I feel the exhaustion coming on already!

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Yesterday DS1 (age 12) tearfully begged me to have a conversation with him. To cut a long story short, it turns out that he's been feeling lonely and starved of conversation for a while.

I am a SAHM mum but I've been busy these last few months, so when he's at home, I've been leaving him to amuse himself. He talks to boys at school but only a couple of words here and there, in between lessons.

What is exhausting me is what he wants to talk about: anything as long as its grown up. So, yesterday, I spent an hour whilst I was making dinner describing the events and implications of the Arab spring, with reference to the Tunis museum attacks last week.
Then we watched the documentary 5 broken cameras on netflix together.
Today, he has asked me to explain bond pricing to him.

I know this sounds like a first world problem, but he was really upset because he's so bored. Whenever we go out somewhere as a family, he wants to be doing something, like bowling or visiting a museum (which DS2 hates).

I don't think i can keep up even though Dh has said he'll help. I just don't have enough general knowledge. We know these are not normal 12 year old interests, so the chances of finding a friend his own age to engage with like this are not very high.

Also find if you have a local youth council. I'm assuming if my borough has one they all do.

(Eventually it leads in to youth parliament)

Lots of like minded individuals there.

claraschu said Schools are not set up to encourage his kind of intellectual curiosity ...

Some are. I know of at least one (and it will be the same in others of its type) that seems to spend the entirety of yr 8 talking about just the things the OP's son wants to discuss.

I just meant that the school system in general doesn't have a way to encourage kids who have lots of interests which are unusual in their age group and don't fit the curriculum. I also meant that, in my experience, setting up mentoring with older kids (and such things) tends to be superficial and not lead anywhere, as the system is based on separating children rigidly by age.

I very cleverly seem to have posted only half of what I meant last night.

It's possibly too late to be of use to you OP - and this is not a popular idea - but your DS sounds exactly the type of child that highly academic boarding schools exist for. He would have 24 hrs a day to interact with like minded peers and his apparently abstruse interests would be absorbed into the mainstream - both within and without the official curriculum.

I wonder if (acknowledging entrance timetables and budgetary and domestic constraints) this might be something you would even contemplate?

If one of his main interests is football, why does he only exchange a couple of words with the other boys at school? Are there no other football nuts for him to chat to?

To be honest, I'd have to think very carefully about the emotional impact of sending him to boarding school.

However, it would be wholly beyond our means to afford the fees, so there's no point pursuing it. That's why we didn't put him forward for the selective independent schools that are close by.

Also, I've always known that DS1 is quite able, but I don't think I really understand how able. He's quite easy going in nature, so when the school work at primary was dragging a little for him, he didn't complain. Things have to get really bad before DS1 complains, so when he does, I jump. He's complaining now.

Hello OP

My dd has an interest that nobody she knows shares, and yes it is hard for them.
I would encourage self directed learning, especially at his age.
Give him the tools and encourage him to go off, get on with it and then have a conversation about what he has learned.
Ask him about the subject and let him teach you rather than you teaching him.
As far as school is concerned I think you just have to encourage him to do his best, even if he isn't interested in the lessons.
My dd was also like this at school and we decided to H.ed so she could concentrate on learning what she wants to. It wasn't long before she was getting on with it herself.

Hakluyt - yes, at 80% of the boys in his year loves football. The lack of conversation is due to a combination of things:-

1. the school is extremely strict about talking in class, even when coming into the room or packing up. So, the opportunities are fewer. I suspect that other children find a way around this, however, but I don't know how so that i can advise DS.
2. breaks and lunchtimes are spent playing football in a sort of playground free-for-all. DS says people don't chat, just shout "pass" or "good goal" etc., which i think sounds logical.
3. DS is very shy and low in social skills. For example, he would be more likely to duck his head away if someone were to say hello to him than he would be to smile and say hello back, even though he'd be very pleased that they'd spoken to him.
4. DS was in a small group of friends from primary, one of the friends being abusive to everyone else and quite controlling. The boy bullies other children, hits people regularly, swears and seems to have quite an advanced understanding of sex slang. All the other friends in the group distanced themselves one by one, often because their parents demanded it. That left DS1, and another vulnerable boy who the bully had taken on. Other children in the year, just generally avoid the bully, which of course meant that they physically avoided being near DS1 too, since he was standing close to the bully. Things came to a head a couple of months ago and with the assistance of the school, DS has managed to get away from the boy. He still has the other friends from the group - there's two of them - but they play football at break times, so that's what DS1 does too now.

So, I think DS1 wasn't wrong when he said he needed more conversation on Saturday but I think there are two issues here - his need for mental stimulation and his need for companionship. On Saturday, he was just trying to solve both at once.

Two things

A) There isn't any negative "emotional impact" for a child who enjoys it. (His DB might miss him a little between exeats.)

B) If you cannot remotely afford it you would probably qualify for a very helpful bursary.

However, it is probably a bit late to find anywhere at this stage (yr 8) - unless you were exceedingly determined.

Other than that I second what morethan suggests - auto-didacticism will have to be his way forward.

I crossed your post OP. Are you sure there is no other school you might be able to consider?

He's in the best state school around, apart from Tiffin (the only state grammar that seems to have all of London, Surrey, Sussex and parts of Berks as its catchment).

We nearly moved to Kent a few years ago, and I wish now that we had because Ds would have gone to one of their grammar schools, maybe Judd. We stayed because of this secondary, which is definitely good, but it turns out that its not quite hitting the mark with DS1.

The only way out of this that I can see is if DH gets a job that pays so well we can send Ds1 to a selective independent school. However, that would seem more than a bit unfair on Ds2 who is currently sitting level 6s in everything, and who has a real gift for maths.

Although you did say you have been busy lately OP so you probably have perfectly good reasons for your status quo.

It sounds to me (speaking, obviously from a position of almost complete lack of knowledge!) that it's the companionship thing that needs to be addressed. Have you considered Scouts? Or a youth theatre? You don't have to be on stage- there are loads of fascinating things to do backstage, snd it's easier to make friends if you are all persuing a common interest- there's less pressure.

"There isn't any negative "emotional impact" for a child who enjoys it. (His DB might miss him a little between exeats)"

What a sweeping generalization!

Both my DSs go to scouts. When i think of it, i don't know what DS1 does at scouts i.e. how much he interacts with the others. I think I'll ask the scout leader what she sees.
Ds2 never has any trouble making friends. He just does all the obvious things: talk to people, smile, be interested, invite them to join in games. but he's very eye rollingly dismissive of how gauche DS1 can be. I wish Ds1 would look at what Ds2 does and mimic it a little. Obviously, having a younger brother who finds it so easy to make friends and is very popular doesn't help DS1 one little bit. He just gets down on himself when the differences are pointed out (which DS2 has done many times before I can throw myself in the way!).

Do not the school run any lunch time clubs or after-school activities?
It sounds as though he would benefit from joining a debating club type of thing. Do they have a Christian Union (very good for moral discussions etc - not necessarily for worship etc).
Do not the individual academic departments run clubs? A geography club could run discussions on off-curricular topics, or look at things in more depth. Also these clubs tend to involve the whole school, or at least the lower or upper sections, allowing to mix with older students leading to greater depth of debate.
try your local library for a childrens reading group.
By the way you are not alone - my DCs, now 10 and 13, are constantly searching for information on anything and everything. they expect me to be a walking encyclopaedia. I realised when DD was 18months old and asked me things like why is the sky blue, and where does the wind come from I was in for a rough ride!
Our Sunday lunches are our family discussion time (although it never really stops!) We have covered from everything from the European financial crisis, to the solar system, to Syria and everything in between.
I encourage them to look up anything they want to know and I can't help with. I still prefer books, but am happy to use the internet (their preference) when the need for up-to-date information is greater.
It does sound as though you need to work on his social skills a lot though. He wants conversations, then he will need to learn to talk to people. Agree with others that a drama club could help here, but really you just need to get him to join in with lots of things.

Yes, there are clubs at school, both lunchtime and after school. Ds1 went to a couple last year (maths and football) but he gave them up this year and I guess we lost the willingness to fight him. He wasn't speaking to anyone at them anyway, which was the main objective.

After what DS1 said to me on Saturday afternoon, I hit on the idea of a debating club and I started trying to persuade him to go. Ditto re-join the maths club and I am working hard to get him to agree to learn guitar.

I think I've found the key to convincing him to learn the guitar. I told him when he is older, and going to parties, the person with the guitar has a prop to hide behind if he feels awkward talking to people and because he has a guitar people will come and talk to him and generally gather round. So, now he's no longer aggressively anti the idea. Additionally, his music teacher email me last week to say he thinks DS has strong potential in music and he really should learn an instrument.

I will try to find out if there is a geography club or science club. There may well be. The thing is to get DS to actually speak to people when he's there.

Ah, bless him. It sounds like it's his social skills that are the real issue, and not his range of interests per se. Being shy as a teenager is really, really hard, but social skills can definitely be learned!

Do you think the main issue is shyness around people he doesn't really know, or does he lack conversational skills even with people he knows well? You mentioned earlier that the "conversation" between you and him was 90% you talking and him listening. Do you think that's just because of his thirst for information, or could it also be because he isn't yet comfortable with the normal "give-and-take" nature of a conversation?

The reason I ask is because the solutions will be different - if he needs to practise basic conversational skills, it might be easiest for him to do this at first within a "safe" family setting. If he has the skills already and is just shy about using them, then that will need a different plan of action. Of course, the reality is that it's probably a mixture of both, but if he lacks the basic skills to keep a conversation going, it might be a bit of a big ask to get him to practise on relative strangers without building up to it first!

You've talked about your younger ds being much more confident socially, and I think this is an issue too. Nobody likes to be outshone by their younger brother! He needs to practise talking to people somehow in a context where he won't be in the shadow of your younger ds, and he needs to develop his own "style" - he mustn't feel that he has to imitate ds2, as he'll always be second best at that game. He needs to find his own authentic way of getting along with other people, and he needs to do it without ds2 looking over his shoulder!

Ds1 is emotionally very mature. He is able to empathise with people very well and he has a strong sense of justice. When he's comfortable with people, he has no problem talking at all. We will sit and have long talks about something or other. He knows how to interact with people, albeit he seems to forget some basic things when dealing with Ds2.

Its the getting comfortable with people that's the issue as it seems (to me) to take an inordinately long time. DH gets really frustrated with him about it.

I'd say that maybe only one of his primary teachers ever actually knew him (year 4) and its been an issue that he won't put up his hand to answer in class at secondary (I think we've resolved that one though).

We lived abroad as expats for a while when DS was young and I think that stunted his social development. He was at a local nursery when he was three and I invited all the children to our house for his 4th birthday party. No one turned up, not even the three boys that the nursery teacher said were his best friends. It was to do with the parents not wanting to have to interact with us foreigners as there was a language barrier. It was horrible though. We had everything ready and Ds all excited and then no one came. DS was already a little shy, but after that, he withdrew into himself and refused to speak the local language.

"I think we've resolved that one though"

How? DD is very talkative at home, but at school she isn't Hands-up Girl and has always avoided any limelight in class. I used to fret about it a lot, but it slowly dawned on me that she's genuinely happy that way and she has quite a few friends with no known enemies. The only downside is that naive teachers have a habit of under-estimating her.

Interestingly she will bravely volunteer to do quite scary things in front of a big hall full of parents/children.

There's a child in he class who is one of the "ooh, ooh, pick me, ME!" types. Then when picked she invariably doesn't know the answer but hogs the limelight as long as possible.

Sitting listening to her is driving Ds nuts! Ds realised that if he puts his hand up and gets picked, and then gives the right answer, it will mean DS will have to listen to this girl one less time that day. Plus wondering if he will be picked is a distraction from listening to her.

Its a bit negative, but it works to get him to start contributing to class discussions.

Ask head of sixth form to find you a suitable babysitter who's equally interested in talking about current affairs, etc. You needn't go out but can just busy yourself to appear indisposed while keeping an eye. See his that goes! Male prob. better

"Its a bit negative..."

It's fine.

DD has been complaining about a girl much like that since the week of Y7 e.g. "She's so 'goody goody' and so annoying!". I'm going to casually suggest that more talking means less listening.

Has he got a teacher he can chat to? I used to talk to my English teacher (who was a bonkers old mare but very lovely) about books because I had no one else to talk about that kind of thing with.