dds not wanting to see old friends anymore

[Friendsoftheearth]

I feel fortunate that I have some lovely old friends with dc, and mostly over the years we have all grown up together with the children playing when they were younger and it has been great, but just lately it has become quite strained.

DDs (13 & nearly 16) do not want to see my old friends' children anymore. They tell me they have nothing in common and don't enjoy it. I dds are old enough to decide who they see, so I have since tried to organise just adult evenings and days out with my friends, and this is where the difficulty lies.

My friends for a multiple reasons really are insisting on doing things with dc still.
Some have dc that don't have many/any friends and so really want to see my girls, others see my eldest dd as a good influence and want their dc to hang out with her to keep them away from what has become a troubling period. One other set have a dd that is really quite unkind to my youngest dd. So we obv avoid them. Others have younger ones and can not organise babysitting because of lockdown! I It has become really fraught now we are out of lockdown, and friends want to catch up.

Do I:

1. Insist on adults only get togethers and if I don't see them, that is fine
2. Take tc and make it short and sweet
3. Distance from it all for a while, see more straight forward friends
4. A solution I haven't thought of! Am I being unreasonable or selfish?

This is causing some tension between us, because I don't want to say outright and hurt anyone's feelings that my dc are no longer interested - and probably never were really, so I have been saying dc are busy with sports, revision etc but then they ask for the next free date!!

How do others manage this transition?
The whole group gathering just doesn't work anymore..

catti That is pretty much where I am with it actually, that they should b be free to choose. And then I read biddys post and wouldn't want them to grow not caring about others!!!

TS No, I want my dc to do what they need to do with their lives, but it doesn't make it any easier telling my friends for the tenth time, that they are busy revising. Esp when one friend told me dd is revising too much and needs to enjoy herself a bit more

This is a difficult transition, one minute they are all happily playing together on the beach, the next they have nothing in common and are playing on their mobiles and can't make conversation.

I think the problem is that if they are not friends, they don't have that conversational banter going on that we would have with our friends and they have with their own friends. They aren't yet at that stage of being able to make polite conversation with someone they really have no interest in (like work dinners where you get placed by someone you don't get on with!)

You have to just accept, and so do your friends, that 'family friends' isn't a thing past about age 13/14, and if they choose to be friends later on, which they might, that's fab, but it will be extremely awkward to try to get lots of teens (say age 13 and 16 is so different anyway) together.

We have one or two families where I give them the choice to come, I say I'm going for lunch at X's, and sometimes one and sometimes both will come, and there's other families we just aren't even beginning to suggest that and I see them on my own. I'd expect my girls to be polite if anyone unexpectedly came, and to chat for five minutes when some arrives, but not an afternoon out with other teens who they don't get along with, not as a regular event.

I've also found that giving them a genuine choice, and not caring if they don't come, works well- so sometimes they now opt back in which is fun, but there's a couple of families where the other children are either rude and ignore them or they just have nothing in common, and why would you want your children to spend your free time doing that.

Being kind to one specific person who might be having a hard time is different, generally people should get to chose their friends.

Covid is a great excuse.

'I don't want commit to anything over Christmas due to the Covid uncertainty and dd's GCSE work. Hopefully things will be better by 2021 so let's try and plan something after the New Year.

That buys you a few months so see if dd's change their mind (probably not, but you never know).

I wouldn't force them - they are old enough to be left so you could go and meet friends with their kids.

Or possibly find a location that your girls can go off together though given covid that's harder and wouldn't solve DD1 revision time which I think had to be the priority.

So I think you come back to suggestions to tell them it doesn't work for your teens who are busy with revision and seeing their own friends.

Beside is meeting up a good idea? I've got one DC off because another child in his school year tested positive for covid he has to stay in house for 14 days - with knock on effects for other children's medical appointments. We've a Y11 and I'm really keen she has as little disruption as possible so we're not going as far as normal- so you could say that if you want to blame covid.

Illdealwithitinaminute It really is that in a nutshell! One minute they were all playing, the next it is so strained with dc not remotely interested. It is quite painful !! Well I think so !! I have raised dc to make small talk, but they can only manage ten minutes max before the platitudes have dried out and they are ready to go home...and to be fair not everyone of that age can even do the small talk.

If we run into friends it is great, but to spend a whole day four times a year, it is too long and they don't want to do it, not unreasonably. It is odd that other friends seem okay to keep it running and running, it would be so much easier if they would give up on the idea too! I don't understand why they want it to continue, regardless.

I wouldn't make it about you, or them not wanting to be with out - just simply say sorry they are catching up with friends from school/college whatever. You can't force them to come along, and you say yourself they are very different. If we get invited out I don't automatically expect my 2 teenage DS to come - I ask them first. If they don't want to I just say "Sorry they are doing their own thing" and leave it at that.

I'm surprised it's gone on so long already tbh, unless you don't meet often & it has been a rare chance for the kids to see each other.

If it's not that & the other kids are of similar ages-why are they still being dragged along?

@Friendsoftheearth

mini SIL is very demanding of dc and expects them to socialise with her not just at family events, but very often weekends as well. DC have no been able to branch off and make lives of their own, all live at home and none have dps, and it is all quite intense. Once the youngest DN refused as she was trying to finish off uni work, and it was pretty horrific the fallout and row. We tried to support her, and said we would rather she worked on her assignments, but no....it was awful!!

Yes, she's going to be the MIL from hell, alright.

I wonder, if her DC have proper relationships is she going to insist her family takes priority over the DC's partner's family?

We’ve got a bit of this going on now. Lockdown was great for them, also gave us parents a new perspective on everything. Even now, we think about where we’re going and who we’re seeing as the dc have different out of school groups that they’re committed to and don’t want to jeopardise

We will also be using the rule of six for some instances (whereas some others it’s a pain but we’ll stick to it)

We ended up doing mainly adult meets when kids were at school.

@PersonaNonGarter

Quite torn here because OTOH it is fair enough for your DDs to want to do their own thing, OTOH it is important to understand about social obligations and family life.

Can you talk to your DDs and ask them to go to a couple of things ‘as a favour to me’ and offer to swap them for friend favours for them?

Nobody has any social obligations to entertain the offspring of their parents' friends, with whom they admit to having little or nothing in common.

Just say that at their ages they have expressed the wish to just do their own thing and don't want to be seen out with Mum anymore.

A 16 year old shouldn't be obliged to go with you if she doesn't want or need to. Similar for many 13 year olds.

did It is a mixture. Old friends that do not live locally we see four times a year and kids always used to come, more like a family set up than friends. Resisting changing to adult only.

Local friends we see more often, but dc having problems at school with friends and are looking for social lives with family friends (which I think is healthy for them to do) but my dds are not really wanting to meet up and would rather see their own friends.

Then we have old friends that are now school friends since secondary and dc are really unkind and hard work, so my dc really don't want to see them. Understandably. They have younger children and adult nights are hard to arrange at the best of times.

Is there any reason you can't see your friends on your own OP? They can't insist that your DC must attend "or else", because "or else" what? What is actually going to happen if your DC stay home and revise instead or meet with their own friends?

Do these people have any respect for your boundaries and the fact that your family life maybe a different set up from theirs, because if that is the case they are not great friends really if they have no respect for you.

they have known these people for all of their lives it is sad just to drop them!

The only reason your DC have known these people all their lives is because you drag them along to these meet ups, it is not some friendship that developed organically through common interests or life experiences, it is merely through situation.

If these people insist on your DC being in attendance as a surrogate friend of "good" influence tell them that your girls have recently developed a love of crack cocaine but are free on the weekends if they want to meet up, bet they soon lose interest.

multi SIL considers bloodline to trump all else, she is going to make the most formidable MIL. I can't even imagine she will allow her dds to marry or leave home!! It is very full on, and we are doing things very differently and there are plenty of raised eyebrows!

@PersonaNonGarter

Quite torn here because OTOH it is fair enough for your DDs to want to do their own thing, OTOH it is important to understand about social obligations and family life.

Can you talk to your DDs and ask them to go to a couple of things ‘as a favour to me’ and offer to swap them for friend favours for them?

I do get what you say here, and was torn with this myself for a long time.

However, I realised that my own DC were being used to shore up problems with the Old Friends DCs, and I eventually felt it was really unfair to my own DCs to ignore their views & feelings.

girls have recently developed a love of crack cocaine but are free on the weekends if they want to meet up yes that should do the trick!!!!!!!!! Hee hee!

Yes my boundaries have been completely rubbish in the past, and although I am better now I am older, the older friendships still expect me to some degree to be the same. So it is conflicted, newer friendships are much easier, because the boundaries were there from the beginning. But yes of course you are right, I have every right to say it just doesn't work for us. And they can deal with it.

Variations of “I’ll ask the girls but to be honest they make their own plans nowadays.”

Tricky. I wouldn’t want to force them. I would be ticked off that my friends wouldn’t take no for an answer.

This is the norm - we've been through exactly the same thing with different friends. All you need are a few stock phrases.
Sorry DDs are busy that day.
If we wait for a slot when they are both free, we'll never meet up - let's set a date and I'll bring them if I can (but don't).
They just want to chill at home today.
Sorry big school project/exam coming up so they have to revise.
Out with friends.
At grandparents.
Don't like me organising their social life anymore.
Not well.
Feeling tired.
Grounded and have to tidy their room.

The list is endless.
But the last thing you should do is make them go with you.

Whilst you might view these as being lifelong friendships because the DC have known each other since they were tiny, really they are friendships that were spawned because you and the other mums got on initially. For some that might turn into a lifelong friendship, but for others not. My lifelong friends are the ones I made independently at school, which were fostered initially by parents enabling play dates etc but which were rooted in my choosing those friends. People I have known since childhood as a result of my parents’ friendships are just that, not lifelong friends, but lifelong acquaintances. Encouraging your children to engage in relationships and activities that are not of interest to them to satisfy some sense of social obligation won’t help to foster friendships, it will simply irritate the life out of your teenagers and send them the message that we can’t be honest about our feelings when relationships change and move on.

This happens a lot. It's natural. I just say, "no. The ds's are off doing their own thing now/ at football/boxing/out with their friends".

You talk about it. Pluck up the courage to say to this friend, the equivalent of : is our friendship based on you or me you and me always do the children have to be included?

I haven’t read the full thread, but what I’ve found with mine is yes sure mid teens they all drifted apart, but recently now early 20s they seem to have regrouped and really get on well together again.

I don't feel I should necessarily have to transfer my obligations to my dc, without their permission, surely they are just my obligations? Not theirs?
It is not straight forward is it!

It's very very very straightforward

Your children choose their friends and who they socialise with

There should be no OBLIGATION to socialise with your friends - or where does it end? Are they also obligated to socialise with their disgusting pervy uncle (for example)?

Ludicrous at your children's age to place an expectation on them to socialise where and when they don't want to

*I wouldn't make your DC go.

Make your plans with your friends as usual and just turn up alone.

Just tell them the DC didn't want to come. End of.*

This

Just tell them your kids don't want to come and leave them at home. Or arrange things during school hours.