17yo daughter being left out by friends

[Dadadan]

Hi all, so I’m new here. Just signed up in the hope of getting some expert advice on how to help my 17 year old daughter through a difficult time.

Basically, her friends are terrible. She’s at 6th form college and the circle comprises a few girls from her high school and some others she met there when she joined in Year 11.

My daughter, who’s the eldest of 2 has to an extent always struggled with friends. She’s always been mature for her age and is pretty academic. Her mum and I always told her that things would get better at 6th form and now I feel like we sold her a lie.

She’s always up for doing stuff, be that thrifting on a Saturday, hanging out or going out. Her friends are welcome to drink and smoke at ours if they want and for a while they were coming over quite regularly to hang.

But for reasons none of us can quite ascertain, they’ve stopped. Not just coming over, but inviting her to anything - in the day or evening- there’s at least one ‘other’ group chat where they’re making plans and not including her, and my daughter is finding out that they’re doing stuff, inevitably, when they post it on social media.

It honestly breaks my heart. Especially as she is apparently the one they go to when they want to trauma dump all their shit on someone. Its like they’re literally just using her.

This evening, after being ghosted trying to arrange something, anything, she texted one friend who replied that she was going to a rave. Not ‘do you want to come?’ Just ‘I’m going, see you later.’

My daughter’s just been lying in bed for hours now, scrolling endlessly, utterly bored and feeling like the world’s biggest loser. My heart breaks for her. She deserves so much better than this.

If she was a bit younger, I feel her mum and I might be able to intervene a bit more directly, but she’s 17. What can we do? I feel so helpless.

We have a good relationship with her and she knows she can talk to us, and she does. But this is making her depressed and destroying her self confidence. Where/how does a 17 year old make new friends??

Heya, I’m sorry to hear that your daughter is having a hard time at the moment.

You say she is mature for her age and academic, it sounds like if her friends are all out smoking and drinking and going to raves she might just not be ‘fitting in’ with that group any more. I would suspect that something went down around the time they stopped coming over - I.e. they wanted to do something more extreme than just smoke and drink and your daughter told them not too or something similar.

I have no practical advice, but didn’t want to read and run. I hope she finds a group of people in a club/youth group or similar with the same interests as her.

Oh no, how awful for her.

Unfortunately, this kind of behaviour is not unusual. I've seen much older people behave the same way. I wouldn't stress yourselves out by trying to understand what's going on. If your daughter has no idea, then it probably means she didn't do anything wrong. There are people who aren't interested in living in peace and always need to be targeting someone.

Try not to worry. At some point in life, we all need to find new friends. When we move, when our friends have kids and disappear, when we or they get busy at work, when someone wants to have a different sort of social life... The point is, it may help you feel better about what's going on to think of this situation as not unusual and as an opportunity for your daughter to pick herself up after a bad experience.

I would tell her that what they're doing is mean and she should step back a bit because it's not healthy to feel we have to run after people who aren't on our side.

Of course it's convenient to have friends in the same class/school/workplace, but exactly because of the current situation, it's a good idea to make other friends too. Is there an activity/sport she could join outside school? Or even a meetup group? Or volunteer activity? Staying busy when feeling sad is a good idea and maybe she could make new friends at an activity.

What you can do is make sure to have a bit of fun with her if she has no other options. Can you go to the movies occasionally or do free activities, like walk the dog around the neighbourhood or to a new place? Also, I'd advise her not to run after the mean girls. I wouldn't want her to feel like she has to do that and get insulted in order to have friends.

One other thing. I wouldn't encourage any of her friends to drink and smoke at your house. It's normal now for kids to look down on smoking and you don't want to turn parents against you. Sure, enjoy a glass of wine with your daughter, but encouraging smoking sounds like a very bad idea. Bad for her health and reputation.

In Y12 they are 16or 17 years old. Kids that age can't routinely get into clubs or pubs (not in the way you could in the 1990s). So if she's academic and mature, 'her people' are not likely to be the pot heads or drinkers.

My daughter, who’s the eldest of 2 has to an extent always struggled with friends.

This is what stands out to me.
The younger your dc are, the easier it is to help them. The fact she has got to 17 without being able to make / maintain friendships suggest the issue is more to do with something about her, than the friends you are trying to blame.

That isn't intended as a criticism, but more as a signpost as to where changes might have to happen if she wants them to. Not everyone wants a group of friends to go out with. Maybe if she is more 'adult' than her peers, she actually doesn't want to do what they are doing.

So, what does she like doing ?

What does she do out of school ?
Who are her peers other than college mates ?
Is that something she could think about ? Joining something she enjoys - sports, choir, outdoor activities, volunteering, particular interests ? So she is with people who also enjoy doing what she enjoys doing ?

Bit of background context then:

Daughter was very sporty (captain of football team) until a couple of years ago when a bad knee injury basically meant she had to give it up. We’re currently awaiting a third surgery on her knee and desperately hoping this time it will heal properly so she can get back to playing, as the football and team camaraderie were brilliant back when she was having issues at school.

Although as I said, she’s mature and academic, she is up for stuff. She’s been to quite a few raves, loves going to gigs and is always up for going into town, even if it’s just to hang out and do nothing in particular.

Drinking and smoking. So her mum and I are 90s kids and both reformed caners, so we know what it’s like at that age and what we got up to. We made a decision that our house would be a safe place for my daughter and her friends to hang out at and have a few drinks/spliffs. I’ve even shared a few joints with my daughter. She decided herself that weed isn’t massively her thing and now only smokes it occasionally. She’s not a massive drinker either. In other words, way more responsible than her mum and I at that age. I appreciate this will likely be a contentious stance on a parenting forum, but quite honestly I can say our ‘experiment’ worked. We trusted her, she tried it, (which she would have regardless, let’s face it) and came to her own decision about it. She’s got a good head on her.

Several of her friends are smoking daily - high at college type of thing - and it frustrates the hell out of my daughter that all these ones ever want to do is smoke. She agrees she’d be better off without them, but is reluctant to cut them out completely as she does still talk to them during free periods at college.

I think a part time job would be a great move, as it would occupy some of her free time, put money in her pocket and could be a good avenue for making new friends. I’ve also taken her to the local climbing wall, which she enjoyed and her knee can take, but going with her dad isn’t ideal, and I’m currently trying to see if there are any sessions or groups there for people her own age.

Perhaps the other parents have told their kids to stay away from the kids whose parents allow them to smoke joints at their house.

Maybe the other kids think that is a bit "try hard"?

Hehe, maybe! 🙄

Cadets? Venture Scouts?

She’s well past the age for those now

Swimming club and lifeguarding?

Back in the 90s, underage teens drinking and smoking was much more mainstream than it is now. They can't buy the stuff as easily as we used to be able to. As a result, the "coolness" you likely imagine isn't the case in this generation. Such teens tend to be the ner-do-wells. I'd suggest not encouraging it

Unfortunately girls can be such bitches, dd is at uni and there is one girl who she was good friends with who has taken a dislike to dd’s boyfriend and is now trying to isolate dd from the friendship circle. It all stems from jealousy.

it’s heartbreaking to see , I’ve just told dd to make new friends but keep some of her former friendship circle .

There are still places where kids face a lot of social pressure to drink and smoke. Maybe your daughter is unlucky enough to be surrounded by people who have old-fashioned attitudes. But most kids these days shouldn't have any problem with someone who prefers clean living and sports.

That said, your update is useful because it explains why she having a tough time. If she's used to having friends around from her team, then that's why she'll be feeling like a fish out of water now she is not around the team. She'll no longer have an automatic social life based around the team and friends who live the same kind of lifestyle she lives.

I wonder if she could talk to the coach about being included in team activities in some way so that she does still have access to team social events. Maybe there's a task she could do to help the coach at practice or games?

As for the drinking/smoking, studies show that parents who encourage it often end up creating a problem. It makes parents feel in-control to encourage it but my own parents were like you and all it did was to expose my brother to drink and drugs that he wouldn't have otherwise encountered and to make him feel like "normal" was to drink and do drugs. You are very lucky that attitudes are different now and that your daughter probably picked up fro other sources that drinking and drugs are not the only possible social activities. Anyway, nothing in this paragraph matters in terms of your problem except that weed will fry her brain. A 17-year-old's brain is not mature. Don't believe me. You could get online and read about this.

The bottom line is that your daughter is dealing with major changes (being injured and unable to play football AND being cut off from her usual football crowd). It's not surprising she's struggling and I'd tell her that so she realizes she's normal. I still think you shouldn't worry though. It's not fun but we all have to go through the experience of finding new friends and activities at some point. Do try meetup.com and other activities. Is there an art class she could take? Or some other activity (Woodland Folk, volunteer work) that she might not have considered before? Good luck.

Certainly harder to buy alcohol underage than it was back in our day, but weed is absolutely everywhere now. Fortunately, she’s not big into either.

Can she get a job in a sociable place? Friends whose late teens struggle socially have got sociable jobs where they meet new people eg large garden centre / local seasonal ice rink / large cafe.

Being honest op do you think there are reasons she has struggled with friends? Like...does she focus on the wrong people? Does she lack some social skills?

My daugther is autistic and I know the reality is sone children do lack social skills even when they are socially driven

I know how painful it is to see but id step in if you can and help her take charge of her own life. No scrolling in bed...she needs to be out lookomg for work or volunteering etc

Sympathies its horrible to see a lonely child or teen but it may be she is trying to be friends with the wrong sort of people

If they ate deliberately not inviting her (and she doesn't hsve the confidence to say oh id like to join) i think there is an issue there that thesr are not really her friends or she may just not have the same interests

Can you link to the studies?

I have never been pro weed and my dd still decided to do it. Never even smoked a cigarette and she still did it.

It is also easy to get hold of. Very easy with snao and telegram.

Yeah, so the autism thing… we’ve not had her tested, but it’s been a running joke in our house for years that’s she somewhere on the spectrum, albeit very, very slightly. She can have a tendency to take things at face value and not read between the lines/take social cues, but whereas that may not have helped matters, it doesn’t feel as if it’s the driver of her problems. She’s a good talker, has emotional intelligence etc.

I think you (and other respondents) are right about the job thing. She did have a part time job previously which she didn’t particularly enjoy, but I think now’s the time to start looking seriously at getting another one.

I have two 18 year olds and a 17 year old in my house and they would find it weird and a bit creepy if one of their mates parents was hanging around wanting to smoke with them when they came over.

I think the word ‘encouraging’ here is a bit ambiguous here too. There’s a big difference between encouraging something and condoning it. My parents did neither and when I look back at some of the I’ll-advised things I did with my mates back in the day, it’s easy to see how wrong it could have gone and how far away we were from help if it had.

@Dadadan you said you've not had your DD tested for autism but 'it's been a running joke for years' - this sounds odd to me as firstly why have you joked about it for years and then not had her assessed? Do you think you've given your DD a complex about n
N
K my

Sorry posted too soon...

Do you think you've made your DD feel a bit different about herself by her thinking she might be on the spectrum? Does she have any specific symptoms that you've noticed over the years?

Op is it possible you dont fully understand autism as it presents in girls? When you say very very slightly...but then you have also described a childhood and teenage years characterised by inability to maintain friendships. Which is not minor at all.

Perhaps you are thinking of stereotypes when you think of autism? Autistic girls like my own (diagnosed at 7 yrs) are empathetic in the extreme ...my child has many friends and does fine at school. She is still autistic.

She needs a lot more scaffolding and support in her friendships than others and lacks a lot of nuance in understanding

It sounds like your daughter is sufferinf a lot from not being able to make good friendships and if syou think there is neurodiversity there i really would advise following that up

No. It can be quite hard conveying family dynamics online, but it’s never been a joke at her expense.

We’ve discussed it with her many times over the years and we are all open to getting her tested properly. She is, for want of a better word, a ‘normal’ kid. I think this generation have had it very different to previous generations: they are the first lot to have grown up with the mass social experiment that is social media, they had a very important developmental stage of their lives utterly upended by Covid and lockdown, and society at large has become more atomised than at any point in history. No wonder a lot of them are struggling. I think we’re much more aware of conditions like autism and ADHD these days, and everyone rushes to judgement to diagnose from blog posts.

I'm not saying she’s not on the spectrum, she does have some funny little ‘ways’ but then so do I. So does everyone. I’m more inclined to think that her current problem is more due to the fact that a natural, easy ability to make friends just isn’t in her armoury, the way it is with her sister. Is that autism, or is that just her being somewhat of an introvert?

Could she train as a coach or a referee for football? My 10 year old daughter recently took up football but all the coaches are men. The girls' game has just exploded! These young girls could do with role models. There is a youth sports leadership award for more structure.

If she's sporty but needs non weight bearing exercise, is there a pool that does scuba?

Also you said she likes thrifting. How about volunteer shifts in a charity shop? A lot of my 6th formers do this for volunteering. One of them said sorting out all the Oxfam books by size and colour was very therapeutic!

If she is on the spectrum, activities with clear procedures and parameters could work well.

There may be mentoring roles at college too.