Sigh. Another lonely weekend for my teen

[Anonymous]

School sports and activities are the obvious solution. Plays, music, clubs and teams. Every season has at least one no cut sport.

This doesn't necessarily form friendships, though I agree it can help make acquaintances. My son joined his schools intra-mural soccer club and chess club. he is pretty good at both, and yet he has only met acquaintances through them. Kids he can sit with at lunch, but nothing seemed to ever transfer to outside of school. He is in 8th now, so I don't think this will change. He is a little socially immature (very uninterested in girls, professional spots, and some other things boys his age seem to like), but overall friendly and appropriate, so I'm not sure why things didn't work out.

[Anonymous]

OP here again: My son does not share that he is actively upset, but I know it hurts that he has asked plenty of kids to get together, play video games online, etc. and no one says yes, or they say yes the first time and it never goes anywhere. A lot of posters in this thread have noted that their kids socialize "only" by playing games online or texting or going to the basketball courts, etc. I know you mean well, but I am saying my son does not have anyone to do these things with and is rejected by other kids when he tries to initiate/join those activities.

I think this thread separated into two categories of feedback: (1) those saying that their kids socialize through a lot of online gaming and sports activities but do not do much other than that and (2) those saying their kids have tried everything in (1) and have not been able to find their group so do none of those things in (1). My son falls in category (2). Those whose kids are in category (1) probably have not had to deal with what it is like to have your kids try to so hard but not find their group.

I do hope it will help to just naturally give it time for him to mature socially and participate in sports in HS next year.

The good thing is that my DS is a great kid and we do many fun family activities. But I know from his actions that he wants friends to do things with.

I have two follow up questions to ascertain information that may be helpful in providing advice:

1) Have you observed his interactions with peers? From observations of my kids (each of whom has a few friends), they are open to hanging out with most kids, as long as the kids take turns listening and talking (and reciprocate in conversation), are interactive and willing to do things. They are put off if kids don't reciprocate conversation, or talk and don't listen. It could 100 percent be that your son is just encountering jerky kids, but is there a change he needs to work on any of those skills?

2) It may just have to be that he keeps being the one to initiate for kids that hung out once and didn't contact him again. My son has some friends that never reach out to him, but are always willing to do things if he asks them. I don't know why they don't ask him, but that is how it is. They seem to like him, but never initiate.

3) Is your son open to meeting any kids with common interests/willingness to hang out? My daughter went through a period where she was repeatedly chasing after girls that were not interested in being friends, and not making an effort with girls that would more likely be interested (probably because she wanted to be "cooler"). Once she targeted her efforts better (with some prodding from me), she made a few friends.

Again, I am not blaming your son, and none of these things may apply, but just offering them as possibilities/things that helped with my kids.

[Anonymous]

This was normal for me. At 13 not that big of a deal. Do something fun he likes.

[Anonymous]

My mom is very extroverted and had me in so my activities in MS and HS. It was exhausting for me. She loved it. I wasn’t exactly introverted but remember looking forward to the weekends where I could decompress and not have to socialize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

School sports and activities are the obvious solution. Plays, music, clubs and teams. Every season has at least one no cut sport.

This doesn't necessarily form friendships, though I agree it can help make acquaintances. My son joined his schools intra-mural soccer club and chess club. he is pretty good at both, and yet he has only met acquaintances through them. Kids he can sit with at lunch, but nothing seemed to ever transfer to outside of school. He is in 8th now, so I don't think this will change. He is a little socially immature (very uninterested in girls, professional spots, and some other things boys his age seem to like), but overall friendly and appropriate, so I'm not sure why things didn't work out.

Have him talk to the kids in his grade in the chess club and plan a day or two to binge watch Queen’s Gambit. Invite a couple guys over to watch the next USQ game (that’s on a weekend night). No big productions. No looking for a BFF. Just social hanging out. No big deal. Maybe he likes the kids and maybe not.

Our thing as parents was that the kids had to do something at school and something outside of school, and 1 church thing. Church was pretty easy - youth choirs were 1 evening a week and pretty fun. Mostly the kids did school sports and school theater. Outside of school was typically a travel sport and/or scouts. Take up something new. Art or rock climbing or fencing or …. Our youngest has an on campus job now as the “safety supervisor” for the rock climbing wall on campus. Pretty dead he says but he gets homework done when no one is there. Take up something like swimming. No - not going for the Olympics, but I can attest we lost a good babysitter due to her taking up swimming. She was nice, studious, the kids liked her and she was available as she was a bit overweight. She took up swimming (no cut sport) as a sophomore and quickly got in shape, and we lost our babysitter. In middle school our youngest got a role in the local professional theater’s production of A Christmas Carol”. He was a Cratchit child (not Tiny Tim), and an apprentice for Fezzywig’s, and a “boy” in street scenes. He did that for 3 seasons until he was 14 (would have to be part of the union after 14). Great experience and his standby when doing those introduction games now where you say something people do not know about yourself, “I was a professional child actor”.

I always recommend Scouts for kids who are 12-13. You don’t have to be a Cub Scout and girls are allowed now. You may have to fish around for a troop that is a good fit and reasonably close by. Our kids troop was super nerdy. But, the boys learned stuff and loved the camping and outdoors stuff. Not at all competitive. We missed it with our oldest. Our daughter did a couple years of Brownies but then sports took over for her. Our two youngest though (both boys) did it and both got their Eagle Scout rank. Both have had it come up in interviews - they carry their Eagle ID card with them now to interviews.

The reality is that stuff does not just happen. You have to join things and try things. Parents have to help them join things and guide them. It is not a random thing.

[Anonymous]

Nothing made me feel worse as an awkward 9th grader than my parents peppering me with questions about whether other kids went to parties and telling me I was allowed to go if I wanted to (I was not invited)

[Anonymous]

wth is this thread #weird

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding me? You need to calm down. This is extremely common for 13-year-old boys. You’re gonna project your insecurity on him and that’s gonna be worse.

+1

parents on this board must have way too much free time on their hands

[Anonymous]

Can also be normal for 13-year-old girls too, as I have one. She marches to the beat of her own drum and has told us she does not want more scheduled activities on weekends, which is how most of the kids socialize. Reading, family time, volunteering 1x per month and just having down time to herself are how she spends our weekends. As long as your child seems engaged in something and isn't on a screen all weekend I would not worry too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:wth is this thread #weird

Stop bumping polemic threads!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Staring down a long, lonely weekend for my 13 year old DS. There are two sports practices over the weekend so he will have some social interaction but even his long-time sport has not led to outside friendships. He has what adults might call "acquaintances" at school who he eats lunch with (or so he tells me) but no one who has translated into a friend to do things with outside of school. He used to have tons of friends in elementary and now has basically none. He is a friendly, upbeat kid but also marches to the beat of his own drum. I am totally at a loss as to why he is in this situation. I mean I see all kinds of groups of kids at his school and I just find it so hard to believe that he cannot find his group. I keep encouraging him to invite kids to do things but he is reluctant. I think his reluctance is based on how he used to invite kids to do things but he was rejected by some kids and others never reciprocated so he has stopped. We do plenty of activities as a family, so it is not that he is actually sitting around, but it just really, really sucks. When my own friends go on and on about how their kids are so busy, and have all these social obligations, I just feel sad. I try very hard not to make my DS feel bad about his situation, but I can only encourage him to reach out so much before I need to back off. Thanks for listening. Just kind of sad this afternoon.

Join the school's Scout troop. When you are hiking and camping with kids all weekend, you quickly become friends.

Scouts is awesome for this. They become a little tribe, especially when they do things like Klondike derby and orienteering where they compete against other troops.

[Anonymous]

We have three kids, all in activities, a dog that needs walking, chores, homework, church and family time. To say nothing of scheduled events like birthday parties, seeing relatives.

There’s no time for random hangouts most weekends. I’m happy if my eldest DD gets 2-4 of downtime to read a book or watch a movie.

She has plenty of time to see her friends in school or her activities.

Why, as a family, are your weekends so long and boring?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have three kids, all in activities, a dog that needs walking, chores, homework, church and family time. To say nothing of scheduled events like birthday parties, seeing relatives.

There’s no time for random hangouts most weekends. I’m happy if my eldest DD gets 2-4 of downtime to read a book or watch a movie.

She has plenty of time to see her friends in school or her activities.

Why, as a family, are your weekends so long and boring?

You are literally making fun of other peoples' kids for seeing friends on the weekend?

Wow.

Listen, there are 16 hours of waking hours on Saturday and Sunday. That is 32 hours per weekend. That leaves plenty of time for normal kids to hang out with a friend.

How many hours are your children walking the dog?

My kids are top students, athletes, great grandchildren, etc and they see friends every weekend. As do the vast, vast majority of normal kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have three kids, all in activities, a dog that needs walking, chores, homework, church and family time. To say nothing of scheduled events like birthday parties, seeing relatives.

There’s no time for random hangouts most weekends. I’m happy if my eldest DD gets 2-4 of downtime to read a book or watch a movie.

She has plenty of time to see her friends in school or her activities.

Why, as a family, are your weekends so long and boring?

You are literally making fun of other peoples' kids for seeing friends on the weekend?

Wow.

Listen, there are 16 hours of waking hours on Saturday and Sunday. That is 32 hours per weekend. That leaves plenty of time for normal kids to hang out with a friend.

How many hours are your children walking the dog?

My kids are top students, athletes, great grandchildren, etc and they see friends every weekend. As do the vast, vast majority of normal kids.

There is a subset of people on DCUM who just like to bash others. They always claim to have a great life (and mock others’ problems) but there is no way someone who takes jabs at anonymous strangers is happy IRL. I say a prayer for them, and hope things get better for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have three kids, all in activities, a dog that needs walking, chores, homework, church and family time. To say nothing of scheduled events like birthday parties, seeing relatives.

There’s no time for random hangouts most weekends. I’m happy if my eldest DD gets 2-4 of downtime to read a book or watch a movie.

She has plenty of time to see her friends in school or her activities.

Why, as a family, are your weekends so long and boring?

You are literally making fun of other peoples' kids for seeing friends on the weekend?

Wow.

Listen, there are 16 hours of waking hours on Saturday and Sunday. That is 32 hours per weekend. That leaves plenty of time for normal kids to hang out with a friend.

How many hours are your children walking the dog?

My kids are top students, athletes, great grandchildren, etc and they see friends every weekend. As do the vast, vast majority of normal kids.

There is a subset of people on DCUM who just like to bash others. They always claim to have a great life (and mock others’ problems) but there is no way someone who takes jabs at anonymous strangers is happy IRL. I say a prayer for them, and hope things get better for them.

yes, but this is a new low. This person calling other people pathetic for spending time with friends. WOW