children who want to control their friends and peers, especially by saying they can't play with such and such. I would speak to the class teacher first, who should look into it and prevent this behaviour from continuing.
There is no need to move schools or anything like that. Primary school children are not allowed to share or swap food either.

Have you had any conversations with his teacher this year about this? Sounds like a lot of incidents. Is your son under CAMHS? I’m wondering if the boy is targeting your son if he is vulnerable?

speak to the teacher, follow up with emails, go up the chain of command.
practice with your son, saying no to humiliating/ridiculous requests.
reward your son for each time he steps away from the bully as he learns to grey rock him.
request a change of class look into a change of school.

Thank you for this. We ideally would not want to change schools and it certainly wouldn’t be a straightforward process. We are just trying to figure out whether to go to his class teacher or the head teacher first. We did mention some concerns last year to his class teacher (who remains the same this year) but given things weren’t so bad, we didn’t push it and she just said that she would “monitor it”.

Thank you. Yes we have tried lots of different ways to get him to draw a boundary, ask for help from an adult etc. unfortunately so far to no avail.

He is under CAMHS for events from before he started school. We speak to the psychologist about his wellbeing so these events came up. I’m not sure if she was referring to A as sadistic or A’s behaviour as sadistic. I believe the exact phrasing was “it’s almost sadistic in a way” so I guess it was more referring to A’s behaviour.

I'd be asking why my son is so desperate for acceptance by people who hurt him. He needs to work on his self esteem.

Not spoken to the teacher yet. We are only 3 weeks in but the last incident with licking the floor has made us now request a meeting. We are just trying to figure out if we want to speak with his class teacher or headteacher. We do think A senses some vulnerability in DS and hence singles him out.

He does. But as he builds this up which is potentially a multi year or life long process, he is vulnerable and we must advocate for him.

Changing schools seems a little drastic. Who’s to say there won’t be a similar difficult character in the new school?

I would try to work with your own child to give him the strength to break free. At least there are other children around so the school has a deep friendship pool of other options.