Is it normal for my DS not to have any close friends?

[ciyates]

The problem is he desperately wants just one guy he can always call to hang out with. He is 13 and he is fairly social but doesn't have that close friendship with anyone. He tries to fit in and just can't seem to break into those groups. He is always the one following everyone else around. It breaks my heart. What can I do to encourage him to keep trying? I keep telling him to just be himself but that only gets me so far. :confused:

[Mommamia]

:grouphug: I wanted to bump this up for you.My boys are younger than yours, but I have heard this worry from many of my friends with older children(with boys and girls). Hoping you get some advice and encouragement.

[BMW]

I have a 13 yr. old son who really wants a friend, too. He wants someone to hang out with, to call and invite for something, etc. He has one on again, off again friend and when they do things together, he just loves it, but, then, it all changes. He gets really lonely. He is schooling at home and is such a bright, nice person and it does make me feel sad. My other teens branched out with friends a lot more when they started the high school youth group... in the middle school age group, no matter what the activity, there was a huge "clickish" feel and if they weren't your friend already, you just didn't have a friend... But, as soon as high school began, there were a lot more people, activities and a different feel for making friends. I hope that next year this holds true for my son... He has a lot to offer a friend!

[kewb]

It is unfortunate but sometimes you just don't find that friend until college or later. I have found the friendship thing very challenging for my 11 year old ds. Homeschooling really seems to shrink the friend pool. He is still good friends with a couple of boys he went to school with but the opportunities that form friendships in the middle school years are not easy to replicate. One of the things that these friendships are built on are the similar experiences they are having while being together 6 hours a day. The same classes-lunchtime-after school clubs.

 

I try to give my son as many opportunities as I can to be in groups. Youth group, sports, our town has a rec program on Friday nights for the kids. You can't force friendship but you can provide opportunity and be someone who listens when he is feeling frustrated/depressed by the situation.

[Jean in Newcastle]

We have the same problem. He does have one friend. But neither his family or ours live close enough to where they could just hang out together. I will say though, that some of my son's best friends are men - young married men who take the time to listen/look at his graphic novels, to talk computers with him etc. It isn't the same interaction as he has with his friend his age, but it is valuable none-the-less. (And yes, he does consider these young men his friends. He even invites them to his birthday parties!)

 

P.S. - because in today's climate people tend to think about pedophiles when thinking about friendships between boys and men, his interaction with them is always in an open public place like the church fellowship hall. Or at the monthly "Men's night" Bible study that he goes to with dh. They eat unhealthy foods at a potluck, have a great Bible study and then watch a movie together. The men are great about choosing movies like Star Wars if they know he's coming.)

[Mandy in TN]

I wanted to chime in on this one. Boys are different than girls. My brother attended a traditional classroom his whole life and never had the same type of friendships that I had with my few closest female friends. Both my brother and my dh have no friends that they are close to like I am to my few close-close female friends. My brother's bf is his wife. My dh's best friend is me.

 

My boys have some circles of friends that they run in, but their relationships much more closely resemble those that my brother had growing up than the ones I had. While sometimes I do wish that they had a close buddy, I acknowledge that my brother didn't and according to dh he also didn't have any tight knit relationships outside the family.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Ottakee]

Homeschooling does limit your friend pool.

 

How about getting him involved in local activities that interest him--sports, science, chess, computers, etc. He might link up with other like minded kids there.

 

Problem is that these kids might not live close enough for him to just bike over to their house, etc.

 

This is a problem I see with homeschooling. We don't really know the kids that live around us that well---outside of our closest neighbors.

[lionfamily1999]

Do you have any neighborhood activities? Barbeques or group yard sales or block parties? That would be a great place for him to find friends that are close physically (which makes it easier to be close emotionally). We are extremely fortunate to have two boys from Drew's church classes living on the street behind us. They play every day and even though all three are in different schools they are the best of friends.

 

My dh is still best friends with three guys he's known since K-. I'm friends with their wives (thank goodness) and with one exception our kids get along very well (one friend's dd absolutely cannot stand my older ds... it's a young girl thing we're guessing/hoping she'll grow out of). They all ended up in different schools, but they lived near enough to eachother that their friendship lasted throughout the big changes that hit as adults (one hs drop out, one hs grad, one college grad).