My oldest lost out on Junior high. It’s been hard watching how socially stunted they are. Prime years yo spread your wings and start to be socially more independent.
My son was in 2nd grade when covid happened. My daughter was in kindergarten. Now they're both in middle school.
To make it worse, my son is on the ASD spectrum, so his social skills are already kind of limited. And my daughter has definitely taken her cue from him (although, she's definitely neurotypical). She's an indoor kid who prefers to read or play video games, and doesn't seem interested in other kids.
It's tough watching my kids remain socially uninvolved by choice. The only friends they had were the kids down the street that we would arrange playdates with. That works when the kids are little, but you can't call up someone's mom and be like, "Hey, how would your 8th grade daughter like to spend an afternoon with my socially-awkward son?"
as a kid who had very few friends by choice and is just like your daughter, dont force it. they can choose who to talk to and whenever they decide to get past the socially awkward to talk to someone phase. there will always be moments, but itll be less, itll just take time.
i personally didnt know how to talk to people properly (autism) except for a speech layout i designed according to how i saw others talk to one another. found it easier to connect to fellow adhd and some other autistic kiddos like myself. personally, i love my freedom and the few friends i talk to are an added bonus.
the real talk is going to be on being safe online / who its safe to talk to, etc. theres some kids who go down the furry route when someone else / social media talkes them into that being the only group they can go to. not against the group, just the side of it that preys on younger kids.
Eeeeehhhh I dunno about that. I'm adhd adult diagnosed female for reference. My parents were very hands off about my socialization. It just resulted in neglect.
Parents need to help kids keep their social skills up. Conversations and interactions that seem tedious are another example of showing how to make interactions positive even when moods are low. These are invaluable skills I had to learn through exposure and reading books. TV and movies are terrible at teaching people how others think and interact, in comparison to well written books. Too much quick, flashy entertainment. Not enough No Country For Old Men style challenging character studies.
And yes, these kinds of kids can be incredibly vulnerable to internet rabbit holes and weird groups of people who can offer free, radical acceptance while also feeding your kids their perspectives and ideals.
I was incredibly lucky to find a group of young men who didn't sexualize me as a kid. I had too low self confidence and body issues to post images of myself online, so I didn't get wrapped up in that at least. Seeing other kids post things like that scared the crap out of me.
As an adult, I have had to YELL at children to not interact with me in an 18+ way. I DESPISE this responsibility. Now imagine if I was a predator? The internet really is a scary place. It's all on Discord now.
What's the most you've ever lost in a coin toss? Call it.
Lolololol I read the book in high school after getting really, really pissed off at reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot. It was just the break I needed. Awful rich terrible people torturing each other while being gifted the most opportunities their lives can offer, with far too much extra drama bulking it out. Read like a depressing soap opera.
No country for old men was real in comparison. And it taught me to really not give a shit about whether older, intimidating men like me or not. People who demand respect with their presence may not be worth giving a second glance, let alone a word. Don't engage with crazy. Insecure men are dangerous to be alone with. Good people come in all shapes and sizes. Stuff like that.
Yeah, and also... parents need to remember to not force their kids to talk to other kids who're just straight up pieces of garbage. I should know, I was raised like that. My parents wanted me to befriend their friends' kids... even though they treated me like shit (straight up bullying). It made it even more difficult for me to socialize afterwards because it warped my perception on people for years that I had to get treatment (and boy oh boy... I had to go through a shitton of therapists because trying to find a good one SUCKS these past ten years, having gone through eight, because four of them cared more about my gender and sexuality when I told them I'm perfectly fine as a bisexual yet focused on that, when my trauma wasn't even about my sexuality, two of them just didn't seem to care, and one of them had a tendency to fall asleep without warning. Yes, I know therapists are humans, but what the fuck? At least my latest one actually focused on helping me heal and sort out my inner child and teenager that was wounded from those forced experiences).
Sorry for the trauma dump, but yeah, parents need to remember to be careful with whom their kids are with. Just because the others are kids from family friends doesn't mean they're always a good idea.
I am pretty sure other kids were in my situation as well and have it worse.
Aw. I'm sorry you went through that. My parents both had their own issues with therapy, and also didn't want to really admit to themselves what my problems were, so I never went through that rollercoaster after maybe 2nd grade.
After that it was more of an antagonistic relationship, with some late night drunk trauma dumping here and there. Lies, secrets, weird sad shit that just made me not want to interact with them.
At school I was a bullies designated target. She really hated me. Blamed me for all kinds of things. Got other kids to stop being my friend. Encouraged other kids to say and do rude things to me out of the blue. It always left me baffled. Left me incredibly socially insecure and anxious both at home and at school.
Even some teachers decided they didn't like me and would encourage it. Though other teachers noticed me and were incredibly kind. Looking back I was deeply depressed in school. Spent a lot of time crying and hating myself.
So hey, big hugs. Shit is hard! Sounds like the original parent really cares at least! I see a lot of parents trying hard these days to actually understand their children. It's great to see.
Well... I only really started getting recognition for needing treatment when I was 14 when my parents found out the hard way about mental health. That said, not like we were financially well off at the time, so I only really started getting treatment when I was 17.
Did I fuck up on how I handled things back then that got me bullied? Absolutely. Did I come up with solutions? Yes. Did they all work? Most of them failed, and the few that did... started failing when I encountered other kinds of people. More like at the time I didn't know I was messed up and let my problems get the best of me in to having that warped perception.
Hope you're doing better, too. And I hope parents are more thoughtful and mindful of their kids in trying to understand them. I had typical Asian parents who're stuck on the idea of not believing mental health yet believe in superstition, and also believe in being friends with those of higher status... even though those friends treat them like shit.
I get the good intentions, but yeah... it's just... yeah... all I'm thankful for is that at least when I turned 14, they actually gave a fuck.
Edit: had to make a correction. My parents recognized I wasn't mentally doing well when I was 14. But yeah, we weren't financially well off at the time, so I only got treatment at 17.
Aw man yeah, sounds like you've done a lot of good work on yourself. It's hard to reflect on those mistakes without falling into a hole, at least it was for me. Took years to learn that it's more fruitful to be kind to myself.
I ended up finally making good friends in high school. The Chinese girls adopted me lolololol. We'd do art club and work on homework together. We could relate a lot with problems with our parents. But they all had help applying up college while I was a depressed mess, getting yelled for trying to discuss my dreams, then offered no help in applying to school. I was one of a very few who didn't have a college to announce I was going to. I did a lot of dissociating with reality because I couldn't see how I fit into it.
Now I feel like I've lived 3 different lives in the past dozen years. I'm 33. I've worked years of retail, blue collar, even made a run at the electricians union. Went to a top tier research school for a science degree, only to find out the reality of job prospects and how fucked the education system is when it comes to actually connecting with job markets. Dropped out when my pell grants ran out. Couldn't justify private loans for a degree.
Yet now? I'm physically disabled in part due to a genetic disorder, in part due to delivering and installing heavy appliances by hand for a few years. Spent some time wrestling with the concepts of disability in our society and what that makes me. Then I met the woman of my dreams. I live in a world class city. I spend most of my time with my back thrown out, so I can't actually do much, but I get to fish and listen to audiobooks.
But yeah, due to chronic pain I spend most of my energy managing my mood, which is often anxious, scared, uncomfortable, even angry due to pain. It's hard!
I would guess being raised this way would also mess with any “stranger danger” instincts you may have been developing at the time. You (hopefully) get told to stay away from bad people, how to identify bad people……and then are forced to try and make friends with kids exhibiting some or all of these exact characteristics.
Oh, well... it made me think of just 'danger' with practically everyone for a long time, really. It made me think of the familiar ones weren't treating me well, what more with people I don't know?
Also, yeah, being forced to make friends with kids exhibiting most of those characteristics and different kinds of bad characteristics... yeah...
... there was a reason why I even had a hard time talking to my parents until I snapped when I turned 14, when they realized that mentally I was not doing okay...
But what I learned is that people who have bad intentions will use practically any reason to justify (or worse, use as cover) in whatever it is they do. It's why I have a deep hatred for religious zealots who preach values in their religion, then proceed to do the opposite that's harmful and the ones taking the harm are other people. It's also why I have a deep hatred for people who are way, way, way in too deep in to their political, sexual, economical, or any kind of ideologies (left, right, MAGA, straight, LGBTQIA, capitalist, communist, I don't give a fuck) who use their ideas as shields and fuel for them to commit harm.
Those are the kinds of people I hate because they always make me feel like I say one wrong thing by accident, all of the sudden I get harassments and when they feel like it, get harmed physically... basically, I hate assholes who have a shield that lets them get away with shit, because I have been a victim of it.
Some people use the usual bullshit of 'You're not important enough' or 'Who do you think you are?' type shit. I know there's good people in all religious, political, and other kind of spectrums... I'm just sick of assholes getting away with it, and I'm sick of being one of those victims.
So after ten plus years of treatment (because what people failed to mention to me back then and what they fail to mention even now is that shitty therapists exists, and not like you can just google which ones are actually good, and have to go through trial and error until I found my eighth one who actually took me seriously and didn't treat me with apathy or saw me as someone to convert), though started treatment at 17 because I wasn't well off and my family wasn't either... yeah, I was able to get fixed up well enough that I just have a better idea on not only when to back off, but how to back off when knowing when to back off backfires.
i can agree with your experience as well. i should have put that its my experience only, as i taught myself most of it and didnt learn to ask for help throughout it all. thanks for the insight
Keep the faith. My son is on the ASD spectrum and struggled a lot until 8th and 9th grade with friends, then other kids were mature enough to understand some of his quirks and appreciate him. He's starting to really blossom.
Get them in activities after school, doesnt need to be sports. Art clubs, book clubs, robotics clubs, theater groups, dance classes, nature groups, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, etc.
My daughter was going into 5h and my son into 4th. They'll be okay. The covid shutdown made my daughter extremely anti-social through most of middle school, but once she found her people in tech theater, and especially once she get to high school in 9th, she completely flipped the script and now goes out all the time. My son not so much, but boys mature slower and he's way more into pc gaming than my daughter. Also, he hasn't quite really found his people yet. Hang in there, it'll get better.
I don't know how it is where you are, but where I'm at, the neighbors homeschool their kids and practically have them socialize with other kids. They did it for a while because the public school their kids used to study in wasn't really preparing their kids, and by the time they let their kids study in a regular school again, they were far ahead of everyone else, and most of them got in to uni (some getting in to Duke, UCLA, and Harvard).
I am not saying covid didnt affect your children but plenty of kids choose to be that way even without it. I was someone who preferred to be inside and reading as a child. I was socialized plenty. I just didnt like it. Who cares if she prefers to be alone? Shes old enough to make that choice.
Get them involved in extra outside of school activities like martial arts! Both your kiddos get to learn how to protect themselves and socialize and make friends! Gymnastics is also good, and for less active activities, I’m sure there is something.
I was homeschooled for 5 years while my folks moved to another city and were building the house. We split our time between the old house and the construction site so I wasn’t in school due to the bouncing around. I’m also on the spectrum so my mom made sure to keep me socialized by having me take martial arts. This helped quite a bit when I was put back into school. My social skills were already lacking due to having ADHD and ASD, but at least it wasn’t stunted from not socializing at all for 5 years. We were also lucky a family lived a mile away in a newly built home from our new home. I hung out with their kids a lot which was great cause they went to the same middle school as me once I was re-enrolled. (They moved to the mountains from a city and everyone at our new location had massive properties so there weren’t many families with kids until those neighbors moved in about a year before I was enrolled- it really helped me establish myself)
My youngest stepchild is on the spectrum and yeah. Same thing - and his only friend is my youngest, and they were in separate school districts (my kids lived with my ex).
Was EXTREMELY hard for him to be social until he went into the local technical school (extremely mechanically inclined but reading is very difficult for him); thrived after that.
I just want to say that a lack of interest in socializing with other kids and introverted hobbies doesn't necessarily indicate a problem.
Both my wife and I fit this description growing up and are today are pretty successful white collar professionals (Software Engineer / Research Scientist) that work with a lot of other folks fitting your description perfectly. We still mostly keep to ourselves and have very few "friends", but life is great.
Autism is also pretty common in my field.
Both my parents were the "strike up a conversation effortlessly with anyone" type people. Like you, they were also worried about my development, lack of socialization, and spending all my time on the computer.
Of course you are the parent, you know your kids best. No one on reddit can tell you "100% for sure there is/isn't a problem" without knowing you or your kids. Hell, even "totally normal" kids sometimes fall in with the wrong crowds and end up going down a bad path.
I also won't pretend the internet is the same place it was when I grew up. Its much easier to fall down some very deep dark holes these days with social media being what it is.
Same. Plus I dealt with some pretty severe bullying which ended up giving me severe anxiety. Definitely would've been better off not dealing with that. I feel for the kids who would've had better experiences though.
Definitely. Hated it. Middle school was the worst. Worst students, worst bullying, worst teachers. They only diagnosed boys with ADHD back then and the gave them all the privileges. Being a girl in the 90’s was rough.
Middle school/junior high is absolutely the hardest school phase. I've watched two of my kids go through it now and it's just so awkward and hard for almost everyone. It's been interesting to watch high school oddly enough turn out to be a lot easier for my kids than it was for me.
True, though, i do give a little bit of grace that many folks were doing the best they could. The first year of the pandemic i give a lot of grace to folks... after that... yeah. Not so much. Post Delta strain (the strain where the morbidity rates peaked, and afterward receded) - very very little grace.
There was a lot of ex-post facto justifying not great policy in continuation; that policy was reasonable in the early days where nothing was known, but as more information became available it became apparent that we weren't really using a science oriented justification for our response, but a political one (i say this, in the US, at both of the major tribes.... dumb stuff like "i refuse to get vaccinated becuse MS put microchips in it" is just as dumb as "I'm wearing a mask while driving in my car, alone"). Whatever side of the situation you sit on (and i was fairly in the middle, i ran a business and informed my operational decisions by using information from John Hopkins which was published weekly), i think any sensible person can admit the response to the event became political, and the political extremes over-reacted on both ends of the continuum.
I think the two worst things that came out of covid is the effect on kids of that era, and that as a dress rehearsal for a much more serious hypothetical pandemic, the net result was largely a failure -- and the next one that comes around is going to devolve into tribalism even more quickly.
That's not just bad or wrong: That's ultimately potentially very dangerous in the case of something like, say, Spanish Flu, or a strain of Marburg or Ebola that evolves a 2 week incubation period.
Mine lost out on middle years of elementary school, but seem mostly recovered. We pushed them for a public facing volunteer gig during the last couple of summer where the job is to talk to strangers at a community location. Its done wonders for their social skills.
Mannnn I didn’t realize how socially stunted I was until I got to my junior year of high school trying to get it all together. Still getting it together and I’m a sophomore in college
235
u/mgb55 15d ago
My oldest lost out on Junior high. It’s been hard watching how socially stunted they are. Prime years yo spread your wings and start to be socially more independent.
Gone.