To worry about my DS (14) wanting to stay at home all day?

[Winklepickers]

We’re at the beginning of a 2 week October break.

My eldest DS (14) has spent the last couple of days gaming constantly. DH works from home and has just let him do it.

I’ve tried to encourage him to meet up with friends, but he has no interest in arranging anything.

He is autistic / adhd but low support needs. He gets on well at school and he has plenty friends there and at term-time activities. He has some lovely close friends who like him, but he doesn’t seem to give a toss about seeing them outside school/ hobbies.

he has zero interest in arranging anything with his friends over the holidays. I think he’s too old for me to arrange play dates, but he isn’t picking up the slack with his social life.

I’ve suggested he invites friends over to game with him, but he says he’d rather be alone.

I worry he’s going to grow up to be a complete recluse with no friends- just because he never makes the effort.

AIBU to worry about this? Or is this normal teen behaviour?

I think this is pretty normal, especially during school holidays when he finally gets time to himself. If he’s happy at school and has good friendships there, I wouldn’t worry too much. Some teens genuinely enjoy their own company, and it doesn’t mean he’ll grow up lonely.

Totally normal.

I’m sure an autistic person’s health needs are the same as anyone else. 14 year old boys shouldn’t be glued to a chair for 2 weeks. Plenty of better and healthier activities can be done alone.

Due to where the school boundaries were for my sons' secondary all their mates seemed to live at the far side and we lived the other extreme. They "socialised" by all connecting together, online, to play co-op games. They were a team. They also chatted over headphones whilst doing their homework too. My sons did sports too which stopped over holidays.

Both my sons went to uni, socialised by joining societies and even played eSports for their unis. They are also not overweight, anxious or socially awkward. They are doing what they want to do. This is their entertainment. Both Dh and I gamed, both as children in the 80s and as adults. We had a PlayStation 1, ah the memories.

When we had school holidays we also had free reign to do what we wanted. This also involved staying in and bingeing movies we had on VHS. We saw our friends every day in school, it was nice to have a break.

Autistic young people need movement and exercise too though. I am autistic, so are my children, and we definitely need downtime and time alone, but we also need to exercise, just like all other humans, for our health and wellbeing.

Coukd he possibly see school as where he sees these friends and not out of school? Compartmentalising? If he doesn't want to see them, I would say fine. I don't think it's fine that he is gaming all day. Is there another activity he likes?

As long as he's not trying to be alone because he's been bullied out of various friends groups, then he's just doing what he feels is right.

Plenty of kids are a bit more comfortable in their own company. Or he must have online friends? Unless he seems actively unhappy with this then you can't really force him.

It could be he hasn't really found his true tribe yet. He has friends due to geography or circumstance but maybe they don't click on a more personal level? As he grows up. I felt that way at that age.

Just to pick up on this again … I am late 40s and, during DS’ AuDHD assessment, had a few lightbulb moments of my own. During my school holidays in the early 90s, I re-read books, did embroidery and visited my grandmother and did 1000 piece jigsaws. As this were considered worthy, wholesome activities, they were encouraged. I also took the dog on long walks, often by myself but occasionally with a family friend. It’s only now that I see them as being safe, repetitive behaviours which I could do by myself. Occasionally I would go & hang out with friends but was often only there as I felt I should and generally was just counting down the hours until I could legitimately leave. I bear this in mind when nagging DS! He gets plenty of fresh air and exercise through all of his sport. And, after the first couple of days, once he’s become human again, he’s expected to do something every day, even if just for 30 mins or so with me, DH or his sister, and then he gets the last couple of days pretty much hibernating again. Since we adopted this approach to life, things have got less stressful for all of us. I do also cheat the system a bit - he sometimes comments that he’s surprised how often he gets asked to help out at an activity he used to do. He doesn’t realise that I explained the situation to the leader a couple of years ago and, as he’s actually really helpful when he’s then, the leader is very happy to have him along to the extent he’s offered to start paying him next summer.

I think people on this thread are trying hard to normalise this to not scare themselves about their childs future. This is not normal or ok having a day or two staying in alone gaming absolutely fine but not 2 weeks life is about balance.

Very happy to read this as I have similar happenings in my house! He’s happy though and doing a (tiny) bit of revision so I’m mostly leaving him to it.

My ds’s (12 and 16) would love to be out and about either going to the cinema or kicking a ball about but unfortunately all their mates parents prefer them at home online so my kids end up at home online - it is very frustrating!

You have replied to someone who's DS has 100% not had this outcome.

My son is the same - prefers to be at home and he games with his mates online. He is also perfectly capable of holding conversations, has friends, is fit and healthy (walks to college, plays football) so I don't see an issue with him spending his downtime however he wants

You could be describing my son to a tea! He is the same age, has lots of friends, does plenty extra curricular activities and is happy to meet up for structured activities like cinema etc but is not interested in hanging out at people's house or wandering the streets, which is what his friends seem to do a lot of.

He is happy to spend time as a family and have days out over the holidays, and still does some age appropriate holiday clubs but didn't seem bothered about seeing his pals over summer.

I try not to push my agenda on to him, as hard as it is! He is happy and that's the main thing.

My autistic sons are like this. Term times are busy. They have interests and activities out of school and some of these continue into the holidays. I'm around for most of their holidays, but our terms don't align perfectly.

It's a weird no-mans land of outgrowing childhood and family/ structured activities, but not having the grown-up maturity to handle independent, unstructured socialising. Also when dealing with autistic teenagers, they have a social and communication disibility and those skills are less developed than those of their NT peers.

I spent a couple of summers feeling guilty about DSs' summers and gaming, but when I thought back to my own teen years, they weren't wildly different, and were arguably "worse". I wasn't into sport and my one activity stopped for the summer. I lived out of school catchment, had an over-protective mum that didn't encourage getting out, and a best friend that was 99.9999% likely to be undiagnosed autistic. I spent my holidays pottering around the house and garden, sneaking onto DB's SNES when I could, and reading, drawing and watching a small repetoire of VHSs. When I actually compared my teen years with DS's, yes he spends more time gaming, but some of that is social so he spends more time with some form of social contact than I did. He is fitter than I was and has more active time than I did. What he doesn't do is the reading, but he's dyslexic and doesn't find it a relaxing leisure activity.

I am a bit more concerned about next summer and the long post-GCSE holiday, and there may well be some incentives to influence his lifestyle choices to get a few healthier habits in, but ultimately he's not a socially motivated person and there's no point in pushing a sociable pipedream that he has no interest in.

My youngest son was like this. He had just started secondary school when lockdown happened, so he and his friends learned to communicate online.
There was far too much gaming that was hard to get him to cut back on afterwards. I used to worry a lot, but by Year 11 there was more balance. Now he's in Year 13 at college and has made new friends, kept his old ones and has had a couple of girlfriends. Socialises and has what I'd call a "normal" life, with some gaming still included. Phew 😊

Normal and I wouldn't push him. Some kids need to be alone to recharge after a lot of social contact at school. Gaming is not necessarily bad - they can have online friends which works for some. I have been through this with a positive outcome.