If your kids have no friends do they talk to you more how does life look?

[Anonymous]

My son lost his last friend and he seems to be happy alone as he was not serving him well. So I’m gonna let him, but I wonder how a kids life with no friends looks he’s 13 for extra info.

[Anonymous]

Pretty bleak TBH. In HS it is had to watch all those milestones go by (football games, Homecoming, Prom, etc.).

[Anonymous]

You’re going to allow your son’s friend to not be his friend anymore?

I think how it looks depends on the cause for the lack of friends. I have found that many, sadly not all, kids find friends in a bigger school environment like high school.

[Anonymous]

My DD has lots of kids she is friendly with but no close friends. It is fine. It doesn’t upset her, she is an introvert and gets adequate chatting at home with parents and siblings. She plays sports and talks to teammates and she talks to classmates. She isn’t interested in the same things a lot of her peers are interested in. As long as she is happy, I am happy.

She has had closer friends and that was good too. At this point she knows that creating opportunities for closer friendships would require effort and the payoff isn’t worth the effort at this moment. That is her decision and I have no reason to fight it and make both of us miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD has lots of kids she is friendly with but no close friends. It is fine. It doesn’t upset her, she is an introvert and gets adequate chatting at home with parents and siblings. She plays sports and talks to teammates and she talks to classmates. She isn’t interested in the same things a lot of her peers are interested in. As long as she is happy, I am happy.

She has had closer friends and that was good too. At this point she knows that creating opportunities for closer friendships would require effort and the payoff isn’t worth the effort at this moment. That is her decision and I have no reason to fight it and make both of us miserable.

This really describes ds 13 too. He never had any friends until about 5th grade. He made a pretty good friend that year, then in sixth grade I heard him start mentioning the same names over and over. He sits with them at lunch and plays football with them. But I don’t get the impression he “talks” to them about much. Nor does he see them outside of school. But he goes to a nerdy gifted school that kids attend from the larger county, and kids live all over. I don’t get the impression many (most?) of the boys are seeing friends outside of school, unless they are in parent organized events (which bizarrely is still happening in middle school). But…. He is very happy. I don’t get the impression kids are teasing or bullying him. When I see him around other kids from school, most happily say hi to him. I think it is mostly personality; they switch classes every period so he has no consistency in people from hour to hour, and he’s always been extremely quiet in chaos. Chatty in quiet settings. He always tells me there is no time to be social at school. I always think that can’t possibly be true, other kids are clearly socializing. I think his head space is just not open to socializing during the chaos of a school day. His brain is just elsewhere and coping.

It does make me and his dad sad, as we were both popular and were/are extremely social. But I have to remind myself that he’s a happy balanced kid and I have to trust that he knows where he’s going.

[Anonymous]

I hear that this common for boys especially these days. But if it bothers him, the key is to get him involved in activities he enjoys where he will share a common interest with kids or groups like youth group. So if he takes a graphic novel drawing class, he can invite a friend over to draw or watch an anime. Or if he takes tennis, he can meet u with someone to play.

[Anonymous]

My Aspie/ADHD son is 20 and his last friends were in middle school. He seems perfectly happy without friends, but I suspect that the idea of finding and maintaining friends is just so alien to him, operationally and socially speaking, that he prefers to not even try. It's sad, because it will materially impact his professional networking, and his private support network.

He is very introverted with us as well, and needs a lot of quiet downtime. He doesn't do daily casual conversation and gossipy stuff. Occasionally he volunteers things from his campus life: he tends to share events that stress him out, like finals, and funny videos or info about his hobbies. But apart from "how are you?", he doesn't seem to know how to ask specifics from his loved ones or how to sustain a conversation related to topics that are not his favorite subjects. And yet we've tried - he's been to multiple social skills groups and therapy over the years.

Sigh.

[Anonymous]

My DC, in 12th grade has no friends. There have been a few years when she's had a friend or two to eat lunch with, but she hasn't had a social life outside of school since preschool. It's not great, but her social needs are less than mine. Having no/few friends isn't something you can allow or disallow.