Our teen only wants to hang out with the “bad” kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What age and grade?

13, 7th

Sorry people are giving you a hard time. I understand your dilemma and yes there are “bad” kids that can be a terrible influence on others.

So you’ve eliminated socializing with him outside of school, right? How much time are they spending together at school? I’m assuming they switch classes every hour so they likely aren’t in class together much or at all. Is this just lunch?

Keep your son in an academic schedule that doesn’t match friend’s..maybe more advanced classes, band as an elective, etc. Start planning now for summer. I would send him to a good multi week boys sleepaway camp, if you can. Not only are they amazing anyhow, but that will widen his pool of friends, keep his busy, and expose him to other boys and adults that are doing mostly positive things. If you can’t do that, then arrange sports and academic camps at home to keep him occupied and engaged in positive things and people. See what things look like after summer and switch schools if summer ends up bringing them closer rather than making distance

[Anonymous]

7th grade?

I’d pivot here and take this friend in. You aren’t going to succeed in keeping them apart, outside of moving schools.

Bring the kid over and build a relationship with him where you can influence their mutual decisions. Your son is going through puberty and at 12/13/14 they want to prove how grown up they are, most kids at this age are attracted to being “bad”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:7th grade?

I’d pivot here and take this friend in. You aren’t going to succeed in keeping them apart, outside of moving schools.

Bring the kid over and build a relationship with him where you can influence their mutual decisions. Your son is going through puberty and at 12/13/14 they want to prove how grown up they are, most kids at this age are attracted to being “bad”

Hard no. This kid is already on a steady negative trajectory probably due to a lot of factors. Him coming to your house isn’t going to change that. You can’t reverse 12-13 yrs of bad parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The best thing you can do is limit their orbit. Keep your son out of this friend’s classes by keeping him academically advanced tracked, in the accelerated programs and then later the AP classes. Insist your son be involved in extracurriculars of his choice, a sport each season at least. And be frank with him that that boy is making bad choices and by simple association it will ultimately trickle down to him, even if he doesn’t “participate” in the negative activities the other boy is doing.

Hey, I’m sorry this is such implicit bias. So because the kids are smart, there are more likely to be upper middle class. I’m thinking you think and not be in trouble? The wildest kids that my daughter hung out with were the smartest ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7th grade?

I’d pivot here and take this friend in. You aren’t going to succeed in keeping them apart, outside of moving schools.

Bring the kid over and build a relationship with him where you can influence their mutual decisions. Your son is going through puberty and at 12/13/14 they want to prove how grown up they are, most kids at this age are attracted to being “bad”

Hard no. This kid is already on a steady negative trajectory probably due to a lot of factors. Him coming to your house isn’t going to change that. You can’t reverse 12-13 yrs of bad parenting

Good luck then. Op’s son will just participate without OP.

I’d personally want to observe the relationship dynamic. Because I find a lot of parents love to blame other kids, bc their kids are innocent angels in their eyes and it must be someone else’s fault always.


And you absolutely can influence their decisions or at least gain insight into the kid, his family, his motivations, which can also work in your favor if the kids need to be separated. This strategy has worked really well for me over the years.

[Anonymous]

Have you asked your son why he likes this kid? Obviously there's some reason he wants to be around him and get his attention. You can definitely speak to your son's guidance counselor and request that he's not in the same homeroom or elective class as this child. Now is the time to have that conversation because it's about to be second semester and a lot of kids will be moving classes around. You're well within your rights to make the request, especially since there has already been disciplinary action that involved both boys. It's pretty unusual to get a suspension these days so I'm guessing whatever happened must've been serious and it probably wasn't the first time for the other kid. I'm a middle school teacher and the parent of a middle schooler and based on what you've said, you're right to be concerned.

[Anonymous]

You can’t force him not to be friends with him but you can make a difference. First, make sure your son is busy, ideally with a school-based activity. He is drawn to this kid because he doesn’t feel like he belongs. He’s at a new school and he’s at an insecure age. He needs more friends. Second, invite the other boy over and be sweet and real with him. I’d bet money he acts out because he’s looking for attention, and negative attention is better than the “no attention” he’s getting at home, maybe because his parents are preoccupied with older siblings’ problems. You can help meet his needs and potentially give him a view of a different way of managing his life. He’s not happy either. Be authentic with both of them. Tell your son transparently what you’re concerned about, but do it from a good-hearted, calm and loving place. Don’t be punitive. And tell the other kid what your expectations are of both boys as well. He won’t want to risk losing your son’s friendship, especially if he enjoys being at your (calm, loving, nurturing) home.

[Anonymous]

You don’t say why you switched his school but that does seem to be the trigger for the change. You also don’t say if returning to the old school is an option. Finally you aren’t clear as to what type of school - mainstream public, special needs program, advanced studies program, private . . .

Agree that the school isn’t going to help. You’re on your own here. That leaves two options. Either try punishment or structure his life for success. If you’re going to punish, it needs to be severe enough to make it worth changing.

As to restructuring his life, that’s a lot of hard work and very time consuming. I’m f you want to go hard core, then you have to do all drop offs and pick ups from school and sign him out for lunch. You have to set up other life opportunities for his success - someone mentioned church but classes, ice skating lessons, art classes, whatever else you can think of will do. You need to take the phone if he has one so you can cut off all contact that you don’t approve of. I could continue but you get the drift. It’s really hard to do but if your kid is going down a bad path and you aren’t successful in stopping it, you’re in for a whole lot worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7th grade?

I’d pivot here and take this friend in. You aren’t going to succeed in keeping them apart, outside of moving schools.

Bring the kid over and build a relationship with him where you can influence their mutual decisions. Your son is going through puberty and at 12/13/14 they want to prove how grown up they are, most kids at this age are attracted to being “bad”

Hard no. This kid is already on a steady negative trajectory probably due to a lot of factors. Him coming to your house isn’t going to change that. You can’t reverse 12-13 yrs of bad parenting

Plus it's hard to branch out to other friends if you're investing time in that kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen, friends matter. But you need to address your concerns as choices your own kid is making, not the "bad influence" kid.

This. Either teach him not to be a follower or to choose who he is following more closely. He is the one making the bad decisions. Help him with that; it's a lot more valuable to him than just removing influences you think are bad. You aren't going to be there in college or at work, right?

That all makes sense theoretically, but it’s hard to see him so easily influenced.

How do you teach not to be a follower?

OP therapy now.
Get someone outside your family involved.
This is not going to end well.

Therapy for what exactly?

I was asking PP to explain what she meant?

This is 12:01. Therapy for whatever is going on. You may not know until you have an evaluation. In our case, our child as diagnosed with general anxiety disorder. We eventually went to a psych who diagnosed DS with anxiety and depression caused by unaddressed ADHD (as noted in my previous pose, the school denied DS services to address his ADHD because he had gotten into trouble).

[Anonymous]

I had this in 6th grade with my son. He befriended a kid that was a real jerk and getting into some minor vandalism and just generally disrespectful. Did not do well in school and got in trouble at school a lot

My kid outgrew the friendship. Realized on his own the kid was a jerk. I know this won't happen every time. It did help that in 7th they had no classes together. You could go to the school and ask they are not in class together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can’t force him not to be friends with him but you can make a difference. First, make sure your son is busy, ideally with a school-based activity. He is drawn to this kid because he doesn’t feel like he belongs. He’s at a new school and he’s at an insecure age. He needs more friends. Second, invite the other boy over and be sweet and real with him. I’d bet money he acts out because he’s looking for attention, and negative attention is better than the “no attention” he’s getting at home, maybe because his parents are preoccupied with older siblings’ problems. You can help meet his needs and potentially give him a view of a different way of managing his life. He’s not happy either. Be authentic with both of them. Tell your son transparently what you’re concerned about, but do it from a good-hearted, calm and loving place. Don’t be punitive. And tell the other kid what your expectations are of both boys as well. He won’t want to risk losing your son’s friendship, especially if he enjoys being at your (calm, loving, nurturing) home.

Thank you to everyone who posted.

This comment above really resonated with me. I do think my son is just trying to figure out who he is and how he fits in. He is in public school and just moved up from a smallish elementary school to a large middle school. He has said that this friend is funny - maybe that is the attraction. Plus, he is very different than his ES friends so maybe some novelty.

Yesterday, a friend of his from elementary school convinced him to join the after-school activity with him (he needed a buddy himself) so my son is going to give that a try after all. I'm very relieved that he's venturing out to join a new group and will hopefully meet new people. He sounded more like himself towards the end of the week - dropped the attitude.

If his friendship with "the kid with concerning behaviors" doesn't fizzle out I will rethink having him come over to our place. But, for now, I'm going to be quiet about the friend (but obviously not any bad behaviors) and see where it leads.