How to help teen with friendships

[FurForksSake]

My son is year 8 and we thought things were going well. He had a small but good friendship group who he was often gaming with or seeing outside of school.

on Wednesday he told us that things weren’t as they seemed. At school these kids wouldn’t speak to him as one child told them they shouldn’t be friends with him. So they could only be friends in secret.

he’s got one good friend who stuck by him and said that the way he was being treated wasn’t ok and that he should tell us.

I emailed the form tutor and asked for some sensitive support for the situation and to help the group move through it.

the help was getting all the boys together, them telling my son he is annoying, they don’t like him and that they were all choosing the “ignore” option given to them instead of agreeing to be friends. The two secret friends told him they were now no longer going to be friends with him at all because he went to pastoral.

he has come home distraught. My attempt to recruit support has left him with less friends and with the knowledge everyone but one person thinks he’s annoying and would rather he didn’t exist.

one of these kids has been to my house many times, he was going through a tough time at the end of last year and my son gave him loads of support. I’m relatively friendly with him mum.

I’ve emailed school and copied in head of year and pastoral to summarise what happened today, how my son feels and that he doesn’t want to come to school on Monday. I’ve asked that they give him some pastoral support and maybe some support around friendships and relationships. He’s gutted and embarrassed and ashamed of who he is after today.

we’ve reassured him, we’ve tried to do everything we can to support him, but I don’t know how. I don’t know if school will make things worse.

I’m so tempted to message the mum of the other kid, to tell her about her son telling mine he can only be friends in secret and now not at all. To tell her that her son has destroyed my son’s faith in other people and made him feel that he is someone that only deserves friendship away from other people and that is something he should accept. To tell her that by him trying to get support he’s now been told that trying to get support isn’t ok and makes him a pariah. I want her to know that my son is crying in his room and wondering how he can become someone more acceptable to these kids.

I don’t even know what to ask the school to do, or whether I can trust them to actually help and support instead of whatever this was.

This is so hard OP, I'm sorry you and your son are going through this.

Does he have friends outside of school, from any clubs or anything?

What about the one boy you said had stuck by him - where is he in this now?

He has friends he sees at scouts, but his one friend at his other activity left. So he’s pretty isolated suddenly.

The one friend who stuck by him is continuing to do so, he’s the one kid who didn’t pick The ignore option. He used to live thirty seconds walk away but moved a real distance away so they only see each other at school.

I feel horrendous that my attempt to help has allowed these kids to bully him to his face and then withdraw what bits of friendship he had left. I don’t know how they can’t see that this other child is controlling them and there was easily room in their little group for all of them.

it’s his birthday coming up and we realised things weren’t ok when he started saying he didn’t want to do anything. And now he’s down to only one kid he could invite.

He can be quite hyper and over the top, but not in any ridiculous ways. He’s never in trouble at school and is doing well and I feel helpless with it all.

sorry to hear this, it’s so tough. How is your relationship with the mum? If it’s good and you think you can trust her and she’d genuinely want to help if text to see if you could meet up for a brew and chat about it. It’s so much better than text or a call and a chance to hear if she’s heard anything from her son.

Dh is going to speak to the mum. I’m socially completely hopeless and have no friends, so I’m not exactly a role model. I’m probably neurodivergent and find anything social just impossible. So this all feels completely beyond me.

dh is going to message and just ask if she’s aware and for the other kids perspective on what’s happened. I don’t know if that’s a good idea but he’s confident.

I thought the school would help.

Really sorry to hear this OP 😪 such an awful time for your son. No wisdom here im afraid, but posting for a bump xx

Thanks. I’m just so sad for him.

Teenage friendship issues are so hard.
Can you help facilitate out of school.meet ups for your DS with the other friend lives a bit further away? Coming back to yours after school and you driving him home after? Or supporting them to meet up on weekends to develop and keep that friendship?
And encourage any potential meet ups with friends from other activities.

For his birthday could he do something really fun like a water park or outdoor activity centre or something special he would enjoy just with the one friend or with him and another one or two from scouts?
Ive done that with my teen DD when she was going through a tricky friend stage - really encouraging other friends from outside school/former primary friends etc

We had further friend for a couple of days at half term. My Ds is fairly scheduled so after school and Saturdays are pretty hard and friend has divorced parents.

I might suggest he does invite some scout friends so pizza for his birthday.

it’s really hard as Ds can be annoying, he gets very over excited and hyper even though he’s about to turn 13. Even with cousins I have to sometimes remove him from situations where he’s just becoming over the top and take him away to help him regulate.