What do your teenagers do with their free time?

[Frequency]

DD14 seems to spend 99% of her free time in her room alone. I'm not sure this is normal?

She has depression, anxiety and bulemic tendencies. She recieves support from CAHMS for this.

In the last year she has taken to shutting herself in her room alone, sometimes for the entire weekend.

She does have friends she meets up with from time to time (maybe once a month or so) and she communicates with these friends and with family via social media while she is in her room. When she's not on social media she's drawing or watching Netflix.

I work weekends so she's pretty much alone in the house all weekend. She has the option of going to DD2's dads or grandparents/aunts instead of being alone but chooses to stay in her room.

When I'm on my lunch break at home, she still sits alone in her room. Sundays I am off and spend time with family, DD refuses to come, staying alone at home instead.

Is this part of her anxiety/depression or is it fairly normal?

After school during the week is the same, she'll come in from school, chat to me for around 10-15 mins and then take herself off to her room for the rest of the evening.

[dalmatianmad]

Hi op, this all sounds so familiar!

My dd is 15 and ds is 13, they are both really outgoing, chatty and popular kids but they come home spend 10 mins telling me about their day and clear off upstairs.....

On Christmas day and boxing day I barely saw them so I sat and cried

I've come to the conclusion that it must be normal

[LunaMay]

Sounds fairly normal by my experience of teens and being a teen. Don't take it personally some just prefer their own company

[Frequency]

I was leaning towards it being normal but my mum and gran are very worried about it and pushing me to seek further support for her (they think CAHMS isn't helping her) and force her out of her room.

We never spent that much time alone at that age but then if we wanted to speak to our friends we had to either use the landline in front of our parents (mortifying) or get off our backsides and walk to their house. I think we had the option of snapchatting each other we'd have spent the ages of 13 - 17 in bed attached to phones instead of hanging around on the beach freezing our tits off.

[garlicandsapphire]

DS 14 plays play station all the time, DD spends a lot of time in her bed watching movies or reading but does come and watch Tv with me. But I think they should have kept you company on Christmas day!

[BlueberryGateaux]

Teen Dd was out and about with friends a lot. Teen Ds was practically welded to PlayStation or Xbox in his room.

[Tigger44]

My DD (nearly 13) spends a lot of time in her room on her phone or watching youtube videos. I do think it's normal but it annoys me. Like you say Frequency, we had to get up and go out if we wanted to talk to our friends at that age. I have wondered if I would have been that same if I had the same access to technology.

[Northernsoul58]

My DS (16) also spends a lot of his time in his room. He is outgoing at school and gets on with various groups which he dips in and out of according to his mood/timetable. But he explained to me some years ago that school is exhausting and that home is where he can just relax and feel safe. It is his sanctuary where he can leave the world behind and have some real downtime. Since he explained this I gave up trying to get him to go out and meet friends - or even invite them to our home. He goes out sometimes and does Explorers once a week. But most of his spare time is spent either Youtube gazing, gaming or skyping while gaming or texting. Pretty normal I think.
TBH I spent a lot of time, especially weekends, at this age lying on the sofa watching old B&W films on the tele. (My parents escaped my volcanic moods by doing a lot of gardening!) I had one best friend and we talked endlessly on the street corner after school before retreating to our homes. Not much different from modern kids really now I think about it.

[VonHerrBurton]

Ds14 is a big gamer/skyper/youtuber and spends hours in his room. My mum and sister don't 'get' it and I do sometimes wish he'd spend more time downstairs with us. Dh jokes that all he needs up there is a fridge and microwave a d we'd NEVER see him....

However he does a martial art 3 nights a week, another team sport on Sundays and is happy and popular in school. The laughter and fun he seems to share with his friends gaming does make me smile, I can hear them when I'm upstairs so I guess I'm just picking my battles.

Not over the moon with it but all his friends are the same and he's polite at other peoples' houses so I just put up with it. As long as they still talk to you about stuff that's important to them, I'm happy, for the time being!

[JustDanceAddict]

As per my post re Socialising, I would say it was common, but maybe not healthy! DD is 14 and at the weekends she spends a lot of time in her room either doing h/w, watching Netflix, on her phone or doing art. She does a drama club on Sats and has started a youth club Sunday nights which she likes, by doesn't go every week. She has phases of seeing friends, but atm it's def a non-seeing phase so may have an arrangement one out of two weekends. Some kids of her age party loads, but she's not in that clique and is quiet and more comfortable in smaller groups.
DS is nearly 13 and welded to the PS4 so talks to friends through that. He's into skateboarding too so when weather allows he's on his board. He has got a lot of friends but isn't seeing them much lately out of school - prob too cold! He doesn't seem to be bothered and is happy mooching about.