10 year old getting into trouble at school...

[romz169]

A little background to start.

DW and I started seeing each other 3 years ago and just officially got together and moved in with each other just under a year ago. We are now married and have a son of 5 months. She has a son (10 year old) that I am now a step father too. Before me she was with very little men and it was just her and her son.

The last year has been good, up until 8 weeks ago when we started planning our wedding. DS(10 year old) has started acting out in school. It seems like at least once a week he is getting into trouble. Not regular kid trouble but in-school suspension trouble. We are also getting reports from his teachers that his work is degrading. He has also talked about ending his life and hurting himself.

None of this behavior is exhibited at home at all. Around any of his family he acts just fine, this seems to only come up while at school.

We started with punishments, but they don't seem to be working. DW is getting him into consoling and not really continuing with punishment till we talked with his consoler.

How would you guys handle this?

 

[Kaytee]

I would think that if this is happening only at school then maybe the problem is there. Maybe he is being bullied so he is acting out. I would talk to the school and see about getting him to talk to a counslor about his problems.

 

[mbw2123]

My son is 11. He is a pretty good kid at home. Very sweet and loving. However he has the moments where he will act out at school with in school suspension thing, steal, lie. But at home he's pretty good. We didn't know what to do. Nothing we tried worked. As a last resort we tried the Total Transformation Program and my husband and I learned we had ineffective parenting skill. We have learned to coach and problem solve with him. The amazing thing is before he never wanted to talk to us about what was bothering him. He would clam up. Our family members told us that someone had done something to him to cause him to have built up anger. The first time he acted out after we got the program we sat him down to talk. This first time we were coached from the Parent support line, who are amazing! The lady told us if he yelled or acted out when we talked to him....I stopped her and explained he never yells at us he just clams up. She then told me that it was the same thing. He had power over the conversation. We have guidlines when we sit to problem solve. He must talk honestly, where we can hear him, and he must participate. If he cant participate in the right way he loosed tv privilages untill he can talk. For the first time in four years my son talked to us about what was going on in his life. We were then able to teach him how to solve his problems the right way. The total transformation has been an amazing thing in our life and we appreciate the work that James Lehaman has done with it.
Total Transformation