Teenage boy shutting himself away

[lollipop61]

My 16 year old is becoming increasingly reclusive, has seen no-one outside the family over the holidays and only talks to a few friends over x box. I think he feels very insecure in his friendships, i want to get him out of the house and away from the internet and games but that would be cutting off the only social contact he is having. He fears rejection I think if he tried to arrange outings. It is really upsetting to watch and I fear he may have burgeoning mental health problems but I don't wna tot ge thte docs involved if this will worsen things. Any advice please?

Oh, that sounds awful.
This might be way off the mark but could you suggest a fun outing involving you, your DS and a friend of yours and their DS (assuming they would be a friend of your DS)?
What makes you think he's at the beginning of a mental health problem?

This sounds exactly the same as my 15 (nearly 16) year old.
We try to tempt him away from his X Box to engage with the rest of the family by planning the odd day out. Last week was windsurfing, next week wakeboarding. But other than this he doesn't really spend time with anyone apart from his virtual X Box buddies. It doesn't seem healthy at all. I was wondering how normal/ commonplace this is with teenage boys?

my dsd who is 15 seems to be like this too. She has a boyfriend who lives in a different town who she sees about once a week. Other than that she has no contact with anybody at the moment except via bbm and facebook.

She seems to be totally miserable and is vile with everybody, but it breaks my heart to see her like this...