Do your kids meet other kids at weekends etc...
Discussion
....
I'm not old. I remember my teenage years in the '90s. It really isn't that long ago.
I played outside, with my school mates and kids from the street I lived on.
I've now been a dad for 4 years- my stepson is 13 and my little one is 2.
Since the age of 9 he has never really played much with his schoolmates. No kids on the street seem to be playing outside either. It's now getting worse- 13 going on 14 and has one mate. Complains all the other kids are idiots... They're constantly on Tic Toc and that we can't possibly understand as it's not the 80's/90s anymore....
Is he right? He's a good kid, sociable, interesting, got his head screwed on. But we can't figure out why he seems to struggle so much to make friends...
I'm not old. I remember my teenage years in the '90s. It really isn't that long ago.
I played outside, with my school mates and kids from the street I lived on.
I've now been a dad for 4 years- my stepson is 13 and my little one is 2.
Since the age of 9 he has never really played much with his schoolmates. No kids on the street seem to be playing outside either. It's now getting worse- 13 going on 14 and has one mate. Complains all the other kids are idiots... They're constantly on Tic Toc and that we can't possibly understand as it's not the 80's/90s anymore....
Is he right? He's a good kid, sociable, interesting, got his head screwed on. But we can't figure out why he seems to struggle so much to make friends...
We moved house 4 years ago
Couple opposite have two teenagers
We have both remarked that since moving in no other kids have visited the house, the only time we see these two is 1) walking to and from school alone, 2)walking the family dog once a day.
Never seen them in the company of other kids
Couple opposite have two teenagers
We have both remarked that since moving in no other kids have visited the house, the only time we see these two is 1) walking to and from school alone, 2)walking the family dog once a day.
Never seen them in the company of other kids
Leicesterdave said:
....
I'm not old. I remember my teenage years in the '90s. It really isn't that long ago.
I played outside, with my school mates and kids from the street I lived on.
I've now been a dad for 4 years- my stepson is 13 and my little one is 2.
Since the age of 9 he has never really played much with his schoolmates. No kids on the street seem to be playing outside either. It's now getting worse- 13 going on 14 and has one mate. Complains all the other kids are idiots... They're constantly on Tic Toc and that we can't possibly understand as it's not the 80's/90s anymore....
Is he right? He's a good kid, sociable, interesting, got his head screwed on. But we can't figure out why he seems to struggle so much to make friends...
Is he struggling (in vain) to make friends? Or just not bothering? I'm not old. I remember my teenage years in the '90s. It really isn't that long ago.
I played outside, with my school mates and kids from the street I lived on.
I've now been a dad for 4 years- my stepson is 13 and my little one is 2.
Since the age of 9 he has never really played much with his schoolmates. No kids on the street seem to be playing outside either. It's now getting worse- 13 going on 14 and has one mate. Complains all the other kids are idiots... They're constantly on Tic Toc and that we can't possibly understand as it's not the 80's/90s anymore....
Is he right? He's a good kid, sociable, interesting, got his head screwed on. But we can't figure out why he seems to struggle so much to make friends...
My 26 yr old daughter says it's not like it was in her day, she used to play in the street, kids today don't... (she's getting old already!)
Fortunately (IMO) our kids didn't have smart phones until they were late teens and there weren't many games on a basic Nokia so they went to do things and had friends round.
Our neighbours restrict the amount of time their 8yr old spends on the iPad and take him out cycling, to parkrun juniors, football etc, I think it's up to parents to take kids to stuff and encourage them to play outside so they don't think doing stuff on their phones is the only thing available.
Fortunately (IMO) our kids didn't have smart phones until they were late teens and there weren't many games on a basic Nokia so they went to do things and had friends round.
Our neighbours restrict the amount of time their 8yr old spends on the iPad and take him out cycling, to parkrun juniors, football etc, I think it's up to parents to take kids to stuff and encourage them to play outside so they don't think doing stuff on their phones is the only thing available.
Sounds like me at school in the 90s. Had an 'at school' group of about 10, but only two actual friends I'd want to see out of school. If I saw anyone else out of school it's only because they were friends with one of my friends. Never really found it a problem, certainly wasn't unhappy.
Does his social circle bother him or is he happy with a friend or two? If he's fine with it then I don't see the problem.
Does his social circle bother him or is he happy with a friend or two? If he's fine with it then I don't see the problem.
Ours, 12 and 9, are currently at their friends house over the road.
Pretty much every day over the Christmas break they have gone to a friends or more likely have had friends at our house. They dont really play so much, roblox, tictok, switch and xbox mostly.
Although our youngest got a remote control car for Christmas so this has been used a lot.
They also play little games - dobble, pass the pigs, taco etc
Pretty much every day over the Christmas break they have gone to a friends or more likely have had friends at our house. They dont really play so much, roblox, tictok, switch and xbox mostly.
Although our youngest got a remote control car for Christmas so this has been used a lot.
They also play little games - dobble, pass the pigs, taco etc
My little lad, 10, is massively into gaming and is online with his mates everyday. He goes to school in a different village to where we live, so doesn’t have a lot of mates close by. Our girl, 14, whilst spending loads of time online, does go around to pals houses, and them to us, as well as recently starting to become more independent, she will now jump on the train for an afternoon round the shops in York with mates.
Depends on the individual?
My 15yo took his gf along with a four pack of Dark Fruits and a bottle peach schnapps to a fancy dress house party with 15 of their mates last night for NYE. That seemed refreshingly 1990's to me.
They're all off to Leeds Fest next summer along with what appears to be most of the Year 11 from around the town. There must 100+ going.
Don't underestimate the impact that covid has had on young people. At 15 my son had had the opportunity to cement friendships by knocking around with his mates outside of school when he was 11/12/13.
Kids aged 12/13/14 now have been in lock down during these absolutely crucial years. My 12yo daughter is finding is incredibly difficult to find contemporaries that will come out on a Friday night to go to the local church youthie (which acts as essentially a safe place/base for Year 7's to start exploring freedoms away from home).
My 15yo took his gf along with a four pack of Dark Fruits and a bottle peach schnapps to a fancy dress house party with 15 of their mates last night for NYE. That seemed refreshingly 1990's to me.
They're all off to Leeds Fest next summer along with what appears to be most of the Year 11 from around the town. There must 100+ going.
Don't underestimate the impact that covid has had on young people. At 15 my son had had the opportunity to cement friendships by knocking around with his mates outside of school when he was 11/12/13.
Kids aged 12/13/14 now have been in lock down during these absolutely crucial years. My 12yo daughter is finding is incredibly difficult to find contemporaries that will come out on a Friday night to go to the local church youthie (which acts as essentially a safe place/base for Year 7's to start exploring freedoms away from home).
ben5575 said:
My 12yo daughter is finding is incredibly difficult to find contemporaries that will come out on a Friday night to go to the local church youthie (which acts as essentially a safe place/base for Year 7's to start exploring freedoms away from home).
It's really good if there's somewhere like that for them to go to although ideally it would be available every day. One of my kids did an exchange visit to Germany and stayed with a family in a large village, similar to ours. The village had a social club with a youth area attached to it and she said it worked really well, with adults on hand to keep an eye on things. When the German girl came over here she couldn't understand why there wasn't something similar here. In fact there's been complaints about gangs of exchange students hanging about in the square of our nearby town - but there's nowhere indoors they can gather.
Lived in our current house for 5 years
House opposite has 2 teenagers (one might be early 20s)
Both at school when we moved in, both now have cars, simply never ever see them. Girls car moves to goto work, his never moves (he has passed), college age.
I find it sad as that age is the best time of your life, but then again everyone is different i guess
House opposite has 2 teenagers (one might be early 20s)
Both at school when we moved in, both now have cars, simply never ever see them. Girls car moves to goto work, his never moves (he has passed), college age.
I find it sad as that age is the best time of your life, but then again everyone is different i guess
We got ours into scouting from an earlyish age....yes, there are always a couple of oddball kids there, but for the most part, they made a bunch of decent solid friends. Plenty of outdoor activity, expeditions & camps all over the place.
I'd say we have a pretty 'middle class' background, and in some ways it also exposed them to other types of families. Volunteering activities helps with that too.
Ours both completed bronze/silver/gold DofE awards. DofE kind of forces them to get outside & do things with the various skills/physical/volunteering sections.
One thing I notice with kids that do DofE is that they do get some broad experiences that can help them in their future. I help with Gold DofE (within scouting) in our county, and ones that stick at it to that level tend to be kids with a bit of "get up and go" !
If you take that path, I'd suggest you get a bit involved too - I helped lead an Explorer unit for 8 or 9 years - it is not such a "job for life" that it once was, and interested/active parents are always welcomed in, even if it is only for a few years.
I'd say we have a pretty 'middle class' background, and in some ways it also exposed them to other types of families. Volunteering activities helps with that too.
Ours both completed bronze/silver/gold DofE awards. DofE kind of forces them to get outside & do things with the various skills/physical/volunteering sections.
One thing I notice with kids that do DofE is that they do get some broad experiences that can help them in their future. I help with Gold DofE (within scouting) in our county, and ones that stick at it to that level tend to be kids with a bit of "get up and go" !
If you take that path, I'd suggest you get a bit involved too - I helped lead an Explorer unit for 8 or 9 years - it is not such a "job for life" that it once was, and interested/active parents are always welcomed in, even if it is only for a few years.
For many kids now sitting at home with their headphones on and playing Minecraft with their mates has as much social interaction as kids playing outside did 20 years ago. This suits many people, and many parents in some ways (so much traffic, so many bad men wanting to talk to kids, etc. Obviously mostly nonsense, but there we go).
I had 1 or 2 real friends at school but I wasn't popular and got bullied pretty badly. I was so desperate to just be normal and not stick out. But was below average height so was a target. Uni was amazing though it was like a new start. I had s
t loads of friends and social events to go to really felt part of the in crowd (except there was no in crowd just all decent people) best decision I made. Though phones were still at the texting stage and Internet was msn messenger and bebo at best.
t loads of friends and social events to go to really felt part of the in crowd (except there was no in crowd just all decent people) best decision I made. Though phones were still at the texting stage and Internet was msn messenger and bebo at best. Shopping centres and shopping malls still have groups of kids hanging around.
So yes.
So yes.
Leicesterdave said:
....
Is he right? He's a good kid, sociable, interesting, got his head screwed on. But we can't figure out why he seems to struggle so much to make friends...
How good is he academically? What is he into?Is he right? He's a good kid, sociable, interesting, got his head screwed on. But we can't figure out why he seems to struggle so much to make friends...
I'm 30 now and it was a bit of a mixed bag for me and still is to this very day.
Due to my parents moving to a town eight miles away when I was in year 5/6 I ended up at a secondary school where I knew nobody, whereas all of my friends from primary school ended up at a different school and could carry on relatively normally in social terms, but I was completely on my own.
The first twelve months at secondary school I would just stay inside after school or ride around the area on my bike by myself. After the first year I gradually met up with people outside of school (not from my core group of friends as all but one of those lived out of town) from time to time and then about a year later I decided that they were a bit irritating (to put it mildly) and stopped meeting up with them, never did consider them as proper friends. After that it worked out that the majority of my friends all got in to gaming on their PCs so we started hanging out virtually rather than in person after school which is never ideal, but we all had a laugh either way. That remained the same in college as well, but we all ended up at the same college so still spoke in person every day and naturally made more friends. After a few of us got our driving licences we would occasionally meet up at a pub after college alternating between designated drivers.
The not so relevant paragraph:
After that is when life really happened and a couple of them went to university half the country away and haven't returned to the area since. The rest of us got jobs and/or kids so after numerous attempts at trying to get us all to meet up in person in our early-mid twenties the whole hanging out in person thing came to an end and on the whole its rare that any of us speak to each other now. I read about this sort of thing happening quite a lot before our time came and then it became true for us despite a couple of us trying our best to keep us all in touch which is a shame.
For us the school years were really moulded by how far apart most of us lived and the lack of transport to anywhere vaguely near to where a couple of them lived as we were/are in rural Gloucestershire. On one hand you could say our introduction to online gaming allowed us to stay in contact outside of school when speaking outside of school would have otherwise been difficult, but on the other hand online gaming is also what caused the demise of my social life and ultimately I've never bounced back from it and generally keep to myself these days.
Given the times that we are in I'd say there are a fair few who are now doing what we did in secondary school in addition to those who were already in to their Xboxes and Playstations before Covid appeared on the map.
Due to my parents moving to a town eight miles away when I was in year 5/6 I ended up at a secondary school where I knew nobody, whereas all of my friends from primary school ended up at a different school and could carry on relatively normally in social terms, but I was completely on my own.
The first twelve months at secondary school I would just stay inside after school or ride around the area on my bike by myself. After the first year I gradually met up with people outside of school (not from my core group of friends as all but one of those lived out of town) from time to time and then about a year later I decided that they were a bit irritating (to put it mildly) and stopped meeting up with them, never did consider them as proper friends. After that it worked out that the majority of my friends all got in to gaming on their PCs so we started hanging out virtually rather than in person after school which is never ideal, but we all had a laugh either way. That remained the same in college as well, but we all ended up at the same college so still spoke in person every day and naturally made more friends. After a few of us got our driving licences we would occasionally meet up at a pub after college alternating between designated drivers.
The not so relevant paragraph:
After that is when life really happened and a couple of them went to university half the country away and haven't returned to the area since. The rest of us got jobs and/or kids so after numerous attempts at trying to get us all to meet up in person in our early-mid twenties the whole hanging out in person thing came to an end and on the whole its rare that any of us speak to each other now. I read about this sort of thing happening quite a lot before our time came and then it became true for us despite a couple of us trying our best to keep us all in touch which is a shame.
For us the school years were really moulded by how far apart most of us lived and the lack of transport to anywhere vaguely near to where a couple of them lived as we were/are in rural Gloucestershire. On one hand you could say our introduction to online gaming allowed us to stay in contact outside of school when speaking outside of school would have otherwise been difficult, but on the other hand online gaming is also what caused the demise of my social life and ultimately I've never bounced back from it and generally keep to myself these days.
Given the times that we are in I'd say there are a fair few who are now doing what we did in secondary school in addition to those who were already in to their Xboxes and Playstations before Covid appeared on the map.
Condi said:
For many kids now sitting at home with their headphones on and playing Minecraft with their mates has as much social interaction as kids playing outside did 20 years ago. This suits many people, and many parents in some ways (so much traffic, so many bad men wanting to talk to kids, etc. Obviously mostly nonsense, but there we go).
Pretty much this.You can speak to your mates now via social media or a headset, back in my day it was either MSN or actually going out with your mates.
Pretty grim reading so far.
I mean I left France when I was 16 to move to the UK- my mum is English and my dad was French so my English was fine but I've now been here 22 years and have never truly had a proper friend.
I think once you break off from your true childhood friends, which I really had in the 90s, it's never the same.
I sometimes wish I'd never left but that's life- I took a chance and in that respect it backfired on me somewhat.
I wonder if it's a more of a UK phenomenon or some countries are slightly better at it- I'm thinking say, Mediterranean countries where the weather perhaps helps kids play outside more?
I mean I left France when I was 16 to move to the UK- my mum is English and my dad was French so my English was fine but I've now been here 22 years and have never truly had a proper friend.
I think once you break off from your true childhood friends, which I really had in the 90s, it's never the same.
I sometimes wish I'd never left but that's life- I took a chance and in that respect it backfired on me somewhat.
I wonder if it's a more of a UK phenomenon or some countries are slightly better at it- I'm thinking say, Mediterranean countries where the weather perhaps helps kids play outside more?
I can remember thinking i must be getting when my step son who was 17 or so at the time, remarked his social life was far more important than his college work or getting a job.
His critical social life revolved around facebook, tik tok, snapchat and Instagram. Then it reovolved around meeting a load of kids at the local duck pond to smoke weed and glower at non metal/weed heads.
Now he is back to his social life revolvong around facebook etc and playing games online.
I think it's just the way things have eveloved for the young, back when i was a kid we only had 3 tv channels, computers were housed in massive great big buildings and if you wanted to know where your mates were, you had to go look for them.
His critical social life revolved around facebook, tik tok, snapchat and Instagram. Then it reovolved around meeting a load of kids at the local duck pond to smoke weed and glower at non metal/weed heads.
Now he is back to his social life revolvong around facebook etc and playing games online.
I think it's just the way things have eveloved for the young, back when i was a kid we only had 3 tv channels, computers were housed in massive great big buildings and if you wanted to know where your mates were, you had to go look for them.
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff