16 year has lost friendship group

[Dehew]

My 16 year old son has fallen out with his friendship group at school. This happened at the back end of the summer. There is no particular reason for it, he is being ignored in class and generally being isolated. School have been no help, I did reach out to some parents but nothing has changed. there has been some silly reasons given, but none that justify the total exclusion..
My son is very unhappy, miserable and taking it out on me, his Dad and brother.
i am struggling to cope with the situation as hate to see him so sad.. he has gone from a happy sociable kid who was out a lot, going for dinner and cinema trips. To a kid that just sits in his bedroom all weekend…
we have resorted to professional help for my son, but the situation is making me sick with worry, I’m not sleeping and just want to fix it.
has anyone experienced similar to give me some hope. He has another 6mths left at school and it makes me sad that all his friends since Year7 have disowned him.
i have suggested he reaches out to the group to resolve but he says no as he did last week to one of the boys but nothing came of it…

That’s cruel. You sound like one of the bullies in my peer group at school. I was ostracised from my friendship group in year 10 because I wasn’t “cool”. My former friends then enjoyed hounding me for months with verbal abuse and sly comments. They simply enjoyed the power of being extremely nasty and seeing me suffer. One of them regularly simpered at me that a simple solution to being “sad” (in the uncool sense of the word in the 90s) would be to end my own sad life.

I literally did nothing wrong other than be relatively quiet and studious and not have lots of money and cool clothes, not be actively sleeping with boys, drinking and smoking.

Do encourage him to move sixth form. It's difficult but it gives a chance to make a fresh start, rather than trying to get back with the old group.

I have reached out to other parents who have spoken to their kids, all are saying they don’t really know why, apart from he spent too much time with some girls in the summer, and he was drinking too much in the summer.. he had a few parties where all the boys had started to experiment with drink. So it wasn’t just him.. I think one person decided to stop talking and the rest of the group
followed..

It sounds like he's not helping himself, if he won't try clubs etc. There's only so much leading a horse to water that you can do. I'm sorry, I don't know what the answer is.

My advice would definitely be to change school at Y12 if he is still unable to find friends by next summer. He can have offers open and confirm once he has his GCSE’s.

It is dreadful being trapped in a small classroom with people who have passively or actively tried to destroy your life every day for years. It’s a prison sentence. It ruins your MH. Tell him to be bold and make a fresh start.

I would definitely look at different schools for 6th form OP.

I wonder if he started some argument or insulted someone when he was drunk ? Possibly something to do with a girl?

I agree with others that he should choose somewhere different for post-16 provision, and hopefully make some new friends there. Perhaps he could look for a part time job for the summer holidays to get him out of the house.

it may also be that friendships can be reconciled with one or two of his old friends on a one-to-one basis, even if the group friendship doesn’t remain.

Spending too much time with the girls and drinking too much at parties in the summer.. but they were all experimenting with drink..

This happened to dd in sixth form. She had to tread water till uni. She did slowly make another friendship at sixth form.
study leave usually starts at spring half term so not long to go. Just under 3 months.

He’s probably upset one of them which has caused them to fall out and the others to follow, this sort of thing doesn’t happen for no reason. Regardless its happened so point dwelling on it, he needs to try and make new friends elsewhere if he doesn’t want to then unfortunately there isnt anything else you can do.

This is what school has said, normally the girls.. I’m not in denial that he is completely innocent, no one falls out for no reason but their reluctance to even Americans sort out their differences is frustrating..

I think they can fall out for very little logical reason.
pne person can influence the group. Frustrating if it’s your child affected.

Just because there's a reason, doesn't mean it's a good one. This generation can be totally unforgiving of minor mistakes. Possibly he got drunk and been embarrasing or even just been a bit gauche towards one of the girls. A friend's daugher was accused of getting drunk at a party and making a guy feel uncomfortable by flirting with him as he wasn't interested in her.

Bollocks that boys don’t do this stuff so it must be op’s son has somehow brought it on himself. Boys (mother of three boys here, all now young adults) absolutely take offence and fall out over stupid things and whoever has the influence can twist the group. It’s really sad to see someone reach out for help and get told it’s her son who must have done something worse and she doesn’t know. Op the drama idea is a great one but I would also say the floating around and chatting to new people is good. Don’t contact parents yourself unless you are really good friends away from the boys.

If the others were "experimenting with drink" without getting remotely drunk, and your son was doing the same and getting drunk, they probably don't want the responsibility of him at further events. Sounds reasonably sensible to me. Not because your son is horrible or evil or anything, but just because his behaviour annoys these friends. I think your son needs to try other activities to make friends, if it bothers him that he hasn't get a little friendship group now.

Thank you - the sad thing is he has stuck with these boys even when they have done silly things, a couple of the boys got him in trouble at school but never turned his back on them. I sometimes think he is an easy target as he won’t stand up for himself.

It’s very unusual for boys to suddenly exclude someone and to keep it going. I am speaking as a mum of two boys and someone who works in a school. I think it’s likely that your ds did something the other boys found unattractive. It could have been over a girl - the only time I have ever known a boy to be cut out of a friendship group was over a girl.

My DS went through similar. It was an awful, awful time which affected the whole family. A very stressful time. I

He did eventually develop a new friendship group and has remained close friends since - the dynamics of which were completely different. Uni was very confidence-building for him and he made incredible friends.

I really feel for you and your DS. Rejection by friends must be one of the hardest things to go through. So tough within a Secondary School environment with social media etc. I know you will be worried all day about him. I hope he can find a different friendship group and see the year through where he can make choices about college and grow in confidence with new friendships.

All I can advise is to keep supporting and reassuring. He's is probably going through all kinds of shit and self-doubt at school so home needs to be his place of safety and reassurance.

Jealousy that he gets on well with girls perhaps?

Are there other kids at the school that are not part of this friendship group that he could start chatting with? See if friendships can develop?

It's not unusual at all. That boys/men don't behave this way is a misogynistic myth. Yes they do.

I have to agree with this. My son has had similar friendship issues and it’s been really tough to see him spending a lot of time on his own, and he vocalises how much this gets him down.

However, whilst I know it is a confidence thing, he absolutely refuses to do anything to change it. Won’t consider joining clubs/sports etc, so it feels very hard to help him if he won’t do anything to help himself

The girls he spent time with, don’t suppose his old mates fancied them so were peeved that he was breaking some sort of friendship code?

There has been some mention that he broke bro code!

That’ll be it. Got chatting to a girl that one of his mates liked.

Just feel the punishment doesn’t really fit the crime…