How often does your 14-15 year old see friends

[Anonymous]

My teen socializes through her sports. And organizes occasional get togethers. I am fine with this because those droves of teens always hanging out are never up to any good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel so terrible sad for this generation of kids.

I’m an immigrant. When I was a teenager we lived in an 8 million city. Me and all the other teenagers roamed the city going to cafes, bars, restaurants, clubs, people’s parties in apartments, country clubs.

We didn’t have much money, but taxis were cheap and friends had cars. I felt safe walking around alone at night.

I was a shy introvert , but I saw my friends practically every day. We had a blast.

When I came to America years ago and to this day I think it’s an incredibly lonely society with everyone tucked away in their suburban homes. Kids are lonely too. My child sees friends once a month and they can’t just pick up and go, I have to drive them.

Elderly are lonely. So many people on anxiety meds and antidepressants. It’s just the way we live here is off.

If you go to France you will see streets full of people socialising over dinners and in parks. American streets are so empty.

American born and raised. I agree 100%. I feel such a loss for my kids, though they don't seem to know the difference.

My kids and all of their friends socialize regularly. I think a lot of parents with kids who don’t, tell themselves that “things have changed” so they don’t have to face the fact that there is something maybe lacking in their kids social skills. Things aren’t like when we were kids but it’s not drastically different. I think some kids just have poor social skills and inability to follow through. They might make it happen later in college or they might just be perpetual duds in front of a screen, but persisting in thinking this is normal is probably not helping.

I think you're generalizing to suit your narrative about what the home body kids are doing v. the kids who are hanging out a lot with friends. The kids at home might be reading or doing other valuable things and the kids out and about a lot might be getting into trouble for all you know. The point is, one lifestyle isn't inherently better as a default.

I’m talking about the repeated statement that “this is just how kids socialize now”, which I don’t think is true. Of course there are happy homebody kids but there were those kids back during our teen years too.

[Anonymous]

My rising sophomore DS got together with friends after school 2-4 times per week and 1x over the weekend end during freshman year. He and his friends share the love of a sport and get together to play that or they walk around downtown Bethesda. Summers are lonely because friends vacation schedules are different or their families go away for the entire break.

[Anonymous]

My kids are now 16 and 18 but aside from the pandemic they’ve been seeing friends outside of school at least once a week (once a week in middle school, more frequently as they get older and are more mobile.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are now 16 and 18 but aside from the pandemic they’ve been seeing friends outside of school at least once a week

Where do they go? What do they do?

[Anonymous]

My 14 year old son sees his friends all the time, but they all live within biking distance. Between meeting up to play soccer or basketball, they will ride their bikes to the movies or library (where they sit in a row and play video games on the computers, not reading). In summers, they'll ask someone's parent to drive them to the pool.
They also the do the video game thing over the phone, but that's more at night.

During the school year, I'd say 1x a week. During breaks and summers, it's more like 2-3x a week.

[Anonymous]

Probably twice a month and it’s partially our fault. Mcps family and most of DC’s friends live 20 minutes away. We’re on edge of school boundaries. So to drop off and pick up, that’s 40 minutes round trip times two. So we can’t always do it. Or it’s not how I want to spend my Friday night after work.