How to support teen who's always the initiator?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I say leave those losers behind, the ones that never initiate, never want to do anything. Take that spark and dream bigger. Use it as the motivation to create a bigger social circle, a bigger life.

This !! I have a daughter who is the initiator, the do-er, the one with the big plans (and small ones). She’s also a kid in multiple EC, was the first of her friends to drive (most still don’t drive even after almost a year) and is just a force of nature.

Op - if her friends usually say yes they do like her, just maybe are kinda lame.

[Anonymous]

We have that basement and my DD has people over almost weekly. But yes, unless she initiates things hardly ever work out. Hoping once they can drive on their own, this will help.

Right now it seems like no parents are willing to carpool and drive kids around on weekends to do anything. Plans fold all of the time because in a group of 4, only 1 parent can drive (usually me) so they just all text all night.

I am so happy I lived a teen life before phones

That said, because of the phones, parents track teens, text them, and are overbearing. So the fun days of driving around, maybe going to a party in the woods, etc... can't happen anymore

[Anonymous]

I’m still friends with the parents of most of my 14 year old’s friends and we are always talking about how baffling it is that our children would rather sit in their rooms alone texting or watching videos versus getting together. When they do get together they all seem to have a good time, when prompted it is rare that any one of them will ever take the initiative.

I was starting to feel like your DD, always inviting and organizing for my group of friends, so I stopped because I was tired of rarely being invited anywhere myself. After a couple months I had several friends reach out independently to ask why we hadn’t had a meet up lately. Apparently everyone just waits for me to make things happen. It’s exhausting so I scaled way back.

[Anonymous]

I think in most friendships, teenage or adult, there is a sort of imbalance between who initiates. I am always the initiator among a group of friends from high school, and have accepted it. Among another friend group, there is one who seems to always initiate.

With my kids, my oldest DD tends to be an initiator and sometimes resents those who just hang out with her if she makes the plans, while my youngest DS NEVER initiates anything, mostly from a combination of lack of interest and fear of rejection. But when he is invited somewhere he always wants to go. I fight him all the time about this.