Teenage son and Andrew Tate

[Zippidydoodah]

Please help. We are at our wits’ end. The boy’s behaviour at school and home is off the scale terrible, and I think he might be into Andrew Tate though I don’t know to what extent. He has Snapchat and I’ve been through it but obviously Snapchat doesn’t save stuff.

So, any advice as to how to handle this? Would getting him a “dumb phone” help, or just alienate him further?

Please please help. Thank you

How old?

This might be useful. I’ll find a link too, hang on…

Here’s the link

He’s 13.

thank you but I can’t see a link? The image is a bit small to read and pixelated when zoomed in. Thanks again

https://www.boldvoices.co.uk/blog/andrew-tate

this is from an educational charity and may help you frame your discussion. You might want to mention it to the school as the PSHE syllabus should cover toxic masculinity.

good luck!

Link

What sort of behaviours?
I’d address each one calmly and educate him. Andrew Tate is very good at creating a captive audience of vulnerable young people who look up to “celebrity” because of the cars and watches and shiny posts. However, anything he says can be easily discredited with actual facts. Also, check in with his friends - he may or may not be viewing this bollocks but his friends might be.

in my opinion 13 is young enough that the phone can be removed if he’s proven himself not to be mature enough to have one. If his behaviour at home and at school is bad, he should lose his privileges.

Get him into a team sport so he has weekly exercise, keep in close contact with the school, and consistently discipline poor behaviour.

Has he any older/more mature cousins that he could spend more time with? I was badly behaved in school around 11/12 and was sat down by my cousins about my ‘embarrassing’ behaviour. It worked.

Get him into a team sport so he has weekly exercise, keep in close contact with the school, and consistently discipline poor behaviour.

we do all of these already. 😢

The phone has been removed but I know he’ll badger me nonstop about getting it back. I will look into a dumb phone that we can still track him on; apparently this is possible.

Thank you for the links 👍

His cousins are all much younger, unfortunately.

I had this with my son. So I started following Andrew Tate and watching all his current posts, along with older stuff he had posted. There is some very strong positive messaging in with all mysogeny , aggression and wealth boasts. I talked to my son daily about the latest post and the messaging, good and bad. We watched Tate soundly beat Piers Morgan at Speed Chess whilst being interviewed. We looked at another Tate/Morgan interview and Tate did not come across well at all. It was a good way of bringing up the topics with a son who although usually quiet was willing to argue to defend Tate. Also, if your mum is interesting in something it becomes boring really quickly.

A dumb phone my alienate him from any friends he has.
If he has an android phone you can set up Google family that blocks access to certain apps. I'm not sure if apple have anything similar. I've done this with my son and I've blocked access to you tube, Snapchat etc. He still has WhatsApp to keep in the loop with his friends and can still access the school apps that he needs.

That might be worth looking into.

Every time my 13yo dd "badgers me" about something I've put a timeframe on (phone ban/grounding/time to decide something) I add a day on.

She rarely does it any more.

Why are you bothered by "badgering"? Parent that right out of him. Pester power only works if you allow it.

Tell him that the more he badgers you, the longer he’ll need to wait. Keep a tally if need be. Stick to your guns. Remove any other tech or privileges and only return for good behaviour. Also offer a treat for a week of good behaviour - he gets to go somewhere/do something with you that he enjoys.

I partly agree with this, but it’s very ‘make him’ do sport, ‘take’ his phone. In my experience working with teenagers, making and taking can just alienate them, so I would reframe this as: speak to him about his interests and find a positive activity he can take part in, discuss world issues listen to his views and offer alternative perspectives if needed. I do agree with blocking Snapchat, monitoring his social media and use of you tube. Also might be worth speaking to school as Andrew Tate is basically radicalisation. I work at a boys school and we are really aware of this as a problem. Good male role models are so important and we have some amazing mentors and staff who the boys really look up to who can be brilliant for interventions - hopefully your sons school might have similar.

This is brilliant.
He can have the phone back when he grows up. Ridiculous behaviour.

Andrew Tate has daddy issues.
If you look at some of the cruel things his dad did to him as a child you will see how he came to be. He tells the stories himself and reframes them as character building, it’s horrible.

I’m on Facebook and he must have paid promotion because I started to get random clips when I scrolled and I wasn’t engaging with anything like it to begin with.

Thank you for all the posts.

i must say that “badgering” never, ever leads to us giving in. It just doesn’t. He’s had a long list of chores to do today before he got his phone back. He has an iPhone and I think the parental restrictions lift after 13 but I’ll look into it (and get him an android if need be, although I have one for work and I hate it! 😆)

We have a meeting arranged with school after half term and I will definitely raise this with them.

Not helpful 🙄

The problem with this is that it’s hard to find anything that really motivates him. He’s not intrinsically or externally motivated. He’ll just give in. This is most worrying. He did jobs to get his phone back; it seems that that is all he actually cares about, which is very sad.

I would definitely remove his phone op and either get a dumb phone or make sure he has no access to social media, no Snapchat, no YouTube etc and check his phone every week. I do all of this anyway with my 13 yo. They're just too young to be left to their own devices on the internet.

Snapchat is so dangerous for children. And you can set parental controls on iPhones the same way Google accounts allow it - my nephew is 14 and his mum and dad are still able to limit what he has access to and when.

I’ve been in and changed the restrictions, but I can’t see how or where to stop him using Snapchat now that he’s downloaded it already. (Even though I made him delete it; I’ve put on ask to download apps but think it might be too late as he’s probably already reinstated it.)

There’s various accounts on Instagram (and I assume other platforms) that respond to videos put out by ‘alpha males’ and point out their ridiculousness. Might be worth a search so DS can see different points of view and opinions. Will Hitchins is one I know of on Insta.