Boy teens - how much time with friends (in-person)
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Anonymous
| My 15 year old only hangs out with school friends outside of school 1-2 times per month. He does spend a lot of time at the gym with our 14 year old neighbor, who goes to a private school for kids with learning disabilities, so he is not socially isolated. I guess what I am wondering is, is 1-2 times per month normal for a teen boy to see school friends outside of school? It seems pretty infrequent compared to how often I saw friends at his age, but I'm female. |
Anonymous
| My 15 year old son does travel sports and has 1 or 2 friends he sees to play with after school. But often it is only for an hour, and maybe on the weekend an hour or two. They are not disappearing and exploring NoVA on their own for hours like I did as a child, and we've maybe had 2 sleepovers this year. I did them every weekend as a child, but I guess society has changed. |
Anonymous
| Does he meet with them online ? My son is younger but does a lot of socializing with his friends on Roblox. |
Anonymous
Yes, he does that sometimes. Although he prefers to play online with a friend of his who moved to another state (in the South) two years ago, if that kid is available. |
Anonymous
| Does he seem unhappy? If not I wouldn’t worry about it. |
Anonymous
No, not really. I get the sense he would like to socialize more, and he has tried without success to increase the frequency, but he seems happy enough to go to the gym with the neighbor. |
Anonymous
|
Why is it relevant that the neighborhood kid " goes to a private school for kids with learning disabilities"?
1-2 times a month is perfectly normal in this highly scheduled high school world. How does your kid even have time for more than that? |
Anonymous
It is relevant in that he is not part of DS's school friend group, and that he has some obstacles connecting with his own friends other than DS because the pool of kids at his school tend to live farther away than DS's, leading him and DS to have an easier time connecting. I suspect if his own school friends lived closer, he would spend somewhat less time with DS, so it is ultimately DS's gain. |
Anonymous
| In my experience with 15 year old boys, it's all over the map. My 15 year old usually gets together with his friends at least once per weekend (either Fri or Sat night) and will sometimes spend the other weekend night online gaming with those same friends. Depending on the sports season - some guys will hang out for an hour or two afterschool (go grab food and shoot hoops before heading home for dinner and homework). |
Anonymous
| That sounds normal for my 15 year. He facetimes with friends a lot but outside of school and their shared activities they get together 1-2x per month. |
Anonymous
| My 16 year old DS is hanging out with a group of friends every Friday and Saturday night (6-12pm), Saturday he may do something during the day (golf, fish, etc.), and often gets together for a few hours on Sunday to watch football. 2xs a week seems low. |
Anonymous
I meant, 2xs a month seems low. |
Anonymous
| I think 1-2 x month is perfectly fine! |
Anonymous
Then you could have just said private school and we would have understood. It sounds like you don't really value this friendship or count this kid as a legit friend if I'm reading between the lines correctly. Why does it matter whether he's part of DS's friend group at school? DS socializes a lot on the weekends but it's at least 60-70% kids who are not at DS's school but friends from activities. I don't really see the difference. |
Anonymous
Where do you live that your child can go out and fish? Does your child not play sports or do other activities on weekends? How is he able to coordinate so well with his friends? When DS's friends try to coordinate it's a mess because one kid will be flying to a swim competition in another state, someone will have all-county orchestra and others will have basketball/soccer/football or other games. |