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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm just going to share this story in the hopes that it's somewhat helpful. It just happened yesterday.

DD is in 9th grade. There's a group of boys she's friends with who are somewhat cool. It's a long story, but the bottom line is the group of boys decided to all wear polos to school one day. Another kid, I'll call him "Larlo" also wore a polo and one of the cool kids said something to him like, "Ok but just so you know you're not in the group."

Knowing Larlo for years and that he's a sweet kid, this pissed me off. The de facto leader of the cool kids is my BFF's son "Zack". I don't know who made the comment, but I know it wasn't Zack because he would just never do something like that. But I asked my BFF to investigate if someone really did say something mean like that to Larlo.

Okay, here's where maybe some insight can be gained. Zack is such a nice kid, and never tries to hurt anyone. But when his mom brought this up to him, he completely unloaded about how incredibly annoyed he is by Larlo. That Larlo can "tease" people, make fun of them and it's "just a joke" but can never ever take anything back. Larlo will get upset and offended easily, when the way he treats others is worse than he is ever treated. Zack was raised right and would never be actually mean to Larlo or say that thing some other kid said to him about not being the group, but he understood where that kid was coming from. Zack was actually upset, kind of like it's emotional labor to make sure everyone is sensitive to Larlo's needs and it's really starting to get to him.

So while like I said Larlo is a nice kid I have known for years, it is also true that it is very easy to imagine that he would whine and be annoying and often play the victim. He's not a bad person- but- I can see him acting like this and other kids getting very annoyed. It's not like they are adults/teachers/parents or something, they are just kids, I am sure many of them feel like- who needs this?

I am not saying OP's kid or anyone else is necessarily like this. But I see posts like this often enough that I just want to stress that it's important to think about how your own kid may be acting. What might put other people off. It's so easy to paint other kids as mean and terrible (and not saying you are doing this OP. But we are all human. I probably would somewhat think that if my DC were in this sort of situation), but I usually find that social standing is not really an indicator of behavior and kindness. Some cool kids are jerks and some are nice. Same with less cool kids. To me, it's less about searching for nice kids (which obviously is helpful) and more about getting a better understanding of how to interact with your peers.

Alllll this to say-- OP, think about how your DS may be interacting with others. I totally agree with the advice to have him join new activities. Not only can he make friends that way, but if he finds things he is good at, he will gain confidence. Try to put him in low key camps or volunteering situations this summer. It's hard to force a group to hang out with out of a couple of 1:1 friendships that are already somewhat rocky. And back to my point, it's working on developing better relationships. It's not so much the initial connection that's the challenge- though it may feel that way.

Also - do you have family friends? Does he have cousins? My kids lean on those out of school groups (also friends from their theatre academy outside of school) during periods like this. Even siblings? Some forced summer sibling bonding never hurt anyone! There may be projects they can do together. I also really like the suggestion about HS having things going on in the summer. You or he can follow the instagram accounts of clubs and sports and see what's going on. Best of luck to him.[/quote]

My God. No one can read all this sh@t![/quote]

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