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This reminds me of a boy I worked with in an after-school program a couple of years ago. He would usually be somewhat hyper, but he figured out pretty quickly that when I said "sit down and do your work" he wasn't going to get much in the way of warning again before he'd be getting consequences for the behavior. Ergo, he'd sit down, be quiet, do his work and then go play. We got along fine pretty much all the time. One day I came in and he was behaving atrociously; not just bouncing off the walls but being mean to other kids, etc. I told him (very sternly) to sit down immediately . He said he couldn't. I asked why. His response? (This at the age of seven, mind you): "My teacher forgot to have the nurse give me my pill so I can't be good." My response was that that was nonsense and that while it might be a little harder for him to control himself he was certainly going to or he'd lose privileges really quickly. He behaved perfectly well for the rest of the afternoon.

I grew up in private schools all my life. The teachers never took any BS from the students. Foe example, one kid gave some back-talk to one of the teachers who subsequently picked up the kid and bounced him off the wall.