How do you teach your teen social skills without being critical

[Teandsympathy]

Dd13 struggles with friendships. She is great at making friends and always leaves a brilliant first impression but due to her lack of social skills she loses them very quickly and often dramatically. She isn’t friendless and is part of a popular crowd at school but on the fringes of it due mostly to the fact that she never participates in conversations. She mutes group chats and very rarely asks the girls at school to make plans.
The main issue I find is her lack of interest in getting to know someone. She can be friends with someone for weeks and not remember their name. She never asks anyone about their age, where they live and if they are having a hard time and want to chat she glazes over and changes the subject. A fairly new friends mum recently had a heart attack and was having an operation. Dd never once asked them how their mum was and just changed the subject each time it came up. She says it makes her feel uncomfortable. She also doesn’t share much information about herself.

She’s done this all her life. I have been pushing for an assessment for years. My gp recently told me they can’t look into an assessment unless dd approaches them herself so they can rule out anxiety but dd won’t speak to anyone about anything.

Lately she has been getting a lot of attention off boys, she is always invited to hang out with different groups of them and has a string of boys who message her constantly. I think because there is often an infatuation and the conversations are focused around her she feels more comfortable with these interactions and doesn’t need to make much effort in return. It’s all related to a sport she has recently taken up that is very male dominated. This causes its own problems as I think she feels a lot of pressure from the attention but at the same time loves it.

I often ask her about her day, who she sat with, what lessons she had, what she ate and I get very vague answers and get told I’m nosy but isn’t this just making conversation? This is not a teenage thing, she’s been like this most of her life. Even I’m getting bored of trying to communicate with her.
How can I teach her conversation skills? And how can I make her be interested in getting to know people better?

Is she your first teen? In my experience a very significant proportion of them are like this - the kind of interaction you’re expecting is too mature for many 13 year olds. Give it another couple of years at least. They’re just too unintentionally selfish at that age to empathise.

Thanks for replying. I really hope your right although communication and listening is only one of lots of issues we are dealing with.

Interesting my teen dd14 is similar

I’ll ask where her friends live and she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know much about them at all!

But sheep prattle on and on about a you tube channel. Bit obsessed with it

My dd is a bit like this but a lot younger so not sure how/if it will change. Currently she responds well to a fairly logical approach, so for instance if I want to her greet visitors and say goodbye when the go I will establish if she considers visitors a good thing (yes) and then establish the understanding that people don't visit if they don't feel welcome and that leaves a undisputable conclusion that she needs to exhibit the necessary social niceties. It isn't intuitive for her, it's more like learning to drive, she recognised that other people only offer a relationship if she also get one back, then she is open to the need to do something she wouldn't bother with left to her own devices.
She is refinishing to that approach. It's quite mechanical thinking rather than innate but the result is no-one would know that's behind her actions and she is participating in maintaining her relationships consciously and willingly because she knows the alternative is that people will not feel valued and will drift away.
No idea if that is helpful to you, or if it will still work in my house when she's a teen, but we'll see

My DD is 15 now, but she has been like this pretty much all her life. As you said, she is in a popular friendship group, and all other groups she is friends with, never run out of party invitations or things to do etc and I know pretty much all of her friends etc, she goes to all girls school I guess she was so fed up with the girls drama, she made herself a boys group, then eventually other girls being added to this group - she says she finds it much easier to be friends with boys as they don't require much effort but girls do! But recently she has now come to realise the value of girl friends again so it is all learning curve for them too. I often ask her 'what do you talk when you are with your friends' she says ' nothing much', me: 'you must be discussing about somethings, I mean what do you guys do all this time you spend together', DD; listen to music etc so it goes. Sometimes I think their friendships are shallow, when I was their age, our friendships were much bonded and intense. She surprises me though despite the fact that she looks so shy and not too chatty as others yet she manages to form few other groups thateventially become popular.

sorry I forgot to add; I think she was around 13, my DD, we were having conversations in general about friendships etc, she told me that she thought sh was socially awkward. I asked her why she thought that, she replied 'just do'. I googled the meaning of a socially awkward person; meaning someone who is rejected by their peers due to being different, inept, and strange. They are also misunderstood as they can't read other's behaviours. And she always tells me how she knows if someone is lying to her as she can read their faces very well - so I asked her if this meaning of a socially awkward person applied to her, she said not really. This in fact made her feel easy on her and she got a bit better - I also share my past experiences with her with my friends, positives of course I think having easy conversations helped her a lot, she is much better now I must say.

My son has all these traits you describe and he’s been diagnosed with adhd. Not saying your daughter is the same but maybe bear in mind, see if other traits fit the description .....

Does she feel unhappy about the situation and want to improve it? I’m a secondary SENCO and there are resources I could recommend but she would have to be willing to engage with them. If she doesn’t see a problem they’re unlikely to work.

@Teandsympathy I could have written your post. My dd 13 is not at all interested in having friends or maintaining friendships. I got that book "Friends" by Robin Dunbar and I am taking her through the main points 1 or 2 a day. I feel gutted because as children both me and DH were socially isolated, due to having extremely shy parents who avoided social occasions and people in general. Me I was born with my foot in my mouth anyway, I only have to enter a room and someone gets offended by my face or my body language.

We have done everything we can to give DD chance to make and keep friends, but she has inherited the awkward genes (my awkward genes, let's be honest). I do find it strange there are no actual resources out there to learn how to build and keep friendships.

My DD was like that at the same age. She was in a friendship group but always on the edge of it. From a young age (pre high school) she didn't really get the conversations other girls were having but had no interest in trying to learn about them. She didn't get some of the social rules. She wasn't into make up and boys, was quite serious. She didn't see the point of texting friends when she was at home and didn't get any social media until she was 15/16. But with adults or on an individual basis she was friendly, outgoing chatty and very competent. She was eventually diagnosed with ASD when she was 17 and all these behaviours at high school can be typical for autistic girls. Shes now at uni and lives with 5 boys!

Glad it’s not just my dd. I have been trying for a number of years to get her assessed for adhd and I’m pretty sure it’s all connected.
She’s found a new group of friends lately and near enough dumped her old lot overnight which makes me very sad. Her new friends are the party crowd and drink, smoke weed, vape and generally are a public nuisance. I’m quite scared that she seems so happy with these people. No talking and meaningful
Conversations, just walking about with traffic cones on their heads and jumping into the sea fully clothed 😡
Swimming club starts up again next week though so I will be making her do every hour available to her.

I should add, her problems stem from a lot of social conflict. although she loves being part of a group, she tends to say things that get her into trouble and generally acts much younger than her peers. She lies to impress people and is extremely gullible. Sadly, she can also be very cold and has broken a few hearts without showing any remorse. I just hoped that if she could get to know people properly and how they feel in situations, learn from their interactions then she might become more considerate and make better judgements. She’s not a mean or difficult child, she just makes poor choices over and over again.