Dd13 suddenly unsociable

[Cindybeale]

Is this normal?
for example she used to stay up al night on sleepovers now the complete opposite her friends come round and they are asleep by 9.30

she spends a lot of time in bed on tik tok
ahe is much less sociable and really struggled to sit with us on Xmas day she just wants to retreat back to her room

I'm trying to wind down phone use but it ends up with her kicking off
she is far less sociable tha she used to be and she doesn't do anything not even make herself something to eat everything is begging her for day to get anything done. If I take phone she refuses so go as she can't get hold of me

ita just me on my own with her I don't have any family

This isn’t normal. I would be worried about cyber bullying. Can you sit with her and try and find out what is going on? Reassure her that you are there for her and if anything has gone wrong with her friendships, it’s not her fault.

I’d contradict that to say… if she was being cyber bullied you would think she would be grateful for the relief of NOT having her phone & wanting to be away from the calls, messages, comments etc… just looking at it from a flip side

i would say though, rather than telling her to limit the phone use or making it an obvious issue, give her reasons to be more busy so she physically is unable to use the phone so much. Ask for more help around the house, go out together more. My DD still goes to gymnastics despite the fact that I know she doesn’t work very hard at it and probably spends most of her time talking… but… I know that she’s busy 3 nights a week and that’s a good few hours off the darn phone. Rather than me telling her not to be on it, which would go down like a lead balloon

if she was being cyber bullied you would think she would be grateful for the relief of NOT having her phone & wanting to be away from the calls, messages, comments etc… just looking at it from a flip side

No. As a 13yo who has no choice but to spend every school day exposed to bullies she will desperately need to know what they are up to, what they are planning, which one is out to get her more than others, what is being said about her so she can formulate a defence. Cyber-bullying hooks a child in. Saying oh just get rid of the phone is like telling a victim of DV oh just leave him- It’s not that easy.

As someone who was bullied all through school, I sadly agree with this. You try to be prepared.

I think you need to limit phone use, but if she wants to lurk in her room reading or drawing or complaining about you on the landline, that is fine. Getting moody with family is normal at this age, as is wanting to be on a screen all day tbh, so you need to prevent doing nothing but screens from being an option.

It sounds like she might have a smart phone addiction https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/teens-with-problematic-smartphone-use-are-twice-as-likely-to-have-anxiety-and-many-are-eager-to-cut-down

Hi OP I HAD to jump on here. I was unsociable at 13, like your DD, but UNLIKE your DD, I was 13 WELL over a decade before social media became a thing!

I was sociable on my 12th birthday . By 13 it was a different story. The main reason was I fancied a boy and my 'friends had worked out who it was. I was very self conscious about this - so preferred to not socialise with them out of school.

Looking back as an adult I think crushes on boys and withdrawing from primary school friends is a perfectly normal part of development

I wanted to add to my above post OP.

My mum put unfair pressure on me to mix with people. We were on holiday when I was 13 and I wasn’t socialising. She suddenly said to me when she know no one else could hear, in a very harsh voice:

“Look, me and your father WANT you to make friends. No wonder you’ve got no friends, always on your own, you’re TOTALLY selfish”

I took this to heart, OP, and it made me extremely vulnerable. The ‘selfish’ comment stuck with me, and in the forthcoming years I was bullied and humiliated by some very nasty kids who definitely didn’t have my interests at heart. I went into an abusive relationship at 18 with someone I didn’t love. It resulted in heartbreak - but he’s happy now.

But anyway, the wider context to my own situation was that I was an only child and mum back to work full time straight after I was born. Ok, nothing objectively wrong with either of those things. However, there was something wrong with this - my mum was sadly an abusuve alcoholic. Why this is relevant to the general situation you describe OP is that because of my personal circumstances I HAD to be self reliant and happy in my own company. - I was often lonely because my mum was knee deep in gin - but had to just get on with it. I didn’t really want or need the company of other kids.

I think 13 year old kids generally are much too infantilised and are much more capable/mature than people give them credit for. My grandad was working full time when he was your DD’s age and had left school! At 13 I was ready to leave school and get a job but the school leaving age at the time was 16.

if kids are natural loners - I think this is absolutely fine ! Thing is, as an adult no one has the authority to coerce people into relationships - so why would people do it to children ?

The other thing I was thinking about yesterday was - it’s ok to have no friends at 13 because at that age, you don’t realistically ‘choose’ your school, and your wider community, your social circle or anything. For instance, at 13 I was at a school whose demographic overall I really didn’t like. By 23/33/43 - you’re much more likely to genuinely be choosing circles you mix in as you have more power/leverage.

Just to clarify I’m making my own GENERAL observations above, OP, I’m in no way implying that your parenting of your DD is wrong in any way !