What the hell is going on with son and where to get help?

[DrChasuble]

Went through sons (13) school blazer pockets at weekend and found 2 index cards with horrendous offensive antisemitic writing and swastikas on, in various pens and handwriting, predominantly other peoples but including my sons -his was only a few words but that doesnt matter he was still a part of this whatever it is.

We have managed to be really calm with him and just tried to explain the seriousness and how anything like this is never anything other than totally unacceptable. We have said we want to understand what has led to him.being a part of this and get him to communicate what on earth this is about but after at first just saying he knows it was wrong and he doesnt know why he did it he has now just closed down and refusing to talk. He has given me.one name of another boy involved and his story is that this boy just handed him the cards, he doesnt know why and he wrote some more stuff, he doesnt know why. I feel we have to report it to school and I have told him that because of the nature of the content. That has just made him shut down even more.

I just cant get my head round why he would ever think this was ok and what the hell it is about and where do I go from here. Head spinning and dreading conversation with school and more importantly facing the thought that son may actually be exploring and relating to shit like that.

For background son seems a fairly typical teenager - can be charming and engaged and can be rude and exasperating. We battle over his phone and x box use a bit but get on pretty well. Not doing as well at school as he should be (bright but always not bothered trying) but doing ok and lots of extra curricular activities. 2 younger sisters - plenty sibling rivalry and bickering which drives me nuts but they can get on well too and we try and make sure we spend time together as a family. It's a busy but secure home- marriage not without issues but we manage to work reasonably well as a team. covid has added plenty stresses as for everyone and he found home schooling really hard and it led to lots of arguments. Comparitively as a family though we have been lucky with covid-both key workers so no change in income, no loved ones lost, house and garden with space etc. He is quite impulsive and while seemingly not a ring leader or trouble maker himself he has always been drawn to and been on the edge of the trouble

sorry waaaaay toooo long!

Have a bump.

I don't have a clue where to start. Can appreciate you're really worried though.

Do you think he actually believes it?

You absolutely need to tell the school of this
They will get the local PREVENT team in

@DrChasuble

For background son seems a fairly typical teenager - can be charming and engaged and can be rude and exasperating. We battle over his phone and x box use a bit but get on pretty well. Not doing as well at school as he should be (bright but always not bothered trying) but doing ok and lots of extra curricular activities. 2 younger sisters - plenty sibling rivalry and bickering which drives me nuts but they can get on well too and we try and make sure we spend time together as a family. It's a busy but secure home- marriage not without issues but we manage to work reasonably well as a team. covid has added plenty stresses as for everyone and he found home schooling really hard and it led to lots of arguments. Comparitively as a family though we have been lucky with covid-both key workers so no change in income, no loved ones lost, house and garden with space etc. He is quite impulsive and while seemingly not a ring leader or trouble maker himself he has always been drawn to and been on the edge of the trouble

No excuse Don't minimise this

I think you have done everything right. The school will hopefully be able to take some action once they are aware.

You sound like a great mum. You’ve had the chat, you’ve explained why it’s never acceptable.
And you’re doing the right thing informing school.
Make clear to your son that he’s not in trouble but try to keep talking.
I’d also be getting him some books on what happened at Auschwitz etc if it was me. Educate him on why it can never be right

I think you need to come down hard on this.

But I also want to say there was this kid at my school (back in the 90s) who used to draw swazstikas on his hand and on his exercise books. It was very weird.

He didn’t exhibit any behaviour, I don’t think he really understood the context of it all.

He didn’t grow up to show any anti semantic, facist or racist traits, he’s a very typical 40 year old.

Some times kids do weird shit and they don’t know why.

I just wanted to reassure you. But I agree you can’t shrug it off now that you know it’s floating about in his school.

Wow, what a shock for you.

He needs to realise how serious this is - and even if he was 'just part of it' - he's still engaging and encouraging that belief system. He can't just shut down and not want to talk.

If he was an adult, it would be a formal police matter.

Just be aware it could be a shitstorm. Kids got expelled from a school near me for something similar. For what its worth I absolutely agree school need to know and can offer targeted interventions. What I don't agree with is kids not being allowed to make mistakes through peer pressure and being severely punished rather than guided by their parents and teachers. Support your son and tread carefully. He could get backlash too. I don't actually know if it was me whether I would report it, due to the impact on my child, but that's probably very self

I suspect it's more peer pressure than a reflection of some inner turmoil. Nothing is more important to 13 year old than fitting in with peers, even if those peers are little shits. You may like to think your child would be brave enough to stand up to prejudice but risking being viewed as a grass or excluded from a friend group is very scary at school. Also, even nice kids can be little shits and get a kick out of being trangressive once in a while, their frontal lobes aren't matured enough to make correct choices all the time.
My DS did something very impulsive and stupid last summer after not coping with lockdown well and ended up with a police caution as he was 16 (it did not involve a hate crime) he had a real shock and has behaved ever since, me going on about it wouldn't help but i obviously keep an eye on him.
Get school involved for the strong consequences part.

@Wbeezer

I suspect it's more peer pressure than a reflection of some inner turmoil. Nothing is more important to 13 year old than fitting in with peers, even if those peers are little shits. You may like to think your child would be brave enough to stand up to prejudice but risking being viewed as a grass or excluded from a friend group is very scary at school. Also, even nice kids can be little shits and get a kick out of being trangressive once in a while, their frontal lobes aren't matured enough to make correct choices all the time. My DS did something very impulsive and stupid last summer after not coping with lockdown well and ended up with a police caution as he was 16 (it did not involve a hate crime) he had a real shock and has behaved ever since, me going on about it wouldn't help but i obviously keep an eye on him. Get school involved for the strong consequences part.

This exactly. DS did something similar, he was excluded from a friendship group for refusing to do things like this and then stupidly did it at another school as he didn't want to be excluded again. It's so hard for them sometimes and they are just kids. Yes they need to be dealt with harshly and explained to why this is so abhorrent but he is just a boy, boys do stupid things sometimes and as long as they can see the error of their ways and realise how hurtful this behaviour is you're on the right track.

Hopefully the school will see this for what it is and deal with it appropriately. It won't be something they haven't seen before and will understand about immature brains and making stupid mistakes.

Does he know any Jewish people? Or are you in an area without any/many?

As a Jew the thing I feel a lot of people need to know, especially younger ones who don't know any, is that we are real people! We are a tiny minority in this country and I think a lot of 'casual' antisemitism comes from people not knowing Jews and we just become a joke about being miserly ('Ha, you picked up a coin - Jew!) or worse a byword for conspiracies ('Did you know the Rothschilds....') and people forget we are ordinary humans going about our lives who this stuff harms. I think that is an important message to get across.

I suspect your son is at the 'just a joke' end - Nazis are taboo, so it's sort of naughty and boundary pushing, you don't know any Jews so you can say stuff about hem and think 'Well it's just a joke', but he needs talking to about the real impact of this on real people.

Thank you all for the replies - really helpful. To be clear we are telling school although as @gowalkabout says realise that may come back to bite son in various potentially big ways, but feel that is the only right course. @Mrs08 to reassure you that in no way was I trying to minimise it in any way or explain it away - it was just to provide some background and context. There are no excuses ever for this sort of thing that is clear, . @wbeezer your experience and @ohpulltheotherone were really helpful . Apologies I won't be able to come back on and reply for a bit but your support and views are helping navigate a shocking and shit situation and really appreciated

Teacher here- in an average comp in an average town- this is gaining ground- we are washing off swastikas regularly- lots of quiet, average boys - it's a 'fad' amongst them at the moment- we are coming down hard on it so please do contact the school
Agree re Prevent as well- they are dealing with a lot of far right radicalization at the moment and it is starting in schools- have a google of it OP- I am not sure if I can put the hashtags here but there are hashtags used on XBOX live, tiktok and Instagram that are very common and are actually horrific. The kids are then being desensitized - over half of our boys who used the hashtags/ drew the graffiti didn't have any idea what it was connected to- as a teacher of 23 years service its really worrying- the antisemitism and racism is higher than I have ever seen it

Thank you @Echobelly. It is quite a multi-raicial area, and will undoubtedly have Jewish members, but no Jewish community with a strong individual identity tbh and I hadn't thought to ask if there are Jewish boys in his class, and to personalise it that way. I will do now. His piano teacher is Jewish. I think you are right that it is just experimenting and it looks like they were playing some sort of game from what was written rather than actual beliefs, but he absolutely needs to understand the bigger picture. @crochetmonkey74 that is so worrying, but helpful to know it is going on elsewhere.

I wouldn't call being part of writing and sharing Nazi symbols and hate speech 'experimenting'.

Maybe a cigarette behind a bike shed or trying an alcopop, but not drawing a swastika.

@starrynight87 point taken. "experimenting" was a clumsy word and sentiment, written in haste and unsuitable to reflect the seriousness and offensiveness of what he has been a part of. I wasn't trying to defend it - it isn't defendable, but I do hope that this serious error of judgement doesn't make him a Nazi. I have informed school. In the context of mine and @crochetmonkey74's experience this is obviously on the increase. i would never have imagined one of my children would be stupid enough to join in this sort of thing but I've been proved wrong there.

@DrChasuble we too had to deal with this, luckily not my son but his friends. When we scrolled back through what they were sharing you could see it getting progressively worse, they were not coming up with stuff themselves but sharing memes. Ds came into the conversation very late but immediately came to us with it. I volunteer in a primary school so my sons knew about Prevent.

This twitter post by joanna schroeder, a mother herself hows you how this starts, it is a really good read but truly disturbing to see how children are sucked in to it

twitter.com/iproposethis/status/1161130456286289920?lang=en

Also if you have Netflix and haven't already watched Social Dilema with your son I recommend you do.

Have you checked his search history online? I would be worried about what he is accessing. But then if it's on TikTok I'm not sure how you'd check?

Just to update - school asked for a written statement from him- which he made and they have given him a one day exclusion. As the whole class is isolating and it's the last day of their year, I'm not sure he realises how serious this is- seems to just think it's good not to have to log on to home schooling. I dont know if hes just trying to brave it out but his focus seems very much that I've caused the problem because I reported it to school rather than that hes done something totally unacceptable which he really regrets.