13 year old cant process things

[Chick54321]

Hi my 13 year old has always struggled academically, he's bin diagnosed with dyslexia. We are working with school to see if he can get accepted to be tested for adhd and processing disorder. Things are starting to get serious, with school having to involve the police with his latest incident. He is well behaved at home and helps but his process things gets in the way, he can't follow simple instructions and he forgets alot of stuff. School asked us to go doctors to see if its his memory, they only asked a couple of questions(football related) they said nothings wrong with his memory. This has bin going on just over a year and he doesn't seem to understand the consequences and trouble he can get in, yet he's already bin warned before. The last teacher I spoke to was really concerned with his focusing and when told what to do he just stared threw her. Has this happened with anyone else? Struggling with what to do

What are the behaviours that are getting him into trouble at school?

A girl from his school sent him a nude and he sent it on to his friend which is the police incident. In school he refuses to work, walks out of lessons, makes silly noises, truancy, calling teachers names, smashed a window. He can't see anything he's doing wrong and will do it all the next day no matter of the punishment. He's different at home always helping, doesn't backchat just processing thing we struggle with

Sometimes autistic children just can't link cause and effect with respect to understanding consequences of their actions. They can also find it really hard to predict the future, especially other people's reactions to things, so they don't think about other people disapproving or being punished when they have an impulse to do something.

Even though he is not necessarily autistic, it might be worth trying some of the tools used to help autistic children with this kind of processing. Social stories and comic strip conversations spring to mind.

These issues are not due to a processing disorder..this isn’t just him not understanding consequences. This is highly concerning anti-social behavior that you seem to be dismissing by as him being silly. He distributed indecent images of children and is violent.
What exactly are the consequences YOU are putting in place for his behaviour? I hope that young girl that he violated is okay.

Exactly. All the 'oh but...' posters are just ridiculous. The constant excuses for dreadful behaviour are ridiculous.

It is truly mind-boggling! What kind of adults will we be putting out into the world by making excuses like this?! He may very well have problems processing information. Many children do! It doesn’t mean they are by default engaging in harmful and violent behaviour. These are separate issues entirely. The mental gymnastics some people do to excuse awful behaviour like this is Olympic worthy!

There is more to it than that. She shared photos of him 1st because he broke up with her which is why he sent it his friend, this post isn't about that its the fact hes not understand what he's done it wrong. 1 for sending her nudes and 2 for sharing hers.

I agree with all of this. This is serious and quite disturbing behaviour. I feel so sorry for his classmates and teachers.

It doesn't matter why. It’s illegal. There is ZERO excuse for this. Girls are allowed to break up with boyfriends without being punished by them!! How are you not sick to your stomach about that? That is very much what this post is about. You just don’t want to go there because you have excused it away. I don’t think he doesn’t understand I think he doesn’t care. Again, what consequences did he receive from you? What did you do about it?

How long has this been going on? That level of defiance and violence is rarely sudden.

Has school had him oberved by an EP or referred him to anyone else? Have you asked the GP for a referal to CAHMS

That's really quite chilling: "she broke up with him so he shared intimate photos of her without her consent".

Absolutely, I feel it's very much 'poor him, not his fault, she broke up with him'

They're 13!!!

this probably isn't just processing disorder.

From what you've described, he is disruptive at school, shared photos of a girl (which is a crime) and does not show any remorse for his behaviour or seem to learn to improve.

you could look up the Facebook group for parents of children with conduct disorder
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ParentsofChildrenwCD/

and get this book
https://www.amazon.com/Before-Its-Too-Late-Trouble/dp/0812930657#ace-g2342880709

13 ffs, 13?? You seem very flippant about it. That's not a processing disorder.

Are there any consequences at home for smashing windows, sharing nude photos (child pornography), disrespecting teachers? These issues are very serious and are much more than “processing issues”.
Given he is 13, you only have a small window of opportunity to turn this around before he becomes a lot stronger than you and starts ruling the house.
You need to come down hard on this behaviour and get him some therapy to learn how to control his anger/impulses.

My Dd is 14 and has sensory processing disorder, adhd, dyslexia and an attachment disorder and behaved like that before she had therapy. Now she knows how to handle herself and her feelings and school is a lot better. She knows what to do when she can't regulate as do the teachers. For example she can't take things in for a white board and remember them to then complete the work so she has the work printed on a piece of paper in front of her. It's learning ways to help her compensate x

This sort of behaviour is common in children and teens who are not able to access the work at school and struggle to self-regulate.

I worked in a secondary school for a number of years and in general the children and teens who were like this often struggled with reading and writing and so they worried every lesson about being shamed in front of their peers.

Op, how does the dyslexia affect your son? Is he able to read and write enough that the lessons help him learn?

If he can't access any of the lessons then this sort of acting out is common.

In my school children with these issues often spent a significant amount of time in learning support with 1:1 support on additional maths and English and also looking at emotional regulation (we used Zones of regulation). Does his school have anything like that in place?

Actually, if you read what the OP said, it was her son who broke up with her, and she then shared photos of him. She says this quite clearly.

3 people with poor reading comprehension already on this thread.

OP - can you afford private therapy for him? It sounds like additional support is needed as quickly as possible to avoid behaviours becoming embedded. Assessments for things like ADHD can have insanely long waiting lists. What are the school doing/proposing in the meantime? What support is in place for the dyslexia?

The OP clearly stated that her son broke up with the girl.

I agree with @Octavia64

Can your child read, OP?
Can he read the texts he is supposed to be studying in school this year, in history, English, RE, maths, science, and other subjects?

You need to book your son an appointment with an educational psychologist to be assessed for severity of dyslexia and for many other issues - ADHD, impulse control issues, short term memory problems.

Don't wait for the school to set the wheels in motion. Find the money and pay.

Hi, with dyslexia, "working memory" (different to regular memory) can be badly affected which can cause a lot of stress. We were advised to enrol dd1 on stress management and relaxation classes as she gets older because she scored very low on working memory. When your son was diagnosed did you receive a report from the psychologist? It should provide further info and some recommendations. Good luck, let us know how you get on xx

Aren't you checking his phone OP? He's distributing pictures of naked kids. They shouldn't be sharing nude pictures at all and surely he is aware of the law.

What else is he doing online?

You didn’t read it correctly before you judged…. It says she shared photos of HIM because HE broke up with HER. She did it first and he retaliated.

he’s still wrong but you should read it properly