Advice needed for those who have had sons

He will also be able to explain how he feels to someone outside of the family, which sometimes helps.

THe mixture of being streetwise and yet very emotionally behind for his age is typical as well.My DGS goes from cool dude to 5 year old in the same 20 minutes.

Yes, rose I have seen that too.

He's really only just stopped believing in Father Christmas and he's just gone to secondary school? Doesn't that seem a bit odd? Is he having someone on? I think I'd suspect bullying, especially as he's just started a new school. Could he be gay? Perhaps a little early to find out but it could be causing psychological problems. Handsome boys are not precluded from being gay, in fact, sometimes the opposite, and children can be cruel if one of their group appears 'different'. Poor lad, I'm sorry to hear of his problems.

Just sent the family a book called The Explosive Child that was recommended to me - it has a linked website www.livesinthebalance.org/.

It may at least give them some new perspectives on the problem.

Thanks for all your replies and pms. It is clear that this is a common problem.

Is there good pastoral support at school, or a young people's counselling service that the school can refer him to?

I think that often young people just need someone who is calm and non-judgmental to talk to. His behaviour doesn't necessarily mean he has Aspergers or depression (though it might) - it could just mean that there are things going on in his life that he finds difficult to handle and which he can't speak to family members about.

He was probably quite happy keeping up the pretence of believing in Father Xmas. I can't understand why his mum bothered to talk to him about that.

And what are his looks, "handsome" or not, got to do with it? And for goodness sake leave out the "gay" bit. He's 12!

Does he do any after school activities? What is the sport he shares with his dad? Is it something they can do often? He needs plenty of outside interests.

Some positive contributions along with some wacky ones (gay? abused?) I hope you can sort the wheat from the chaff. The book ( The Explosive Child) sounds interesting and I would also consider investigating the Aspergers/ASD route.
Now this DOES sound wacky, but bear with me. A friend who has a son who has Aspergers also found out he has coeliac disease and since his diet was revised to exclude all gluten, his "tempers" or mood swings seem to have evened out.

In many ways he sounds like GS1. He has been getting a lot of support at school and the autistic spectrum has been mentioned, although the waiting list for assessment is at least a year. It has been helpful though to realise that he is different and not just naughty.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I wonder how things are with the rest of the family. There is a scenario with something known as "the scapegoat child" where one child becomes the focus for all the family problems and behaves accordingly. I am not saying this is happening here but it might be something to look at. Whatever happens I think your concern and care will help to see him through. I have three DSs and we had various problems as they grew up. But they do grow up! Oh and about diet, I remember a friend's son who had incredible reactions to certain food additives, I might have thought that this was just imagination, but I did witness one occasion when he was accidently fed something he was usually not permitted and the transformation from a normal quiet boy to a whirling dervish was incredible.