Where are the wholesome, mainstream kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 15-year-old DS is in flux. He's about to enter HS.
Kids he grew up with in elementary and middle seemed to have splintered into two camps -- kids who are sneaking out, vaping, defacing property (seriously, two kids he knows well were just arraigned in court for this), or else have super niche interests like D&D, which don't appeal to my kid.

I am not saying my child is an angel but he's really not interested in staying out til all hours and vaping (and I'd like to think we've dissuaded him from this anyway), but he's also not into the things that the non-party kids enjoy. The result is that he's struggling to find kids who are on his wavelength and he ends up spending a lot lot of time when he's not at sports practice hanging out alone.

Can anyone else relate? Does this improve with age?

D&D is mainstream and why is a 15yr old entering high school?

If he wants to make friends, he has to be willing to take an interest in something, anything. Boring people are boring.

Maybe try a social skills group?

[Anonymous]

Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

[Anonymous]

Not-too-serious reply: maybe your kid should try sneaking out and defacing property. It might be fun.

[Anonymous]

Treating kids who like D&D as somehow less than wholesome is probably why your kid has no friends. Is he a jerk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Don't be ridiculous. Your kid is clearly going to be turning 16 between now and Sept 30th. OP's kid may have just turned 15 and yeah, probably was held back but not by 2 years.

Signed,
Someone who turned 17 2 months before graduating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Treating kids who like D&D as somehow less than wholesome is probably why your kid has no friends. Is he a jerk?

Ok come on. I have one child that loves D&D and another that doesn't. It is a VERY niche thing and it is very nerdy and time consuming. Stop making people out who don't like it - bullies. They aren't. Teens can like certain things and it's ok. As a matter of fact my D&D child is the one that judges other teens more.

OP, it will only get worse in high school. Teens have nothing better to do than on their phones and it's led to a lot of depressed kids doing strange things for dopamine fixes. We are at one of the top publics and there are so many kids vaping, doing drugs, not going to class, etc.. It's hard not to get involved in all of that. The best thing you can do is encourage him to stick with sports but also a lot of clubs in school. Because the sports only kids tend to be partiers too. The ones involved in other clubs, student government, etc... will probably be more of what you are looking for.

I will say this. He is really old for just going into high school. Most freshman are 13 or 14 and for boys that is a MASSIVE difference in maturity. So he is most likely going to find guys his own age in sophomores and juniors and he will get into much worse. So be careful

[Anonymous]

What is wholesome and mainstream to you, OP?

What is your kid into besides sports?

My kid rows crew, but his close friends are really the kids from the school band.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 15-year-old DS is in flux. He's about to enter HS.
Kids he grew up with in elementary and middle seemed to have splintered into two camps -- kids who are sneaking out, vaping, defacing property (seriously, two kids he knows well were just arraigned in court for this), or else have super niche interests like D&D, which don't appeal to my kid.

I am not saying my child is an angel but he's really not interested in staying out til all hours and vaping (and I'd like to think we've dissuaded him from this anyway), but he's also not into the things that the non-party kids enjoy. The result is that he's struggling to find kids who are on his wavelength and he ends up spending a lot lot of time when he's not at sports practice hanging out alone.

Can anyone else relate? Does this improve with age?

NP. Honestly? Catholic schools.

I say this as an atheist who pulled my kid from public to Catholic.

[Anonymous]

My son is a competitive swimmer and lifeguard and he and his teammates are all pretty wholesome and mainstream. My son’s hobbies are cycling and model building. He eats healthy and goes to bed early and has a girlfriend who is also wholesome and mainstream and plays another sport.

I know there are kids who vape and stuff but I don’t know where.

[Anonymous]

Private Catholic HS, non-parish.

So glad we did it for my kids. Peer group is so wholesome. My younger one had the friends turning to vaping, trouble, etc in public 8th- many were athletes too. He lost touch immediately. He no longer was embarrassed to embrace being a “smart kid” that cared about school. None of his friends drink, drug. They are all motivated, stay out of trouble. The families are all invested in the kids. “A village” Senior now. Older one in college.

My older kid had a great group from public he’s still friends with—they became divided among different private and public HS but have been close since kindergarten. We were lucky there. Younger one had a lot of friends we liked move out of the area by middle school and the group left were less supervised, more into trouble so the move to private made an incredible difference for him. He is much happier too—less self-conscious. Bonus for the dress code too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 15-year-old DS is in flux. He's about to enter HS.
Kids he grew up with in elementary and middle seemed to have splintered into two camps -- kids who are sneaking out, vaping, defacing property (seriously, two kids he knows well were just arraigned in court for this), or else have super niche interests like D&D, which don't appeal to my kid.

I am not saying my child is an angel but he's really not interested in staying out til all hours and vaping (and I'd like to think we've dissuaded him from this anyway), but he's also not into the things that the non-party kids enjoy. The result is that he's struggling to find kids who are on his wavelength and he ends up spending a lot lot of time when he's not at sports practice hanging out alone.

Can anyone else relate? Does this improve with age?

NP. Honestly? Catholic schools.

I say this as an atheist who pulled my kid from public to Catholic.

Catholic and private schools have the worst fake bullies. The ones nice to adults and terrible to peers. So many cliques. No way. My poor daughter was traumatized

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

Um, no it's not. It's so weird to infantile your kids and have them graduating high school 2 years after they turn adults

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

+1 -- the ages you described above are by far the most common to see. So he is merely a tad old for 9th grade if he is already 15 now this summer, but I assume that was due to reshirting, which is also, like you said, plenty common. The person up thread who said freshmen are 13 is just . . . wrong!

Speaking of wrong -- you and your kid are wrong that those are the only two camps of kids. Come on! He just hasn't found his tribe, and if that is his explanation, he's misguided and not getting out there enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

Um, no it's not. It's so weird to infantile your kids and have them graduating high school 2 years after they turn adults

It is regardless of your personal opinion on it. Colleges don't care how old their athletes are. It's also more common the stronger the high school is in sports.

BTW, that means most graduate high school as 19 year olds vs. 18 year olds.