Concerns regarding my son's mental health, information and advice welcome

My recollections of school are too far in the distant past to be relevant to modern schooling, and yet......probably the contexts have no changed that much.

Break times were to some extent in my control, to stay where there were a lot of people around and possibly staff, or to go off somewhere I was reasonably sure I wouldn't be vulnerable. Wandering in corridors and finding remote toilets to hide in was part of that landscape.

The difficulties lie with places you have to be, where there are no teachers watching. Possibly the worst was being in a classroom when the teacher is out of the room. Changing rooms were another tricky environment, and toilets.

My point being that there are too many situations where bullies can get their way. Likewise bad influences. It was somehow safer sometimes hanging out in places that were forbidden or riskier if there were tougher allies not into bullying, if that makes sense.

So for example I'd act as a look out for the secretive smokers. Hanging around with dodgier people is actually one way of avoiding the bullies, who curiously tend not to linger where there are rougher elements.

Consequently it is easy to find the wrong kinds of friends.

OK it is hard to compare my school world of the mid 50s to late 60s with schools nowadays, but I suspect the vulnerabilities are not much different.

Something that sociology and human geography students do for dissertation projects is study the geographies of social groups. It is tricky to set up, because special clearance has to be set up to protect minors, but there have been a lot of useful studies. There is literature on where kids hang out, and what kinds of kids in a given context.

It should be possible to find out where your son gets involved with these bad influences and how, and potentially may be easier to introduce strategies to reduce unsuitable contact. Kids who are bullied are easily drawn into a bad crowd. Its not hard to understand.

My recollections of school are too far in the distant past to be relevant to modern schooling, and yet......probably the contexts have no changed that much.

Break times were to some extent in my control, to stay where there were a lot of people around and possibly staff, or to go off somewhere I was reasonably sure I wouldn't be vulnerable. Wandering in corridors and finding remote toilets to hide in was part of that landscape.

The difficulties lie with places you have to be, where there are no teachers watching. Possibly the worst was being in a classroom when the teacher is out of the room. Changing rooms were another tricky environment, and toilets.

My point being that there are too many situations where bullies can get their way. Likewise bad influences. It was somehow safer sometimes hanging out in places that were forbidden or riskier if there were tougher allies not into bullying, if that makes sense.

So for example I'd act as a look out for the secretive smokers. Hanging around with dodgier people is actually one way of avoiding the bullies, who curiously tend not to linger where there are rougher elements.

Consequently it is easy to find the wrong kinds of friends.

OK it is hard to compare my school world of the mid 50s to late 60s with schools nowadays, but I suspect the vulnerabilities are not much different.

Something that sociology and human geography students do for dissertation projects is study the geographies of social groups. It is tricky to set up, because special clearance has to be set up to protect minors, but there have been a lot of useful studies. There is literature on where kids hang out, and what kinds of kids in a given context.

It should be possible to find out where your son gets involved with these bad influences and how, and potentially may be easier to introduce strategies to reduce unsuitable contact. Kids who are bullied are easily drawn into a bad crowd. Its not hard to understand.