Is my son becoming too isolated?

[Louloubell68]

I’m struggling with the fact that my 15yo DS doesn’t go out or talk to anyone, he doesn’t even go on his Xbox he just sits in his room watching Japanese Anime.

The only social interaction he has is at school or once a week at footy training or playing football - even after a match he hangs back and doesn’t have that banter with other lads.

It’s so hard when I hear about his old friends going out and doing normal stuff with their friends and all he wants to do is stay home and not talk to anyone. He just doesn’t care that others are doing things

Should I be worrIed?

It's a really tough age and I know others may disagree but I do feel our teens have been largely affected and widely forgotten due to covid. All people are different so maybe your ds is happy doing his own thing. It is great that he is still going to football. Have you spoken to him? Asked him if he is ok? Does he want to meet with friends? Has anything happened? Ask him if he has found it tough due to covid?

My dd is 13 and barely leaves her room, she is short tempered and tired, I have spoken to her to try to get her to leave the house,but she says she likes being on her own and will often go for a walk on her own. She appears to have friends but they are so limited in what they can do they don't bother meeting. School is tough, the teachers are stressed and this is affecting the kids, they won't take work from the kids to mark due to the risk so it's all self marked. I feel so awful for children everything they know is changed and gone, it is very unsettling.

Could you up his football to every week? Or try and encourage another extra activity he may like?

Could you speak to his tutor at school and relay your concerns? They be be able to encourage him to join a club- or D of E or something along those lines. Maybe they may surprise you and say he’s sociable at school?

Does he seem happy?

His isolation started before lockdown, he just started to pull himself away from any socialising and just stopped talking to friends on the Xbox. He Footy trains once a week and plays On a Sunday along with being a referee on a Saturday so he does things but just won’t interact with friends. The worse part is that he holds back after footy so he doesn’t really have to speak with anyone.

I spoke to school just before lockdown and they found he was fine at school. It’s as if the lockdown was the best thing ever for him as it gave him the excuse not to interact.

I’ve spoken to him several times asking if anything happened in the past to make him feel this way but I don’t get much out of him.

He seems ok a bit grumpy like a typical teen but there’s not much laughter.

I think it’s harder for us when we see his school mates out and about doing things 15 year olds should be doing.

I would prob push it a bit more tbh.
Has he been excluded by friends at school? That’s my first thought. It happened to my DD and wrecked her self-esteem although at the time I was unaware (I knew she didn’t have that many friends but I thought it was from her side iyswim). She only really told me the full extent of it all last year and I was pretty shocked at the behaviour of some of her so-called friends.
Things got better for her, but she def avoided ‘hanging around’ after activities like your son.
I found teachers at secondary pretty clueless as to what goes on in friendship groups as it tends to happen too subtly for them to notice. My DD found much better friends in sixth form.

Ps: my DD also said she didn’t care, but once she found a much nicer group she was off out like the best of them.

Thanks for your message. I keep thinking that something has happened at school, he says it hasn’t but who knows.

He was out quite a lot in year 8 then all of a sudden it stopped and he hasn’t had that social interaction since which is coming up to 18 months now.

I’ll keep asking and see if he tells but like your DD I may have to wait until 6th form before he finds himself

Hi, my son has done the same. He is 16 and at the start of lockdown seemed to be having a nice time - going out with friends each and having fun. However, over time this dwindled to nothing and he spend all day in bed, getting up at 4.00pm some days and staying up into the early hours doing god knows what. He totally isolated himself and did his best not to interact with his family too. In the middle to August he tried to kill himself and spent two nights in hospital. We think that he is depressed, but he refuses to seek help.

Your son sounds like he too is suffering from depression, and isolating yourself from people is one of the signs. There is help available if he would accept it, and I would let the school know that you are concerned about him so that they can keep an eye on him.

I hope that he starts to engaged with people again soon.

I could have written this post about my 15yo son! I feel your pain!

Doing well at school and behaviour typical of a teenager. No obvious problems. But he just seems to have no friends. Spends his leisure time gaming. Like your son, we have football once a week but he doesn't really interact much. Before lockdown 2 I saw a groups of his friends out together and asked why they don't invite him. They said they used to but he always declined so they gave up. 😞

I'm hoping that things will improve in the summer when he's able to get out more. Plan is for sixth form college next year so I think it likely he'll make a new group of friends there.