I'm not looking to excuse my son, and I'm genuinely trying to work out the best way to handle this.
My son is 16. He's a very happy, carefree, outgoing boy. Today, his girlfriend's mum called me to say he'd made her daughter cry. Apparently, he told her he was bored with the relationship and wanted to break up. Her mum said the issue wasn't that he ended the relationship, but the way he did it, with very little thought for her daughter's feelings.
I apologised that she'd had to deal with that and said I'd speak to him, but I haven't yet because I'm not sure what I should say.
What worries me is that this isn't the first time. In the last 16 months, this is his fourth girlfriend. He tends to date someone for two or three months, then ends it and seems completely unaffected. Today, after the breakup, he just went off to play tennis as if nothing had happened.
For comparison, I have two daughters (18 and 15). When my older daughter had her first breakup, she cried for a week. So seeing my son seemingly not flinch at all is something I struggle to understand.
My younger daughter also showed me a screenshot of his ex's Instagram story calling him a "skirt chaser," which obviously isn't nice either.
I know teenagers date, and I don't expect every relationship to last. I'm also not expecting him to stay with someone just to avoid hurting them. But I do want him to learn empathy and understand that how you end a relationship matters just as much as the decision itself.
So, how would you approach this conversation? Would you treat it as a normal part of teenage dating, or would you be concerned about the apparent lack of empathy? I'd really appreciate advice, especially from parents of teenage boys.