My 12 year old daughter only comes downstairs for food is this normal?

[StormyLovesOdd]

Just feeling a bit sad, DD spends all day in her bedroom we don't seem to have much family time anymore, this is a new thing, we've always been really close until the last few months. Whilst we were having breakfast this morning she mentioned she fancied watching ET later. I was really looking forward to watching it together but she's bailed on me and I'm watching it on my own whilst DD is in her bedroom. Is this just normal behaviour for a 12 year old?

Am now slightly reassured by some later messages from people who don't allow screens in bedrooms at all or for them to disappear for ages. Was beginning to think I was outside the norm but see I'm not, it's just there's a wide range of views.

We just don't let them. I have 15/17 year olds and they are not allowed to disappear into their rooms

I’d have absolutely hated that as a child / teenager. Why? If it’s worries about tech there must be other ways to handle that?

We entered this stage a few weeks ago. I agree with someone who says it seems to happen overnight.

@StormyLovesOdd

How many of us would do the same if we were in her position. Shut the door. Tablet all evening. No contact. Sounds like heaven some days!

You say you want her to interact and socialise a bit more.. but you've given her free reign with the means to not do that.

Limit tablet time!

Even if shes on her tablet and shes down with you? It's a start.

Seems normal to me but it's a long time since I had a twelve year old. I gave mine privacy (the favour wasn't often returned :-) ) when he wanted it but he was also downstairs a lot with us or in the other room doing things. He had friends here quite a lot

I'm nearly seventy and grew up in the days of cold houses, a fire in one room only, so my bedroom was very cold in winter. I would have loved to have had a cosy room to be private in, my mother was the sort who felt she had the right to barge in without knocking too until I was 16ish and demanded she knock.

The last thing I wanted was to sit with parents all evening except when there was something on television that interested me. Yet most of the time that was what I had to do and I hated it. My one dream/ambition was to leave home as soon as I could.

My brother was like that. He even sat on the stairs to eat. We were round the table. He wasn't allowed to take his meal to his room, otherwise he would have.

I spent my early teen years in my room reading/jigsaws/listening to my sony walkman. My latter teens I stayed in there watching Friends and playing The Sims on the pc til the small hours.

Isn't hibernating in their room a typical teenage thing?

Good response from the 12 year old on this thread about talking to your daughter,

My daughter never did this, literally she slept and got ready in her room and that was it, my friends kids did it, but they had an unhappy home.

I'd say if it's occassional it's fine, but all the time is concerning. I think you need to gently find out why and what she's doing.

If I had been 17 years old and my parents had tried to control where I spent my time in my own home I would have run away.

According to my mother I never left my bedroom and she used to leave my dinner outside the door. I think the last part is a bit of an exaggeration, but yeah, I preferred my own company at that age. No iPads or TVs then though, I would read a lot.

DS disappeared into his room a few years back. He re-emerged recently, 6 feet 2 tall, with a full beard, serious acne, a deep voice and the ability to play bass guitar.
It was like a caterpillar going into a cocoon and emerging as some new life form.
Just keep feeding it, reminding it to wash and nod when it grunts at you. it does eventually turn back into a human - sort of!

No, not normal at all. I would be concerned.

Don’t Worry Love, My Eldest Went through a phase of this, he’s now I lovely young lad, try to encourage her out and spend some quality time with her, I hope this advice will work for you as well as it worked for me ;)

I wonder if this is more of a girl thing - my son is always out and about and can barely spend an hour on his own or without making a heck of alot of noise!

Not a girl thing. You have a girl who behaves one way and a boy who behaves differently. That does not extrapolate to all girls/boys behaving the way yours does.

I am brunette. I was a kid who stayed in my room. My sister is blonde and was always out socialising.

Maybe it’s a brunette thing?

All the comments about how it is worrying to want to spend so much time on your own show just how difficult people find it to understand people who are not like them.

Some people like company, some people like to be alone. It doesn't mean there is something wrong with them.

It is normal. I grew up with no tech, I just wanted to be alone. I would be listening to music or writing in my diary, reading books or dancing alone in my bedroom.

No. Screens are addictive and awful for developing brains. Our 12 year old is limited to none during the week except on the bus ride home and then 2 hours a day on the weekend. I'd really fear for their mental wellbeing if they're having that much isolated screen time.

Normal in my house. Our 11 year old DS spends a lot of time in his room but only recently since we decorated it and made it more grown up with a tv in there for the first time. Prior to that he never spent any time up there.

He eats with us, watches the odd movie with us downstairs and does his homework downstairs but other than that he's upstairs watching telly or you tube or playing games with his friends in the Xbox.

I love my own company and so does dh so it doesn't bother me. I also spent a lot of time in my room at that age.

I was like that from 13 through to 15/16, as was my partner although from what I've heard he was worse than me!

Also shocked at the 17 year old being dictated to about where they are allowed to spend their time at home.

I just can't get my head around controlling somebody in that way. They can leave home at that age (and I definitely would).

I'm so grateful for my parents when I read things like that!

I mostly suggest a family game, or activity for younger children, this may work for older teens as welll? Suggesting classic board games may also be a fun~ ish idea.

It's not controlling. It's just an expectation that, as a family, we don't spend time in our bedrooms except to sleep/do homework etc. We have 3 reception rooms so we're not all on top of each other - and we're all introverts so keen on our own space - but we don't use our bedrooms for that. They watch TV a fair bit and we don't have TVs upstairs so that's one reason why they're happy to be downstairs.