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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think you are all missing the point that MANY kids socialize via phone these days. I don't think it has much at all to do with ADHD. Honestly, I don't.

My daughter was the same way as a freshman. Kids get overwhelmed with HW, sports/activities run much later, and many kids still do club sports and other obligations on the weekend. Sadly, if they socialize on IG, Snap or group texts, they are fulfilling friendship needs. We may not see it that way but our parents didn't think hanging out a mall or arcade for a few hours doing "nothing" constituted as much.  And honestly, parents are always busy too.

OP, I say you offer a sleepover at your house. Just a few girls. It will give you a better idea.

Another thought is her friend group is changing. My daughter didn't want to be in the trying to impress group in HS. Some did. Friendships fade out. New ones will start. Totally normal

Lastly, check her phone  a little. See what's up. [/quote]

I think it's absolutely true that kids socialize via phone. [b] However, what parents of kids with ADHD are saying is that our kids share a common and somewhat unique experience of difficulty planning activities outside of school and sometimes difficulty with friendships. 
[/b]
OP, your post was extremely familiar to me --- DS having friends at school that he very much wanted to turn into "outside school" friends, but really, really struggling to do that.  He has anxiety in addition to ADHD and I think was really very nervous about texting or calling kids to try to set something up.  Also, he tends to find the process that teens use (group chats, instagram) incredibly frustrating and pretty quickly decides that the fun of hanging out is not worth the frustration of trying to plan.

What helped him a ton was being in activities (sports teams) with kids and then making plans after events.  Also, being able to just hang out after school or casually meet kids at the park to play basketball seems to make things much easier.

What we notice about ADHD in both me and DS is a very low threshold of irritation with anything that involves changing something already planned and a kind of low frustration threshold generally.    That makes it hard to be a good friend sometimes.  9th grade is probably too young for your DD to recognize that (I know that my DS always refuses to acknowledge that any issue is ADHD related, even when it clearly is), but if you can help work on frustration that could help.[/quote]

But those issues are not unique to adhd. Those are very typical issues with most kids at that age as they are learning independence and socialization separate from mom organized friendships.  You are not doing your kid any favors by attributing this issie to adhd. It is 100% absolutely normal behavior for teens (with the exception of naturally social teens) in this day and age of socializing by social media.

[/quote]

You're missing the point. We're seeing other kids able to manage things better. They socialize/plan things with their phone, and extend it into real life. And I have found when I offer my DD the scaffolding, she is also able to extend phone socializing/planning into real life things. When I remove the scaffolding, she can't - not because she doesn't want to, but because her ADHD makes it extremely difficult to plan and organize things. In that way she has a harder time than her peers. Parents are asking "is this normal" and "what can I do to help this" which is also a really tough thing to do with teenagers. They don't want your active hand holding. They see their friends don't have their parents plan things, and can over-react if you try to plan things for them. They also see their friends going out and doing things with friends and they have no idea how that happens. Parents need to figure out how to walk the path of supporting their want-to-be-independent teenagers, while allowing for the fact that socializing is a bit different these days.

Wanting to go to the mall with friends and repeatedly failing at being able to make it happen may not be unique to ADHD, but it is more common in kids with ADHD and less common in kids without ADHD.[/quote]

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