In article .com,
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Hello,

I have a 13 year old son in eigth grade who has stopped interacting
with his friends almost completely in the last 8-12 months. I was shy
as a child, and he always has been too but he always had a few friends
that he did things with occasionally. At times, he's had close
friends. He's not particularly good at sports. He's getting all A's
and B's in school and I don't have to bug him much to do his
homework. He's well behaved and healthy which makes me feel lucky!

I am concerned about his dis-interest in friends. His friends would
call and he wouldn't call them back. If we make him go to a friends
house, he almost always has a good time but isn't interested in
getting together more.

It got to the point where I moved to another neighborhood where more
of his friends live to make it easier for him to get together with
them and it hasn't help.

I've been a single Dad for 5 years and have my kids every other week.
Get along good with their Mom. For a divorce, it's about as good as
it can get. We're both caring and involved parents.

Neither his mom or I are home in the afternoon (which I'm trying to
fix too) so we can't really be here to push him to be with friends in
the afternoon. When I am home, I try to do this but he's not
interested. He really likes hanging out with his 10 year old
brother. His brother has lots of friends and does sleep overs a lot
and my older son would rather have him around (most of the time).

Their mom thinks I should force him to go to his friends house. that
may work, but doesn't seem right to me. He should want to be with his
friends. In his free time he liked to play video games (esp
renescape.com). He's a very 'straight' kid and I don't think he's
gotten into anything bad on the internet or with friends.

Any ideas? Is he just shy and maybe I should give it more time? He's
starting high school next year and I want his experience with friends
to be good.

Does he have other interests that he's pursuing? Like, for instance, my 14 year
old has hobbies he loves to do instead of just hanging out with friends; he's
happy with seeing them at school and scouts and family get togethers. If so,
maybe it's as simple as his marching to his own drummer.

But what concerns me is that you're talking about a *change*. A change where
someone withdraws from what they've liked to do before, whether or not it has to
do with being with people, is a pretty strong sign of depression. You need to
take that possibility very seriously and talk to his pediatrician about this
change in pattern. Is he even playing his favorite video games anymore?

As others have said, he may have been facing bullying at school, even involving
his (former) friends. (Thirteen sure was the height of my problems with that!)
And his withdrawal is not necessarily due to depression (although that can still
be a consequence of a problem like that), it may be a coping mechanism. He may
not want to open up about it. Ask him if he would like it if he moved to a new
school or want a social fresh start in another way. You may need to take some
action there, either with the school he's in (you may need to bring a situation
to their attention *whatever* your boy says about it), or by changing schools.

I most certainly would not try to deal with this in a "just get over it" manner
like making him go to his friends house. It's just not a parent's place to do
that with a teen, and may push him right into the source of the problem!

Good on you for taking steps to be home in the afternoon when you see a teenaged
child struggling - so many parents seem to think they're about finished with
active, present parenting as soon as the kids can microwave a meal and get out
of the house by themselves in case of a fire! Just being present in the house
is a good starting measure against a lot of teen troubles.

Good luck.

Banty