Hey all, throw away because my main account is identifiable as me.So over the past year my son (15) has gotten a ton of detentions, and been suspended twice, we obviously have been doing the usual punishments on top of that, but at the same time he's gotten so quiet and to be honest I could not believe he was doing these things but a parent never does right? It was such a sudden change in behaviour. He's been 8 months without his games or anything at this point, just sits in his room drawing....Now here's where it gets weird, on Wednesday we took our son to a specialist doctor for some scans and tests, completely unrelated to behavioural issues. Then yesterday we got a call from the vice principal that he has been suspended for 2 weeks, (and that they are considering expelling him completely) for punching and quite seriously hurting another child on.....Wednesday..... the day he wasn't at school, the one day he was literally never out of our sight. Some kid had been punched in the face, had to go to hospital, refused to tell anyone who it was until the day after, he blamed my son, so did EVERY OTHER KID that "witnessed" this event, we are talking 10 or so kids here. Our son admitted he did it. He asked us to come to the school and pick him up immediately.So I went to the school, and asked to speak to the VP, the front desk informed me that he was teaching classes for the next 3 hours, I said I would wait, she looked very confused and called the class, he came and said I had 5 min. I got straight to the point and asked him how my son was able to do what I am being told he did when he was a. not in school, and b. with us the entire day. He looked rather shocked by this and said that I must have my days mixed up and that I am wasting his time. Of course I told him to check the registers, sure enough, absent for all classes and a note was on file explaining why he wouldn't be there, he started making calls quite franticly, not sure who he was calling but with each call he turned more pale.At this point he took us both into his office and told the receptionist to go get my son.Before my son arrived another teacher came into the room, the VP asked her if he was sure that my son was the one that he saw, he confirmed, after which the VP threw the attendance records into the other teachers face! Literally shouting at this woman something like "HOW CAN THAT BE THE CASE WHEN HE WAS NOT EVEN HERE!". Apparently she saw the scuffle from across the playground, but when she got to it everyone had dispersed, she dealt with the other kid, took him to get checked out inside, after which he was sent to the hospital, at this point she wasn't sure who did it, however when she was told that my son had done it the next day, it "clicked" in her head and she ended up being semi sure it was, the boy was about his build apparently...... anyway, she left with an "I'll deal with you later" from the VP. Next the principle comes in, the entire situation is explained to her, her face turns quite red during this. My son arrived about half way though this explanation and the principle just stared at my son as she was being told this stuff, looking more and more angry.She then asked my son, quite aggressively why he had admitted to this and wasted everyone's time.This is where my jaw hit the floor, my son replied, "if I don't admit to it the punishment will be worse and everyone hates me so what's the point defending myself?" I think my heart snapped in the moment.........The principle then asked how long this has been going on, and my son said "over a year". This is where my son broke down into sobbing, really racking sobbing. The principle then started going through lists of things that my son had taken the punishment for, my son just answered "no" to every one of them. The VP had left the room and come back with a USB stick during this, he was looking physically sick at this point. The school has a policy of saving footage from the video cameras around the time serious incidents happen, you know... for legal reasons, aka if they have to defend themselves later. The footage around the 2 suspensions was still on record, however the person told to save the footage didn't know who was involved etc, they just got told to save it. No one involved in the punishment of my son even looked at it because.....my son admitted to it, why bother? There was no footage of the other instances that led to detentions etc, either they were not serious enough to be saved or they happened somewhere without cameras.The principle and VP then watched both bits of footage on the VPs computer, they would not let me see. About half way though their viewing session the principle hit the desk really hard in anger (son started crying again at this point)..... I don't think I have ever seen someone so angry. Shock was setting in at this point to be honest.The principle then sat a chair down in front of my son, and said in a very cold way "Explain yourself."(both the videos had shown he wasn't even present at either incident). I asked him to tone it down a notch and that my son has clearly been going through a lot, he gave me a look, and said to me, "your son has been lying and covering up very serious events, an act in and of its self is just as serious, if not more serious, than what he admitted to in the first place.". I tried to cut in at this point buy my son spoke first and said that if he didn't the other kids would hurt him and bully him...... Immediately the principle shot back with "and they paid you with what to do this? Drugs? Money? No one is this stupid, you entire record is nothing but a red flag to every institution you will go to in the future. You must have been getting something out of it.". This led to a shouting match between me and the principle. My son has been on house arrest by us for the past 8 months, we drop him off at school, we pick him up, he doesn't go ANYWHERE in between so how the hell could he be out taking drugs unless the school was allowing this to happen under their watch? Or something like that, I can't remember what I said because I was so angry.The principle then said she was going to push for expulsion because of the seriousness of what MY SON DID. At this point my son managed to speak up, which surprised everyone in the room, and said something along the lines of "I tried to ask for help from teachers but they ignored me, every time I got blamed and I tried to explain it wasn't me I got more punishments for trying to lie." Again I'm sorry I don't remember exactly what was said but it's as close as I can get. What I do remember however is that this is where I was physically sick into the VPs bin. I was in shock, I could not believe this.So the picture is now this, my son has been bullied constantly for the past year, other students have been ganging up on him and blaming him for things, when he tried to say it was not him, the teachers increased the punishment until he admitted to it. Of course I was getting phone calls and letters about these things explaining why he was punished, and I am so ashamed to say it but when he tried to deny it to us, his parents, the people who are meant to have his back, we did the EXACT. SAME. THING. We reinforced that if he ever tries to get help he will be punished more...... how do you come to terms with that?We believed the teachers, we thought he was telling fibs to try and get out of being ground or get his games and tv, and almost everything he owned that we took away (and in a lot of cases SOLD or GIVEN AWAY) the only thing that was left was his pencils and drawing books and how could we take that?The principle got me some water, told us both to go home and he will phone me today (Friday) and that my son is still suspended, this time for....all of this. He said he will contact a board and that a serious investigation now needs to take place. He would likely still be expelled because his actions have put other students in danger by allowing other student to get away with some very serious stuff, stuff that they have likely continued to do because they did not get punished. Am I the only one here who thinks the makes no sense on several levels?Anyway I knew we wouldn't get anywhere at this point so we leave, I wrote down everything I could remember as soon as I got home.My son wont speak to us, just cries when we try to talk to him, when we got home he went into his room lay down on his bed and has not moved apart from going to the bathroom in nearly 32 hours, he wont eat, he wont drink, he wont talk, he wont let us touch him.The principle phoned today and informed me that my husband and I are required to attend a meeting with himself, several teachers and members of the school board on Monday. My son is REQUIRED to talk to some sort of counsellor before that meeting (will be paid for by the school). When tried to ask a question about it he just said if my son does not do it he will be expelled immediately. This is point where she said "good day" and HUNG UP the phone.Iv been sitting here trying to write this for hours..... how could we have dropped the ball this hard? We knew the stuff he was being punished for was really out of character but we though he was just falling into a bad group or something.... now all of it makes sense, every bit of it, my little boy has been screaming for help for over a year and we did NOTHING to help.We love our son more than anything, we are going to fight to make this right in every way we can, get him any of the help he needs and no matter what we are not letting him go back to that school, how could we do that to him? But what other school will ever take him with this hanging over him? His "Red flag record" as the principle said.... My husband has been calling for legal advice etc, I thought I would take a shot here and see if anyone has any advice on how to deal with this because I can't even think right now.I apologise, some of my details might be off, conversations might be different wording than was actually said, but you know......What the hell do we do?! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2MZAZWE
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