What is normal for teen friendships?

[annie987]

My daughter is 13 and in year 9. At primary she was part of a group of 7 friends and this carried on into secondary.
During the last year, she seems to have drifted away from this group (they all seem to have drifted a bit, some more than others) apart from one girl who she still saw regularly.
My daughter made a new best friend in year 8 and they spend all their time together originally as a three with group girl but now the final group friend seems to be drifting off too. My daughter doesn’t seem to mind much.
I am just worried that my daughter only seems to have one good friend. I try to think back to my time in school and remember being surrounded by lots of people. I feel quite sad that she won’t have this and worry it’s unhealthy.
I know lockdown makes this particularly hard for teens. Not really sure what I’m asking here - I guess for other people’s similar experiences! Thanks

I know it's worrying because if the friendship were to stop for any reason, there would be concern that your daughter wouldn't have any other friends to turn to but my daughter was always happiest when she just could concentrate on one friendship. I think that at different ages they need different things - perhaps your daughter chats to others more generally but just wants to hang out with one person? Like you, I used to hang out with a larger group but I always quite wanted a good pal - never achieved that.

I'm no expert and have issues of my own with my daughter (she only sees her boyfriend now and has cut off all ties with friends which is worrying me) so maybe I'm not the best person to comment but I think that if she has a good, solid relationship with this person it will probably be fine. As I said, I used to long for that when I was younger.

My dd is 14 and used to be in a group of 6 , there was always disagreements and drama , during the first lock down they all drifted and now she’s friends with just one . I feel that she’s a lot happier there’s no more bitching but I do worry that if this one friend leaves the school what then. I also feel that it’s important to have a circle of different friends she doesn’t have to hang out with them just be friendly .

There seems to be nothing more complicated than teenage girl friendships. My son who is a year older hasn’t suffered any of this drama!

The issue we’re having during the Easter hols is that this one friend is very family orientated and doesn’t go out much but my daughter would love to be out every day which I think is fairly normal for 14 years olds isn’t it?
She’s a delight at home and great company but I feel like she really should be out and about.

My dd only had 2 friends in year 8 after having a reasonable group in year 7 going into 8. The ‘drifting’ was somewhat on her part, it was going ok at beg of year 8 then she fell out w one girl so that she was left w 2 proper friends she saw out of school. Year 9 onwards was better, but that group thing never really worked for her and even in sixth form when she made new friends the group pretty much disbanded now (first year uni).
Conversely DS is in a big boy group (year 12) which has been solid for a while now (also had ups and downs in year 9-10 particularly).