What could this be?

[lgliser]

My kids turn 13 this month. Triplets - 2 girls, 1 boy.

My son is "gifted" and goes to the SAGE program once a week through our public school district. He says he hates it but can't tell me why. There is a Facebook group with lots of articles and info on the emotional needs of gifted kids, and some of them resonate so that's why I'm mentioning his giftedness. 

I also feel like it could totally just be being a 13 year old kid. He's SO grumpy. He doesn't tolerate any silliness from his sisters and gets so mad at them. Maybe he just feels like the odd one out? The only boy, the "smart" one. He also delights in acting like a second dad to them - bossing them around and scolding them. I've talked about doing negative things (such as teasing), neutral things (basically just doing nothing), and doing positive things (like helping someone or saying something nice to them). Obviously negative things are bad, neutral is "whatever" and positives are actually nice and kind. I've told him he needs to work on actually doing positive acts and he simply seems incapable.

He seems very insecure about himself but I don't know why. He's smart but not weird. He's super sporty and one of the best on his baseball team. He gets along with all the boys on the team just fine. He has buddies that he does things with. He's cute. (He does think he's fat). He often calls himself weird and unsocialized. 

He's very repetitive when there is something he wants. Their bday is coming up and he wants a Nintendo Switch and he mentions it constantly. CONSTANTLY. He wants to go skiing this spring and it's the same thing. It's like he thinks there's power in repetition. 

He has a very hard time finding fun. He loves bouncing a ball against the garage and catching it. He loves playing catch. But only with my husband or me. Sadly for him there are no other kids in our cul-de-sac and his sisters are really not very good at playing catch. There is a boy that used to be on his baseball team who lives a good walk away and I often encourage him to see if he wants to play but he says no. He says he's not a very good ball player. 

I just sent the kids outside for "recess" and the girls are playing volleyball and he's throwing his ball against the garage. He came in because "it's not fun to play alone." I told him to play with the girls (he's good at volleyball) but he said he wanted to play catch and they don't want to. So to me it's like, play what you want and be alone or play something else and be with people. Personally I'd bend a little and play something that is maybe not my top choice but that I still enjoy and be with people. Ok so he just joined them and already he's hit a ball into one girl's face. Probably not on purpose but he also rarely sees any fault in himself and apologizes.

The kids have been playing the Wii a lot lately and he prefers Mario Baseball and the girls prefer Mario World. All 3 can play both of those games and all 3 kids like both games though and the girls often do play Mario Baseball with him, but then when they ask him to play Mario World, he doesn't want to. He just wants to do what he wants, with whom he wants, and when he wants.

He often declines going to his very best friend's house because he prefers what they do at our house. I think on one hand it's nice to have the confidence to say you don't want to do something but on the other hand his friend might like having him there for a change.

I'm not saying that he should never get to pick the activity with his sisters or friends. Obviously there should be some give and take.

So I don't know. Does this just seem like sullen teen stuff or what?