Posted by mair on March 14, 2005, at 17:19:19
In reply to Re: My son is a loner, posted by antigua on March 7, 2005, at 16:06:11
Antigua - I know I'm jumping in here late. My 17 year old daughter has a clear need for social interaction. She's always at a friend's, or she has her friends at our house. When we go on family vacations, we very frequently take one or two of her friends with us.
My son, 19, is so very different. He has friends but he is almost never the instigator of social activities. He's never wanted to bring a friend with him when we go somewhere, and he rarely has his friends over. He's very happy to hang out around the house, and often very happy to hang out with his parents, particularly if we take him out to dinner. He does virtually nothing to nurture his relationships so it's always a little bit of a shock to us that he seems to be as well liked as he is. He, too, had one girlfriend, through the last 2 years of high school. They broke up, and I honestly don't think he's ever dated since then (or before for that matter.
When he was younger, I decided that he didn't like having kids sleep over because he didn't sleep well with someone else in his room, and by the same token he rarely wanted to sleep over at his friends' houses I think for the same reason. I also think he felt some pressure to entertain when kids were at our house. I think he felt responsible for whether they were having a good time. I think that has something to do with why he rarely wanted kids over and never wanted to take his friends anywhere with us.
I sometimes worry about whether he's depressed, and he can definitely get obsessive about things. But I also think he's pretty dependent on us and not brimming with the social confidence that might allow him to jump into new situations. He's more than a little afraid to fail. And I think alot of it is just his personality.
It's funny, because when he was in high school, my husband and I were never quite sure whether we should be happy that he wasn't off doing god-knows-what with his friends every weekend, or worried that he wasn't.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:466470
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/child/20050226/msgs/471004.html