What age do children make their own plans to do things together?

[saltycashew]

My son is 13. He is well liked by his school peers and teachers, but he struggles to form strong friendships and even understand what a friend truly is.

He rarely does things outside of school or school activities with his friends. He doesn't seem to keep in regular contact with more than 2-3 of them. Rarely has an engaging or meaningful conversations with them, and doesn't seem to even understand when a friend is a friend and who he's actually really friends with. He's jovial and friendly with most of the boys at school, but it all kind of ends there. He'll send the odd text to some of his friends, but they're mainly just random memes or dumb words that make no sense. Never a proper back and forth conversation / chat type thing.

Does this sound even remotely normal for young boys?

DH blames me for our son's friendship situation and still sees it as my responsibility to arrange meet ups for my son and his friends to do something together by getting in touch with their mums. DH points out how other mums who are friends with eachother do a better job at arranging things between their children which makes me feel like a really shit mum. I'm friendly with a couple mums who also have boys. Sometimes I will suggest / plan things for our boys to do something, but more often than not I now see my friendship (limited) with them independent of our boys friendships. So if I end up going out for a drink with one of my friends our conversation generally revolves around stuff specific to our lives and not our children's lives. I don't come away from a night out with any of them with the goal of making plans for our boys to do something m. My DH is baffled by this.

I will also say that I am awful at maintaining friendships of my own and I see a lot of what I shared about my son in myself as well. I am diagnosed ADHD and most likely on the ASD spectrum in the form of Asperger's.

What I'm trying to understand is whether my son's behaviour and approach to friendships is normal for his age and in the current tech based era where it seems people struggle to converse at times. Or if it's my fault that I've not focused on spending time creating and strengthening friendships for him. Or if he is also likely on the spectrum like myself and struggles the same way I do.

I've always suspected the later, but DH won't even entertain the notion

What sort of deep conversation are you expecting him that have?! Sounds totally normal to me..

Plenty of 13 year old boys communicate like this. It’s pretty normal. It’s a spectrum, obviously - some will be better than others.

Also, by 13, their parents need to step back and let them figure it out. That’s normal.

I hear a lot of judgement of you (both from your DH and of yourself). That’s not normal, actually.

So if I end up going out for a drink with one of my friends our conversation generally revolves around stuff specific to our lives and not our children's lives. I don't come away from a night out with any of them with the goal of making plans for our boys to do something m. My DH is baffled by this.

This is appropriate. You are allowed your own friendships.

What is your DH doing to support his DS?

I'd expect a 13 year old to be sorting his own personal life unless he specifically asks for help from you.

If your husband thinks a parent should be doing it why isn't he sorting it?

I don't think regular contact with 2-3 friends is that bad or lacking .. if they're decent as friends, that's the main thing. Quality over quantity any day, when it comes to socialising and friendship. I don't think 12/ 13 yr olds who are at secondary school need play dates organised for them. Does your son seem happy enough in himself? Your DH's criticism sounds pretty annoying. What's he done about any of it - anything?

You and your DS sound fine and nice.

Your DH sounds like a bag of useless dicks.

Also - do you suspect your DH might also be somewhere on the neurodiverse spectrum? It’s pretty odd he refuses to ‘entertain the notion’ wrt your DS - if he’s aware you are ND, then he should know there’s a higher chance of your child being ND. Added to which the rigid thinking around your friendships and role as a parent…

I wonder what your DH is doing to help

If you have autism it's quite possible DS does too.

With DD I would suggest wording for texts to help her start arranging things with friends as they were all quite rubbish at it. This year (going into year 10) they have been far better. She meets up and goes to Costa, or they meet up at the beach for chips, occasionally the cinema.

The only time adults get involved is for lifts and one of the parents arranges a games night occasionally parents and children attend.

Make sure there are no practical barriers, so offer lifts, ensure he has a bank card with money, suggest venues or offer to have people at yours

Oh nothing too deep and meaningful at all. Just random things like chatting about what his friends did over the weekend, Christmas or holidays abroad etc once they return.

I also appreciate that I'm not a boy, and the way I chatted and gossiped with my girlfriends when I was his age was very different. So very well may be just a girl thing.

Maybe I'm expecting too much?

I think there's a mixture of expectations around when children make their own arrangements. I expected my DD1 to do it from starting secondary school, but then some parents wanted confirmation from me of those arrangements, so clearly weren't in the same place with their DC. They are heading into year 9 now and seem to have mostly moved to making their own arrangements, but they don't seem to do much. I think partly because they are spread out geographically, but also because they spend all week together and that's enough.

Does he game? I gather most communication happens via online games at this age. So a group of boys from school will all log on at 7 and play for an hour together and chat at the same time.

This

@saltycashew if I ask DD how her friends holidays were I get very little in response and I don't think it's her autism, as I I don't get much more if I ask them in person and these are children that practically live at each others houses and I've known since they were in nappies

I did maintain all 3 of mine at 13. DD is my youngest and is quite shy and I still have to organise.

your husband is a parent too - maybe he can maintain if he’s h happy about how you do it.

DH is very dismissive and unsupportive of my ADHD. We do not discuss it or the struggles that I deal with at all. He's the type of person that thinks 'everyone is a little ADHD'. He refuses to accept my suspicions about our son being ND as well and outs me down and gets angry if I suggest it.

He's basically subliminally drilled it into my son's head that having ADHD or ASD makes you some kind of dysfunctional loser.

My son has a wide variety of interests that tend to cycle into 1-2 that he hyper focuses on for a few months at a time. Even DS closest friend (who has seemed to turn a bit on my son over the past year in favour of other friends in their group) has suggested my son has autism because of his interests. 🫤

Yes, expecting too much. Even teen girls ‘talk’ to each other differently now, ime.

Same age boy here, and he doesn’t meet up with school friends much, nor does he want me to make arrangements. Only in person contact he arranges is that he likes to go for his hobby, a sport, when there’s others he knows. Otherwise contact is mainly online where he’s playing with school friends and he’s also got a few stable online only friendships

It does sound a little unusual. However your DH sounds like he is on the wanker spectrum and needs to do one. Why is it not his "fault".

Your DS sounds perfectly normal.

Your DH sounds like an unpleasant bully.

I don’t have much specific advice - my DD has additional needs and struggles with things like this and I do help her. However I agree with @NoSquirrels and others that at 13 there are going to be a huge spectrum of how boys communicate and it will be different from how girls communicate.
It’s not unreasonable to help a bit with a suggestion / lift/ money but your DH’s approach is very wrong. It shouldn’t be on you to sort this out. He can sit and talk to his DS himself and help him to put a txt, plan an outing, etc.
These other mums you are going out with don’t approach you either with ideas of getting boys together. It means that they don’t feel that it’s right and they see you only as their friend.

My 14 year old DS is out and about with his mates all the time, organised amongst themselves. I don’t think they have many deep and meaningful conversations, their text messages seem to consist mostly of memes, insults, with the odd skibidi thrown in here and there.
My 17 year old DS has just started to meet up with friends without my involvement, and that’s mainly because his friends do all the arranging and then invite him along. Both of them do their main communicating online whilst gaming.
How does your son feel about it all? Does he want to spend more time with his friends?

I sympathise with this OP. I'd love my dd to have more of a social life, but me intervening is really not the answer. I think if your ds is friendly with people and not obviously unhappy that's a win for now and when he's older and more secure in himself he can build on this. You are modelling a social life.and maintaining friendships and that is helpful for your ds so your dh is out of order. My dd has adhd and is on the waiting list for asd diagnosis. She does have friends, most of whom are also neurodiverse buy a little goes a long way with her, she also enjoys time to herself to recharge after school.

At best your DH sounds like a horrible bully, I bet he is horrible about other things too.

Your DS sounds very similar to my autistic DD. Perhaps look into groups that naturally attract those with autism or generally introverts, library's often have Lego club or similar, DD does Young Wardens at the Local wildlife trust which she started for her DoE but enjoys.

If I tried to arrange something for them at 13 they would “die of cringe” (thanks, kids!)

Your son sounds just fine. Your husband, less so.

Thank you for this. This sounds very similar to my son. He likes gaming and does keep in touch with his school friends online. But it's DH that seems to be reminiscing with fondness to his relationship with his childhood friends where they were inseparable and spent so much time at each others houses.

He'll sometimes see parents who he's Facebook friends with who take their children on days out together. Then he blames me for not arranging meet ups with son friends because I'm casual friends with some of the mums and sees it as my responsibility to arrange the meet ups.

DH does encourage our son to try and do things with his friends, but I think he gets frustrated that nothing ever comes out of it. DH does very occasionally make the plans with the other children's parents.

Hi OP - I am following along as my DD is similar and also ND. Your DH sounds really difficult and I sympathise as my DH can be similar too about attitudes to ND and with rigid, black and white thinking etc - I think he maybe ND too…