Need advice regarding my 12YO and friend issues

[Ryan]

My 12YO is a really, really great kid.  He's not one of those kids that is super outgoing when you first meet him, but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body and he really livens up when he's comfortable.  He's always struggled developing close friendships though and we're not sure why, but we suspect it's because probably leans introverted (although he can hide it well).  He was doing well until COVID, then his friendships kind of dissolved.  Once schools reopened in 5th grade, he developed some close friendships with kids in his grade.  At first, everything seemed like it was great.  At the end of 5th grade, he started to have problems with 2 of the kids and we were just happy to have the year end and take a break.

During 6th grade, he sat at the same lunch table with this group and things just seemed to get worse throughout the year.  The same 2 kids were the real problem, he seemed to be fine with everyone else.  He then would get invited to go to play football with this larger group (including the 2) and 20% of the time it was a great experience, the other 80% of the time it was not great and ended with tears.  After this, we told him he's going to take a break from hanging with them for awhile. My wife and I, over and over, would say that's the last time.  What was the final straw was we were all watching TV and he noticed his ipad lit up, he reached over and I can see his entire disposition change when he read a mean message from one of the kids, basically saying he was going to get kicked out of the friend group since he never hung out.  During this time, he realized this was not a healthy friendship and just wanted out.  I think he recognized that staying friends with them was holding him back.

The end of the last year was hard, but he reconnected with an older group of friends and started to make the best of it.  Still he continued to get questions like "Why did you leave your old friend group" so that was tough for him.  He does really like hanging out with a lot of the kids in this new friend group, but the main problem is they are not as social as the other group.  So he's like, yeah they are nicer but they have lower social needs so they are fine with school, sports, computers, and occasionally hanging out.  I feel like things are starting to get better overall, he is closer with these kids, he's connecting one on one with certain kids, he had a great time trick/treating with them.  He just wished they did more things.  

We blocked 2 of the mean friends from his phone, but I noticed recently he's starting to make excuses for them and saying they've changed.  He recently was added back to the group chat and I can tell from talking to him, that my son is rewriting the narrative in his head that maybe they weren't that bad.  I don't think they've changed at all, I think they will be exactly the same given enough chances.  I'm almost certain that they will apply the same pressure with them to hang out, probably even "denounce" his other friends and just hang out with them.  He told me that one of them told him that the only reason they were mean is because he never wanted to hangout, he seems to forget he didn't want to hangout because they were mean.

I'm really, really torn on this. I don't want him to resent me on this, but I really don't want to replay the series of events that really set him back.  I also don't want his "new friends" to look at that and say "Oh, I guess he's moved back to his old friend"

Thoughts or advice?

[azucena]

Two things to consider:
- is he more mature than most boys his age? 
- does he miss social cues?
Those are the things I see with boys getting picked on in my daughters' middle school years.

Any trusted teachers you can ask for insights? This has helped me to gain new perspectives btwn kids version, my version, and another adult.

Can you host get togethers for new friend group? 

It helps to have different sets of friends - school, neighborhood, sports/groups, etc.

One thing that helped my older daughter recognize hard friend groups was when I talked openly about how I choose my own friends. With my key friend group, I can totally be myself, flaws and all. Or, I could work my way into popular group or wealthy group but then I'd have to work too hard at keeping up with them in latest clothes, dressy clothes, trips, cars, sports/show tickets, etc. Some people may thrive on that, but it's just not me.

I also feel much better with a small group of close friends than being friends with everyone.

I also took the time to walk through how my friends have changed thru the years. Grade school, hs, college, work, etc. And which ones have stuck around or which ones I can easily fall back into and trust. It's hard for kids to picture friendships changing but it's a fact of life.

[busymom]

Can he sign up for more after-school activities, which will give him the opportunity to meet more kids?  There's nothing wrong with hanging out with different friends in different situations.


Just as a general rule, junior high kids are a$$holes.  Both of my kids suffered from bullying during this time.  


DD ended up hanging out with a completely different group of kids in high school.  And, she was a lot happier then than when she was with the junior high group.

[giramomma]

This is really hard.

Some kids are wired to want to be doing all the things and some aren't. I have two of each. #1 and #3 need downtime. #2 (and I suspect #4) will claim extreme boredom if they have 30 minutes of downtime a day.

I wonder if there's more opportunities for you to get your kiddo involved with other things.

Do you trust your kid, that he knows what's best for himself? Does your kid have a strong sense of self? Are you willing to let your kid learn hard lessons while there is safety being under your roof?

For me, as a parent, that's what would dictate how I proceeded.

Our kids have pretty strong senses of who they are. Because of that, I do really trust my kids to know what's best for them. (And, I even learned too much concern from a good place is still not welcome by my oldest girl.)

Especially as the kids get older, DH and I err towards giving them pretty wide birth when it comes to decision making. So that if things go bad, its when stakes are lower, and there's the safety of home.

I would have discussions. And I would leave next steps up to my kiddo.

[Ryan]

Nov 2, 2023 12:31:28 GMT -5 azucena said:

Two things to consider:
- is he more mature than most boys his age? 
- does he miss social cues?
Those are the things I see with boys getting picked on in my daughters' middle school years.

Any trusted teachers you can ask for insights? This has helped me to gain new perspectives btwn kids version, my version, and another adult.

Can you host get togethers for new friend group? 

It helps to have different sets of friends - school, neighborhood, sports/groups, etc.

One thing that helped my older daughter recognize hard friend groups was when I talked openly about how I choose my own friends. With my key friend group, I can totally be myself, flaws and all. Or, I could work my way into popular group or wealthy group but then I'd have to work too hard at keeping up with them in latest clothes, dressy clothes, trips, cars, sports/show tickets, etc. Some people may thrive on that, but it's just not me.

I also feel much better with a small group of close friends than being friends with everyone.

I also took the time to walk through how my friends have changed thru the years. Grade school, hs, college, work, etc. And which ones have stuck around or which ones I can easily fall back into and trust. It's hard for kids to picture friendships changing but it's a fact of life.

I wouldn't describe him as being more mature, but he's certainly not less mature.  I'm sure some people would say we shelter our kids to some extent, but it's more that we don't drink any more, we won't let our kids watch many movies above PG-13, and we don't swear (we're not as lame as we sound!).  No issues at all from his teachers, they would describe him as being smart, funny, and kind.  A lot of his old friend group are big time into sports and have probably gone through puberty and he has not.  They also have parents that basically let them run wild, which means he can seem (around them) a little more naive.  He runs and plays soccer, so he's not into the traditional sports (Baseball, football, basketball) like his old group.  This puts him probably a rung lower socially in their eyes.

I think the big issue with his current group of friends is that they are not as active. Someone says "Can anyone hangout" and a lot of them are like "Well, I have boy scouts at 7 and have to do my homework and eat dinner".  If this were the other group, they'd play for 1 hour if they had 1 hour available.  

I think in the end, my son just wants access to friends that do things.  He wants to be able to text people and say "Let's go to the football game" and have a handful of people committing.  Likewise, he wants them to do the same.  I think they don't need that level of socilization and that has been a little bit of an issue.  

My older son was introverted, but had 2 really close friends.  Eventually the circle of friends expanded through time.  That's what I'm telling my younger son, to be patient and keep working on these relationships, don't continue to go back to that old group that clearly mistreated you.  I wouldn't mind if he did hang out with them, what's making me uncomfortable is that he is "accessing" that old group through 1 of the kids that was mean.  

To answer your question though, yes we have organized stuff for him.  We have told him we'll do it any time he wants.  The problem is that he wants it to happen organically without parent involvement.  

[Ryan]

Nov 2, 2023 13:33:18 GMT -5 giramomma said:

This is really hard.

Some kids are wired to want to be doing all the things and some aren't. I have two of each. #1 and #3 need downtime. #2 (and I suspect #4) will claim extreme boredom if they have 30 minutes of downtime a day.

I wonder if there's more opportunities for you to get your kiddo involved with other things.

Do you trust your kid, that he knows what's best for himself? Does your kid have a strong sense of self? Are you willing to let your kid learn hard lessons while there is safety being under your roof?

For me, as a parent, that's what would dictate how I proceeded.

Our kids have pretty strong senses of who they are. Because of that, I do really trust my kids to know what's best for them. (And, I even learned too much concern from a good place is still not welcome by my oldest girl.)

Especially as the kids get older, DH and I err towards giving them pretty wide birth when it comes to decision making. So that if things go bad, its when stakes are lower, and there's the safety of home.

I would have discussions. And I would leave next steps up to my kiddo.

Thanks for the response.  I don't trust my son, not that he's a bad kid but I feel like he can pretty easily succumb to peer pressure.  Just the other day he was saying that some of his friends were complaining about some other kid and he just agreed with them, even though he didn't have an issue with the kid.  I'm like, "Why would you do that".  I don't understand why he can't feel comfortable saying "I don't know, he seems ok to me".  

His current friend group has hooligans, but they aren't forceful towards him.  The last friend group was more the pressuring/manipulating type saying "You're not being a good friend" and just really making him feel bad.  

I told my wife that I just have battle scars because my son would confide in me about the troubles he experienced and I just don't want to replay that.  Maybe I'd be ok with him interacting with them on occasion, but I just have this horrible feeling that they'll exert the same type of controlling behavior as before.  And when they say "Hey, sit with us, don't sit with them (current friend group)" he'll go along with hit, which essentially would alienate him from other kids.  I want him to primarily focus on his current relationships while being able to interact with this other group.

Here's the big problem though.  He's not happy with his friend situation now and he thinks we're being too controlling, this is being reinforced (i think) by his old friend group.  What he doesn't remember is that he wasn't happy before either.  

The only thing that makes me feel a sense that we're in the right is that he has a twin sister that knows these kids.  They were kind of mean to her as well, but she DOES have a strong sense of self.  She pretty much blocked them and still won't give them the time of day.  I assume because they are still exactly the same type of kids.  

[Ryan]

Nov 2, 2023 12:48:01 GMT -5 busymom said:

Can he sign up for more after-school activities, which will give him the opportunity to meet more kids?  There's nothing wrong with hanging out with different friends in different situations.


Just as a general rule, junior high kids are a$$holes.  Both of my kids suffered from bullying during this time.  


DD ended up hanging out with a completely different group of kids in high school.  And, she was a lot happier then than when she was with the junior high group.

We do have him in a decent amount of activities, he plays soccer 3x a week and does Church group 2x, he also does track with school and will probably do some sort of Spring sport.  I think we're bringing the horse to water, but he's not drinking   In some ways, he probably is a little too picky with who he spends time with.  You kind of need to get to know each other, get comfortable with them, and then go from there.  

[minnesotapaintlady]

This has never been an issue for me. We live too far out in the boonies for kids to be hanging out, so I've never had much to do with their friend groups at all.  There has been the occasional getting a friend and bringing him to the house, but not a lot, that happens at his dad's in town more.  At my house it's mostly playing online games with friends which happens a lot.

Honestly, I don't do drama, and middle school boys can be the WORST in that area so I tend to smile and nod keep out of it, because according to my kids I would always make it worse by trying to "help" the situation.   Both my sons basically had multiple friend groups.  One or two close friends at school (I drop off almost 2 hours before school starts), the friends in scouts, and the friends in after-school extracurriculars, and there's not a lot of overlap between these groups either.  My oldest was the one that didn't pick up on social cues and annoyed other kids.  That was hard to watch.  He was probably a Jr in high school before he got a handle on that.  Carrot (current 8th grader), doesn't seem to have that issue and has a large base of friends going all the way up to seniors.  But, if you ask him, he has no friends and nobody likes him.   If I call him on it by bringing up so and so and this person or that person he's like "well, except them". 

[giramomma]

Nov 2, 2023 14:08:26 GMT -5 Ryan said:

I told my wife that I just have battle scars because my son would confide in me about the troubles he experienced and I just don't want to replay that.  Maybe I'd be ok with him interacting with them on occasion, but I just have this horrible feeling that they'll exert the same type of controlling behavior as before.  And when they say "Hey, sit with us, don't sit with them (current friend group)" he'll go along with hit, which essentially would alienate him from other kids.  I want him to primarily focus on his current relationships while being able to interact with this other group.

Here's the big problem though.  He's not happy with his friend situation now and he thinks we're being too controlling, this is being reinforced (i think) by his old friend group.  What he doesn't remember is that he wasn't happy before either.  

It's tough all around.

Have you talked to him to see if you can make in roads in changing his mind about you being too controlling? You know, coming from a point of curiosity? Like "Hey. I heard you say this. Can you explain more?"

You have battle scars. Is there anything on your end to lessen that? Your reaction to the information and how you carry it, that's yours to manage.

When I am in conversations that make me ugh, I've usually got yarn in my hand or I am walking around. It helps me.

[Ryan]

Nov 2, 2023 15:12:39 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Nov 2, 2023 14:08:26 GMT -5 Ryan said:

I told my wife that I just have battle scars because my son would confide in me about the troubles he experienced and I just don't want to replay that.  Maybe I'd be ok with him interacting with them on occasion, but I just have this horrible feeling that they'll exert the same type of controlling behavior as before.  And when they say "Hey, sit with us, don't sit with them (current friend group)" he'll go along with hit, which essentially would alienate him from other kids.  I want him to primarily focus on his current relationships while being able to interact with this other group.

Here's the big problem though.  He's not happy with his friend situation now and he thinks we're being too controlling, this is being reinforced (i think) by his old friend group.  What he doesn't remember is that he wasn't happy before either.  

It's tough all around.

Have you talked to him to see if you can make in roads in changing his mind about you being too controlling? You know, coming from a point of curiosity? Like "Hey. I heard you say this. Can you explain more?"

You have battle scars. Is there anything on your end to lessen that? Your reaction to the information and how you carry it, that's yours to manage.

When I am in conversations that make me ugh, I've usually got yarn in my hand or I am walking around. It helps me.

I don't think he really thinks I'm all that controlling because, in reality, I'm not.  I'm very laid back overall and so is my wife.  I think we just have boundaries on certain things like curfew, how far our kids can ride their bikes, etc....when compared to other friends of his, seem restrictive.  This is the only time I told my son who he could hang out with.  Honestly, part of it was because of the impact that it had on our entire family.  We devoted a lot of time/energy into helping him sort through those feelings and how to tackle it, to the point where it really has distracted us from our other kids.  This one is already more demanding in a lot of ways and I don't really need the unnecessary drama in our house.  

I've told him this before, but I'm trying to lay out the fact that their are boundaries you need to establish.  You can't just join back in and, almost, kind of ask to be let back in.  They were the ones that wronged you, not the other way around.  I wish my son had a little more of my daughter's attitude.  She is still pretty quiet, but she understands when someone is not a good friend and takes steps to address it or just distance herself.  She still is mad at these kids for how they treated her brother!  

[Tennesseer]

Ryan - I think you have started several threads about this son.  Have you thought about bringing your son to a child psychologist for a couple of sessions for the psychologist to talk to your son and see what's going on with him.  The psychologist might be able to directly help him while giving you some guidance in how to help him.  

It can be tough for some kids as they get to your son's age to positively interact with their peers.

[Artemis Windsong]

I would promote the scouts.  The kids learn a lot like knot tieing to camping. 

I know church groups also have a lot of experiences for development and friends.

The child psychologist would probably require testing to see where he is at.  I'd use this as a last resort.  Just my personal opinion.