To tell me about your 14/15 year old ds

[homedecornovice]

I find getting any information about what he is up to, friendships, feelings, day to day stuff almost impossible to drag out of mine. I have a 12 year old dd and find the contrast incredible. She tells me EVERYTHING which is great. I feel like I know what is bothering her, whats going well etc. and I love that. I feel like I'm letting DS down though as he just tells me he's 'fine' and school is 'boring' so it's really hard to know if he's OK or not! Last parents evening all was good, I've got no real reasons to be concerned but I just want to get inside his head and make sure he's happy. Is all this normal?

Completely normal. Teenage boys are closed books. With some of them you're lucky to get a grunt never mind a sentence. He'll come around again eventually I'm sure.

I'd say it's normal, mine talks to me a lot but I do think he is probably slightly unusual. As I teen I kept everything to myself

Thanks so much for the reassurance. I am quite paranoid as there is a history of mental health problems in my family and my dsis is a drug addict. I really need to relax a bit but every time ds seems a bit down / quiet etc. I jump to conclusions and fear the worse

They're very varied from my experience. A good time to have a chat is when you're driving, as long as you don't aim to make it too heavy. Also, we've had some interesting insights when I say how different something was for me to what I see on TV.

Completely normal. I don't get anywhere near the information out of DS that i do from my DD though I find he's more chatty when it's just the two of us in the car together.

Mine doesn't reveal anywhere near as much as his older sister. However I genuinely think the dramas that seemed to be the focus for DD don't bother/interest DS.
He did have an issue that was bothering him at the beginning of the school year and it was easy to tell something was up.

I don't have a teenage son yet, but I did have a teenage brother I think he only really grunted occasionally at anyone for a few years. He's now a well engaged, sociable and productive adult, don't worry!