Tween hanging out with kids that aren’t great influence

[Anonymous]

How have you handled your teen or tween hanging out with kids you don’t love? My 12 year old DS has several groups of friends but one of the closest (proximity) wise is a group of boys I’m not thrilled with. Crappy language, lots of toxic male stuff, in trouble at school regularly, and not great decisions about how to spend time (some fights, some ding/dong/ditch, some not great social media activity).

How have you talked to your kid about picking good kids to hang out with? He doesn’t really engage with the texting/social media stuff nor does he ever get in trouble at school, but I don’t love the neighborhood running around or the language/way they talk to one another.

[Anonymous]

Say nothing you will only push him to them more.

Do more things on the weekend with him to keep him from going with them. He won't know you are doing it for that reason. Just keep planning some family things or one on ones that he likes. It's time consuming I know but if he has less time for them eventually they will have less time for him as well.

Monitor all social media for sure.

Have them at your house instead of him going to theirs, this way you can keep an eye on them.

[Anonymous]

Make him busy. He has chores, he has groups he's joined at school, he has sports, etc.

[Anonymous]

At 12 it may just sort itself out - friendships change so much at that age. My daughter had a friend group at the start of 7th I wasn't happy with. Ditching classes and not doing schoolwork, and (not with my daughter) sneaking out in the middle of the night. Eventually it became clear my daughter didn't really fit with this group, there was drama and a blow-up, and she's found other friends. Whew.

[Anonymous]

See the post today about developing teen brains and how badly marijuana affects them.

If they have not tried it yet, the group you described soon will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Say nothing you will only push him to them more.

Do more things on the weekend with him to keep him from going with them. He won't know you are doing it for that reason. Just keep planning some family things or one on ones that he likes. It's time consuming I know but if he has less time for them eventually they will have less time for him as well.

Monitor all social media for sure.

Have them at your house instead of him going to theirs, this way you can keep an eye on them.

+1

[Anonymous]

A lot of boys go through this stage and they end up being "nice" boys a year later.

I wouldn't worry about it unless your DS starts copying the other kids or the behaviors of the other kids continue to the end of middle school/start of high school. Kids really start creating new friendship groups in high school in a way that is more academic and interest oriented than in middle school. If your child is a good student in higher level classes they will probably find themselves spending more time with these kids just by default and moving away from kids who don't take this stuff seriously.

[Anonymous]

Your best bet is to deflect and distract rather than say anything directly. Encourage activities with more with it kids and encourage other friendships in ways that encourage them to be deeper - like when you take trips let him bring certain friends, these experiences bring people closer.

I also agree that this is sort of typical teen boy behavior when they get into a group and I wouldn’t over worry about it. They grow out of it.

[Anonymous]

Wow. I so disagree with all of this. Talk to your kid. Doesn't have to be judgmental or involving rules. Just say you notice they're spending more time with X, how's that going? They seem to me to be a little different than your other friends, like doing xyz. What's that like for you? Then you can make it clear that he can hang out with whom he wants, but you don't want him to be involved in (whatever), and if he's ever with them and wants help, he can get in touch with you immediately, no questions asked.

If you don't take this as an opportunity to share your values, he's going to think you're fine with everything he's doing. He needs to know that you support him, but that there are limits to what's okay in your family. He may even be relieved to know there are boundaries.

[Anonymous]

I totally agree with PP. Always talk to your kids about their friends and your values, etc. Keep the communication door open.

[Anonymous]

Also, encourage your kid to think for themselves and not just be a follower. They should know your values by now and know right from wrong. It’s hard at this age to not just go along with the cool kids but sometimes they will need to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I so disagree with all of this. Talk to your kid. Doesn't have to be judgmental or involving rules. Just say you notice they're spending more time with X, how's that going? They seem to me to be a little different than your other friends, like doing xyz. What's that like for you? Then you can make it clear that he can hang out with whom he wants, but you don't want him to be involved in (whatever), and if he's ever with them and wants help, he can get in touch with you immediately, no questions asked.

If you don't take this as an opportunity to share your values, he's going to think you're fine with everything he's doing. He needs to know that you support him, but that there are limits to what's okay in your family. He may even be relieved to know there are boundaries.

+1 this exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:See the post today about developing teen brains and how badly marijuana affects them.

If they have not tried it yet, the group you described soon will.

And so will all of the other groups as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I so disagree with all of this. Talk to your kid. Doesn't have to be judgmental or involving rules. Just say you notice they're spending more time with X, how's that going? They seem to me to be a little different than your other friends, like doing xyz. What's that like for you? Then you can make it clear that he can hang out with whom he wants, but you don't want him to be involved in (whatever), and if he's ever with them and wants help, he can get in touch with you immediately, no questions asked.

If you don't take this as an opportunity to share your values, he's going to think you're fine with everything he's doing. He needs to know that you support him, but that there are limits to what's okay in your family. He may even be relieved to know there are boundaries.

+1. I’ve been talking to my kid about how to choose friends since they were little. I get that you probably need to talk less as they head into teen years, but I’m not remaining silent if my kid is spouting red pill/toxic nonsense. And I’m going to ask questions that I hope provoke them to think.

So far, the biggest issue has been one friend bullying another friend (and I mean real bullying, not “they didn’t want X to sit with me at lunch”). I had several conversations with my kid about whether they thought the bullying behavior was ok. They didn’t, but I could tell they were struggling with dropping the bully as a friend. What started to happen was that I could see my kid was sort of backing away. A year later, my kid is very clear they aren’t friends with the bully. It took time, but I think having some conversations helped my kid think it through. I also never told her what she “had to do,” it was more about a few questions.

If my kid had remained “all in” on being friends with the bully, I would have made my kid conveniently busy quite a lot. I can’t control school hours, but I have a lot of influence outside of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I so disagree with all of this. Talk to your kid. Doesn't have to be judgmental or involving rules. Just say you notice they're spending more time with X, how's that going? They seem to me to be a little different than your other friends, like doing xyz. What's that like for you? Then you can make it clear that he can hang out with whom he wants, but you don't want him to be involved in (whatever), and if he's ever with them and wants help, he can get in touch with you immediately, no questions asked.

If you don't take this as an opportunity to share your values, he's going to think you're fine with everything he's doing. He needs to know that you support him, but that there are limits to what's okay in your family. He may even be relieved to know there are boundaries.

I was one of the pp and I never meant not to speak up to my kids about specific behaviors I don’t like with them and friends. I do that all the time, this is an ongoing conversation always. I just wouldn’t necessarily heavily restrict them spending time with any kids unless they had extreme behaviors, bc I think that backfires.