social skils in 13 year old boy!!

[macpolo]

I know it is normal for teenagers to only grunt at parents but my son was never much of a talker before he reached 13 so now we are lucky if we get a word out of him. he is very introverted, says he is happy at school but never sees friends out of school. When other adults speak to him he finds it very difficult and comes across as rude. I in turn find this very difficult.,If I chose my moment I can have a nice conversation with him but he would rarely initiate it. I wonder (and worry) what he is like with his friends at school. Not helped by fact that he is not sporty and small for his age. His apetite is not good and he is a very fussy eater. He is in a very academic school and works hard. I feel he may be puting himself under too much pressure but he assures me he is fine. Anyone going through anything similar? Any tips on gently teaching social skills that I think might help him!!

I had one of those.
DS1 never had great social skills as a child and was always quiet and shy. At 13 he was sporty and tall but extremely self conscious. He's also very academic and ambitious.
He is 15 now and much more confident and comfortable with himself, though still not good at conversing with adults. He has a small group of boys and girls who are good friends and this has helped enormously.
His idea of great conversation is to tell you reams of facts...his scores in a game or statistics.

One of the things that was a great obstacle was talking to girls. I've tried to gently suggest that he listens to the girls at school and finds out what interests them. Also to ask people open questions about themselves. He has a GF now and has learned a lot from her I think.
DH and I are both introverts so I guess he'll never be the life and soul of the party but I would be happy if he just felt comfortable with people.

I sympathise. I have DSs aged 19, 17 and 14. My eldest in particular was so gauche and anti-social that I worried about his social skills a lot. He spend almost all his time out of school alone. It turned out that he is just very happy with his own company, books and the internet (reading about politics and history I hasten to add) but now functions fine in public when he has to. Even in the sixth form he had minimal social life.

If your son wouldn't have a conversation with you at all I would worry, but as he does, and as he says he is 'fine' I think you can relax and wait for him to grow up. If he has problems in the second or third year at university that is the time to worry.
Good luck with the adolescent years.