OT: 13 year old son's friends dropping him, one by one

Hi there! This is such a hard thing for both child and parent. My son is turning 19 in 2 weeks and he struggled off and on with desperately wanting more friends from 13 or so up. We live in a small town so our homeschool group is very small. He did have friends within the group but their were only 2 anywhere near his age and both of them were younger than him. He finally joined another church’s youth group and got a part time job. Those two things kept him busy and he did end up making some friends in the youth group. He joined their band and became more outgoing so I think it was a blessing for him as a whole.

My daughter is 12 and she is starting to struggle with the idea that her peers might think she is weird. The truth is, our kids’ personalities aren’t molded by all that peer pressure that kid in more traditional school settings face every day. Yes, they are different and the kids who hang together all day will probably draw closer together and have common bonds that our kids can’t share.

I learned from my son’s struggles to provide plenty of oppertunites for my daughter to get together with others and do things outside the home. She still only has a small handful of friends that she only sees once a week or so but it seems to be enough for now. In addition to that, her and I do alot together. We keep her days full of learning, long walks, bike rides, chores, etc. so that she enjoys her free hours of reading and handicrafts and doesn’t  have much time to be bored.

That’s my advice-make sure he has plenty of social activities (and it sound like you’re already doing that), and he’ll eventually make new friends. They are so self-conscience at this age that it takes a while to form new friendships and get to know new people. I also prayed with my son that God would provide the friends that He wanted my son to have. I think it comforted him to know that I shared his concern and I believe God answered those prayers. 🙂

I don’t really have a solution for you but I wanted to say that your son is not alone. This happened to our son at this age, and my husband said it happened to him as well when he was a boy. Why? We feel it’s the rough road into the junior high years. Our son played with the neighborhood kids all through elementary, but as soon as junior high hit, he was just not “cool” enough to be part of the gang – the neighborhood kids, unchurched, began to make wrong decisions, and cool became more important than childhood friendships. It was a painful time for him. We prayed a lot about this! We also got him involved in opportunities for group activities that forged new friendships. In our case, this was a homeschool theater group. This led to a ministry based theater opportunity that actually became a blessing for our whole family.  Now it’s our daughters turn.  There is only one girl her age at church, and her family is not open to allowing friendship.  All of her homeschool friends have decided to go to public or Christian school for high school so suddenly she’s pretty much friendless.  Gratefully, she’s been invited to join a book club and we are praying that she will forge new friendships through this connection.  Praying for your son, and just know that he is not alone! So thankful that our Heavenly Father cares about these things!