Advice please... Am I doing the right thing or are there other ways to deal with my son's behaviour?
Basically since my son (16) started in year 11 he has started to hang around with a load of what I call chavs! He has only just started going out with a group of friends, he used to be happy to stay in on his pc. A couple of the lads go to his school but they all know people from other schools in the area and sometimes there are a group of 50 of them roaming the streets.
I've had nothing but trouble with him since before Christmas, he even got beaten up by 5 lads and we had to get the police involved. I don't have any trouble as such with him at home, he's not rude to me or anything, he's fairly well behaved but most recently he got his phone confiscated at school for messing with it in lesson and he called his teacher a 'fucking bender'. To say I'm mortified is an understatement and this is just the last straw. I've taken the phone off him, which I only bought him a couple of months ago, and given his old phone back and told him that until he finds new friends he won't be allowed out.
The list of things he's done/that have happened since before Christmas include being late for school, constant detentions, stealing the covers from emergency stop buttons on trams (he will be on CCTV), drinking, smoking weed, vaping, constantly getting things stolen from him by so-called friends including almost getting his phone stolen last week by some chav who snatched it from him and punched him in the chest! His friend was threatened with a knife because he has a nice watch that someone wanted and my son was stabbed in the chest with a compass twice and hit across the legs with a metal rod (in school!!!) for something that happened outside of school.
I'm at the end of my rope really, obviously I am now ruining his life and he's telling friends he will start to walk out or sneak out if I try to keep him in