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.

Thanks,
Dad661