Son's behaviour - CBT recommendations or any other advice? Post Reply

[NVN_MumHelp]

Hi, our son started secondary school and has had a few behavioural concerns raised - play fighting/wrestling in essence but also not listening when asked to stop.

We and school have talked to him and there have been consequences/sanctions. We want to prevent it happening and are worried about him developing a bad reputation as well as the risk of harming someone.

Would anyone with experience of this recommend CBT / counselling? Or any other advice welcome.

thanks

[The Parent Team]

It makes total sense to be concerned that this approach to settling into his new school isn’t going to help him going forward. We all recognise that being ‘happy’ and having good friends during these crucial years is really important to our mental health, as well as academic outcomes.

Have you been able to discuss what’s going on with him in any depth? Starting secondary school is so hard. You go from a big fish in small familiar pond, to a very tiny fish in a strange new ocean with different currents and tides to navigate. There’s so much to learn and do, it can be very overwhelming. And it happens at the same as you are driven to want to impress your peers! I wonder whether your son is playfighting and wrestling in the hope it will make him feel powerful and in control, because it may well be he feels the complete opposite in his new environment. That’s not to say he won’t be absolutely fine at the school going forward. It’s just he's taken a maladaptive coping strategy to fit in. You could try starting a conversation with some empathy along the lines of “it must be hard adjusting to your new school, and finding ways to fit in and get along with so many new people” or words to that effect. From there, the conversation is more likely to develop than when we start with “you really can’t do this” etc. I suspect your son knows the playfighting and wrestling isn’t the right approach, even without receiving sanctions! The trick is to help him find a positive way to feel in control and fit in with his peers. As for the not stopping, once he’s started playfighting and wrestling his physical body and emotional brain become dominant making it very hard to switch to his cognitive brain and put the brakes on. It’s less that he’s not listening than he can’t comply as quickly as he needs to.

There is always lots of things going on in these situations, and if you want to discuss this further, drop us a line at hello@theparent.team to arrange a free 30-minute chat and we can run through it in more detail.
 

[Catia_Soares]

Hi good morning,

I've seen your post and I would be keen to help your son.
I'm a local Psychologist and therapist (Battersea Rise) with an extensive experience of working with 12+ and all the issues that may come up during school years (e.g. anxiety, low moods and self-esteem, behavioural issues) and life transitions like this - starting secondary school that can clearly impact someone's sense of self and their relationship with the outside world.

My email is mindmoodpsychonutrition@gmail.com and website www.mindmoodpsychonutrition.
You can also look up my profile here:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/coun ... on/1053578

Looking forward to hearing back from you and we can arrange an initial chat if you like.

Kind regards
Catia

[Cheekyone]

Play fighting at school where you are there to learn, is a no-no, but it's hard to answer in terms of your son having an issue, without more context.
Is play-fighting a thing you do at home which now he is older and bigger he needs to grow out of? how is your son's relationship with his father . Is he fully engaged at school, or a bit bored at times ;) etc

The school now have given boundaries and warnings, as have you, so in order to stop it happening again, I'd be interested in trying to find out in a non judgmental way, why he acts like this.
Hopefully no deep reason, just energetic and he will just observe the boundaries given, and things will improve.