Young teen hanging with a bad crowd
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Anonymous
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I debated whether to put this here or on the SN forum. My 13 yo has severe adhd. He has experienced bullying and exclusion. He has trouble making and keeping friends.
He recently started hanging out with a couple of 14 yo boys and they are really bad kids. They vandalize and vape and get into trouble at school. Ds is young so we still have some control over who he sees and where he goes. As he gets older, we lose control. This has me very worried. How do you discourage a teen from making these types of friends? Especially when they don’t have a lot of other options? |
Anonymous
| This is where you exert parental control while you still can, while being clear about why you don’t want him hanging around with these kids. You ask him what he likes about them and listen carefully to his answers. You explain why you don’t like the choices they make and how they don’t align with your family values. Get him involved with other groups of kids and other activities. Ask the school social worker for suggestions of groups or other things for kids his age. Send him to camp. |
Anonymous
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I was going to also say work to get him involved in other activities. Try sports, church groups, anything you can find.
Get to know everyone you can. Volunteer at school as much as you are able. Go to all BTSNs and other activities where you can get to know teachers and principals. Go to school activities and drive other kids home who need rides. Make your home the hang out place if you can. Make sure he is in the best school placement available for him. Look into HS options. We had school choice and we also had a vo tech option. Vo tech was great because kids who are problems aren’t eligible and kids can find their groups in their program. Make sure the IEP is optimal and provide whatever outside supports he needs for success. If he starts getting into trouble try to connect with your police if you have community policing. |
Anonymous
+1. Peers are the story as teens and it can make or break your kid and his future. As Coach K quoted his mother, “get on the right bus.” |
Anonymous
| You can’t control who he is friends with. If you try, you’ll only damage your own relationship with him. |
Anonymous
| If the kids he wants to be friends with don’t want to be friends, he will find someone to be friends with. It’s common. Some people here think that sports is the only activity available. Not true, there are plenty of options to look into |
Anonymous
This is not true. Sure, if you just bring the hammer down and end the discussion, maybe. But as more of a collaborative effort, with plenty of engagement on the parents' part, of course you can. And should. |
Anonymous
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Bring these friends into your home regularly and make sure you judge them for yourself rather than some sort of “reputation” heard from gossipy adults.
Banning an impulsive kid with no other friends from hanging with his only friends is likely a fools task and honestly pretty cruel besides. Tell him he can only hang out at your house with them for now. Get to know them. Don’t judge them but make sure they know your rules. Have awesome snacks and otherwise a relaxed environment and good video games. It’s my experience that these kinds of kids aren’t bad (after all they are including your son, who apparently is a bit of a school pariah) just poorly supervised and/or struggling with some home problems. Often these are the first kids to engage with me as a parent and be better with my kids when they don’t want to risk the same space of my home. |
Anonymous
| Safe space of my home, I mean. |
Anonymous
NP and this can be true but still be careful. My son had a friend like this and we did just that. We had the kid over and they hung out at our house, not his. It was that, he wasn’t bad but had zero supervision and the parents were never around. They weren’t home at all and there was no food there. We made sure our house was safe and there was plenty of food. But my son met another group who were trouble. These kids skipped school during the day to go vape and would take their parents cars before they had a license to pick each other up. This was happening at 15. I did everything to make sure he wasn’t hanging out with them outside of school hours. No friends were better than this group. |
Anonymous
| My parents moved my brother from our high school when he got in wrong crowd and it was life changing for him. I think she saw where the path was going and realized a change needed to happen. The way she arranged this was genius. She never mentioned the kids he was hanging with and just focused on the opportunity to be at this incredible school. It was an incredible school. Sometimes a change in environment works. FYI if your son has adhd and is vulnerable these friends could be hanging with him to get his meds so be super careful about that. |
Anonymous
This. You need to change schools or consider homeschooling. This will only get worse, a lot worse, if you keep him at current school. You are right, you will lose control of who hangs out with very soon, but it’s partially lost already. |
Anonymous
| I would change schools or homeschool |
Anonymous
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At 13/14 we had the same issue. We put our foot down and communicated that there’s no scenario where having friends who violate people’s property are aloud. We further told our goal as parents is to raise productive members of society, surrounding themselves with people who are liabilities reflect a lack of character on their part. Yes, our approach is a bit overbearing, but that kid did stop hanging out with the loser kids and have mostly toed the line.
However, I’m sure both my kids have experimented here and there as they don’t live in a bubble, but they were always mindful of disappointing us. Recently, my youngest one, 22, told me he was going to Miami with a college friend for spring break. The friend has a high roller uncle in Miami with a beach house in South Beach and gets chauffeured around in limos. I’ve spend time in south beach and know those types, so I said, no way is that acceptable, that someone like that in South Beach would likely be involved in all kinds of nefarious things, including drugs. It was judgy of me and he blew his top at me and didn’t speak to me for a month. Other family members cautioned him about the trip as well - he ended up not going on the trip - it takes a village. Culturally, we can get away with offering unsolicited and unwelcome advice to our kids without them hating us. Our approach may not work for you, but you still have to communicate your family boundaries. That is, as parents some of the expectations you have of them is that, they choose friends of character, that don’t vandalize and violate people |
Anonymous
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Wow! My kids are younger, but I cannot imagine prohibiting a 22 year old from going on a trip to Florida… or being prohibited smth by my parents as a 22 year old.
How do they learn to make their own choices and learn from their mistakes? |