My Year 6 son is frequently upset and angry about not having the latest gadgets and gaming stuff, and he does get teased by his mates. All he wants for Xmas and bdays are variations of really expensive stuff, iPad, iphone, laptop, monitor, Nintendo, PlayStation, etc .
The problem is we have moved to an area where his new school mates have the latest and best stuff ('leafy suburbia') and they are really quite cruel, making fun of his old and battered phone and tablet which don't work with some new downloads. They're all only 9-10, as far as we parents were concerned we didn't really want him to have a phone until he goes to secondary at all! Certainly not get into a spiral of always having to have expensive new stuff. I thought it was a case of him telling tales but having met and spoken to the other parents... nope, they really have Xbox and Nintendo and new phone and ...
On the other hand, I don't want his friends to not come round, make him feel rubbish etc. He could do with a nicer set of friends but it's not so easy. So much seems to be about who has what car, size of house, holidays... It just doesn't fit with our own value system at all - Second hand practical cars, keeping our electronic devices till they're no longer working properly etc, which he seems to find really embarrassing.
We are also quite strict on screentime, as he gets quite down and moody when he's on too long. But there is little he seems to enjoy doing in the house. No longer into playing with toys, Lego etc, rarely reads, no arts- crafts, music etc. we like board games, and he does a lot of sport but other than that it's just computer games and YouTube, and he spends however long we let him. An hour school days, two at the weekend, TV is extra. There's a lot of 'I'm so bored!' the rest of the time.
Can't decide if we're too strict and should accept he needs to be able to fit in. Or if we should stick to our guns, accept that this is making him pretty miserable at times and hope that eventually he'll understand why we didn't want to buy everything he thought he so urgently needed.
Sorry, this is far too long, I just really wish they came with manuals! I was much surer of my parenting when he was little.
Have you been in similar situations? How have you dealt with this?