To worry about my daughter's text messages?

[worrymore]

My 11 year old daughter just got her first phone as she's stated to get the bus to school.

I check her phone regularly and am a bit concerned about her text messages.

She seems to be constantly reaching out to friends who aren't replying, or if they do reply are giving one word answers.

I have two worries.

She's an only child and my husband and I both work from home but there's usually a couple of hours between her getting back from school and us finishing work, so I'm worried she's lonely and hence is trying to reach out for companionship. She does have after school activities some days but we can't afford her to do them every day.

I'm also worried about the fact that the friends aren't replying. She seems very happy at school and has lots of friends. She gets invited to play dates and birthday parties, etc and the teachers always say she's got lots of friends.

The lack of replies to her messages are suggesting otherwise though. It makes me want to cry for her to see all the unanswered messages. I also feel a bit embarrassed for her, although I know that's not a nice thing to feel about your own child.

I may be worrying unnecessarily but it's really bothering me.

I definitely don't want her being the weird kid who is desperately trying to reach out and is being ignored. I also don't want her annoying people by sending too many messages. They aren't excessive at all but they're going unanswered 90% of the time.

11is very young to be navigating friendships via mobile phone. . Texts /lack of can be hurtful and damaging.... Help her concentrate on irl friends.. And proper talking!

You are worrying about nothing. My dd12 has 3 very close friends and hers read the same or she doesn't always answer.

I think its very common. Even though they are glued to tech, they are normally reading/ listening/ watching something and generally forget to reply or there is nothing to really reply too.

As long as she's happy then I wouldn't be concerned. Maybe she can call instead, mine seems to answer a call/voice note or a message.

Kids are complex, I wouldn't worry to much. If she seems disheartened just reinforce her that people get distracted.

Hi there, my 11 year old is also an only child, and recently had his first phone - very basic just call/text functionality.

He's very popular/sociable but once the novelty of the phone wore off it's often switched off for days and he rarely checks it, when he does he'll often have lots of messages, and although he's very outgoing will often just reply 1 word answers, I think as he's less used to having a phone compared to some of his friends who have had one for years he's just less tech savvy and isn't meaning to be rude.

I really wouldn't worry about it, sometimes I've often asked my son 'what has so and so said...' and 'why don't you ask them what they are doing', to try and encourage him to be a bit more two-way but I just think it'll come with time, and I'd much rather he's not concerned with it anyway.

young kids don’t use their messaging like we do. It’s often just hello… then a few days later
someone says hi and that’s it for a week.

Dont push them to the phone messaging addiction too soon. By 15 it takes Over their lives .

I think when you see messages to/from
children around this age it becomes clear how little social etiquette they possess.

I often see my daughter’s friends message her asking “how are you?” and she’ll just respond “ok” and not reciprocate. I think it’s because they try to emulate how they see/hear adults messaging when actually it’s not how children speak at all. I’ve not heard any of my daughter’s friends ask “how are you?” in person for example. So they will start a conversation with a copycat line they think they should use but it doesn’t com naturally to them yet so the conversation quickly dies.
They will also often message each other asking what the other is doing and just reply “nothing” and the conversation will end there. They just don’t see the need to fluff out messages to be polite or to make conversation.
My daughter and her best friend rarely talk over messages, if you looked at their conversations a lot of it is one ignoring the other. But in person they don’t stop chatting!