Teen has no social life

[Anonymous]

Kids with happy homes have less active social lives.

[Anonymous]

My 13 year old dd has been excluded from what she considered her primary friends group throughout middle school. It has been painful and caused a lot of anxiety and even depression. She sits with these kids at lunch, but they turn their backs on her and leave her out of conversations, text groups and plans. In fact she used to be in their text group, but then they shifted to another one without her. There is nothing socially weird about her, at all. She is smart, friendly, fun and stylish. Hoping things change in high school.

[Anonymous]

It’s tough. There is a lot of pressure on grades and studying. This takes a lot of time. If your DC is on a sports team or in theater or band, that takes another big chunk of time to practice and perform. There’s not a lot of extra time to just ‘hang out’.

[Anonymous]

Maybe he’s a monster too?

[Anonymous]

Is there something that bothers him or bothers you? My own team is similar, but it does not seem to bother him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids with happy homes have less active social lives.

This is absolutely not true.

[Anonymous]

You're acting like it's still 1995. Like there isn't the internet. Social media. Like there wasn't a two-year pandemic that kept your son at home 24/7/365. Why isn't he out there? It is not surprise.

[Anonymous]

My 16 yo son doesn’t socialize much on the weekends, mostly because he’s so dang busy (his choice) and needs some time to rest and do homework (in addition to whatever sports competition he might have, and we need some time as a family, too).

But he will do things go out to eat with friends before a swim meet, have friends over on a day off from school, went to Homecoming with friends, etc. He has no interest in attending drinking parties.

He seems happy, so I’m not worried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are not alone. We have had a lot of similar conversations with other parents of teenage boys. In our case, we are trying to nudge them out of the house more and encourage them to make plans rather than just wait to be invited.

One thing I have heard from several parents is that some otherwise social, athletic, perfectly normal kids are more hesitant to go out because they do not want to be around drinking, vaping, or drugs. That does not explain every situation, of course, but I think it is part of the picture for some kids.

It is strange as a parent because they can seem happy, have friends at school, and still spend most weekends at home. I think phones and online socializing have changed things, but it is still hard not to worry when you hear about gatherings they were not invited to. I am trying to balance encouraging more real-life socializing with not projecting my own teenage experience onto them.

do you not have limits on gaming and/or phone apps or downtime set up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're acting like it's still 1995. Like there isn't the internet. Social media. Like there wasn't a two-year pandemic that kept your son at home 24/7/365. Why isn't he out there? It is not surprise.

why are not surprised??

its concerning

time to teach your son there is more to life than gaming and jerking off to porn all day

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids with happy homes have less active social lives.

Ok this is a crazy cope. All the kids I know with happy homes are very social.

[Anonymous]

Boys are more tolerant of their friends and tend to have large groups of guys as a pack and don’t play friendship games like girls do - but they suck at organization, planning and follow through. They are also lazy. If it’s not easy to hang out, they won’t. Once he’s driving and has a car available, this will likely get better.

If his friends are hanging out and he’s not going, it’s probably as simple as they live close to each other and he’s farther away. And he’ll just shrug and say I’ll see you later in the game online. I’m telling you, they are simple like that.

If he has friends who are girls, or can make friends with kids within walking distance of your house - this likely would change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're acting like it's still 1995. Like there isn't the internet. Social media. Like there wasn't a two-year pandemic that kept your son at home 24/7/365. Why isn't he out there? It is not surprise.

Parents who keep falling back on this are just looking for excuses.

Lots of kids in 2026 are out in the world with their peers. If yours is not, show some curiosity.

[Anonymous]

My teen was a total homebody in grades 9-11. Senior year, she started going out much more frequently and branching out socially. Her crowd is the non-drinking, non-partying kids who I think felt comfy at home and didn’t much feel like going out. But things shifted a lot when they realized this was their last year together. They’ve matured a lot this year.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are not alone. I just want to say that my HS-aged son also socializes little. It is concerning because I know from my teen-hood some of the growth experiences he is missing out on, but also am grateful for the growing pains (the ones with lots of consequences but few lessons) that he won't have to grapple with. I watch and hope for the best. I try to encourage participation when opportunities to go out come up... Mostly these are organized by the one female in the friend group (but, often, when one of the boys flakes, the rest follow suit.) I am constantly, inwardly, hoping something will finally fall in to place and happen, and I am often silently disappointed. Still, my son doesn't seem all too bothered, and he's social and friendly with classmates. We are just riding this ride with him.

I agree with a lot of PPs' observations. It seems that my son and his male friends feel that they've had a lot of social time sometimes because of texting (although that is infrequent as well). He seems to count socialization time at school and with coworkers at work as enough (more than I would have when young). They live farther away from each other than I did my HS friends. There are more options to socialize from their own couches (video gaming while on an audio call -- this is also rare tho, because of schedule conflicts and HW load). They have more homework, more time spent on sports, more city/traffic travel time (to/fro obligations/jobs, volunteering, etc). Their time is taxed.

I expect dorm life for my now senior will probably be socialization overload compared to his recent years of home-bound HS life. We shall see. It's a different world.