help i need idea for a 12 year oldboy

[debratina]

at the moment i am caring for a 12 year old boy who has been expelled from school. he has not been at school for over a month. he is into football and scooters. he may have slight autism. the problem is he has no school work to do and i am wracking my brains how to entertain him. i also care for a 20 month old and a 28 month old at the same time. please can someone give me some inspiration

thanks for reading

debra x

[jaytravis]

i think by law school have to provide school work for at least 6 weeks

[Helen Dempster]

That sounds like hard work! I was going to say have you asked him, but then at his age, he probably just grunts (if he's anything like my 12yo son!) All I can think of is the usual - football, basketball and all things 'boy'. Would he sit and do a puzzle? I was really surprised at my son the other day, as I had a puzzle out for the 10yo mindee and my son sat with him for ages until they'd both finished it, then told me he loved puzzles (I never knew!)

Sorry, not much help...

[Heaven Scent]

Ask mum and him what he enjoys - you are not a school or his teacher your remit is to keep him safe, secure and fed at the same time as caring for your little ones. Therefore, if even for now while you gain his trust and respect it won't matter if he does play computer games etc for a while - if you haven't got a console then let him bring his - if your TV/computer etc are in the same room where you mind let him wear headphones so it doesn't impact on the care you give to the little ones. Continue to take the little ones out and let him take a hand held console. Gradually steer him gently into doing other activities and try to go to places that both he and the little ones can get something from like a trip to a park where he can get an opportunity to climb etc while the little ones can do their thing - I don't know where you live or what your routine is so its hard to advise you on how to adapt it to accommodate this boy - by where you live I mean town/country/seaside etc. And I don't even know if the boy is interested in computerised games - I'm just basing this on the boys this age I have encountered.

Try speaking to the school with the mothers permission and ask what sort of thing he should be doing and at what stage - then he could go on BBC bite size for 10 or so mins every now and again throughout the day to do something academic -

In the holidays I look after 5 boys and 1 girl aged 8 - 14 and while I'm seeing to the littlies I get them to do something based on a theme - this last holiday we did all about Titanic - it wasn't highly planned and I got all the stuff from "Primary Treasure Chest" - it was topical and they enjoyed writing up newspaper reports - drawing the ship (with the aid of some how to draw stuff I down loaded) Making up menu's etc. and in general discussing it - in a way it was easier for me because there were so many of them all chatting away about it because they fed off each other but I gave them the facts some of which they mixed up when writing up their reports - that didn't matter it was the activity that was important not the content. If he is interested in computers and using them you could let him research stuff for a topic - and you could print him off other stuff and work together when the littlies are sleeping or busy playing then he'll feel valued and see you are interested in him.

I hope this is of some help