My Son Wants to Opt Out of Family Thanksgiving. He’s 12!

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by PIKSEL/iStock/Getty Images Plus and zamrznutitonovi/Getty Images Plus. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My husband and I have two kids, “Anna,” 7, and “Cory,” 12. Cory is now at the age where he thinks he’s too cool for family gatherings. He doesn’t want to have to travel with us to his grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving and wants to go to his best friend’s for the holiday instead. My husband thinks we should let him go, but I think Thanksgiving is a time for families to be together and he needs to come with us. Twelve is too young for our son to decide who he spends Thanksgiving with, correct? —Home Is Not Where His Heart Is Dear Home, I’ll get my own bias out of the way and say that, like you, ideally I’d want both my kids with me for Thanksgiving. (While they’re kids! Obviously, when they’re grown with families and lives of their own, the calculus changes.) And Cory might be asking to spend the holiday with his best friend’s family in part to send you a message or get a reaction. But it could also be coming from a sincere place: he’s 12, and kids that age will naturally care a lot about their friends and be increasingly focused on those relationships. It’s not that your family is unimportant to Cory, of course, but you’ll probably need to get used to his friends being his priority for the next several years. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with telling your son tough luck, he’s spending Thanksgiving with your family, and he can see his best friend later that weekend or back at school on Monday. But I also think it would be OK to let him spend the day with his best friend, if you were open to it—your husband isn’t way out of line for suggesting it. You and your spouse should first reach a decision together, and then let Cory know what it is. The main thing I think you probably want to avoid, wherever you land, is making it a huge deal or fighting over it. Once the decision is made, don’t keep talking about it, or get mad at or guilt your son for asking to go to his friend’s. Finally, a question: Do you know of any reason why Cory might not want to see his grandparents? If it’s just about the hassle of travel, fine, but if he has some other reason to be uncomfortable either in their presence or at their house, you should pay attention to that and not force him to go until you understand what’s going on. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Care and Feeding, My 15-year-old son, “James,” has always been an “inside kid” and prefers to read by himself than run around with other kids. When he was growing up, there were two other families on our street with kids his age and it was pretty easy to get him out of the house to play with them a few times a week, but as he got older he stopped going and they stopped asking. Now he’s at a different school, where he does have friends—he texts with them or plays games online with them all the time—but he never hangs out with them in person outside of school. He sees no problem with this, and truly doesn’t seem bothered or lonely. But I’m just so sad for him. I don’t understand why he isn’t interested in seeing his friends. I have asked him to invite them over here and he always declines. I’ve offered to take him wherever he wants to go, and he isn’t interested. He says he gets what he needs at school and from texting. What am I supposed to do about this? —Social Mom Dear Social Mom, I get why you’re concerned—sure, many kids interact more on their phones than they do in real life these days. But just because it’s become very normal for teens to hang out less (or not at all) doesn’t mean it’s not good for them to be together in person. And as a parent, you probably also want to know at least a little about your son’s friends, which you can’t if you never even meet them. It’s tough, because even if hanging out with friends more often in person would be a good outcome for James, he’s the exact wrong age for you to convince him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. It sounds like you’ve already nudged him on this a number of times. Having seen my own teenagers’ eyes glaze over when I say something I’ve said before, I am guessing that if you continue to raise this, pushing your son to go see people or invite them over, you might risk turning it into a bigger point of contention—and thus, something he really digs his heels in about—than you might want. Again, I do understand why this matters to you. It’s great to make sure he knows that you support his friendships, and that his friends are always welcome at your place. You’ve done what you can do. At 15, James is way past the age when you can schedule hangouts for him or play a big part in managing his social life. I noticed that you signed off with “Social Mom”—you’re obviously different from your son in this way, which could also be where some of your sadness and anxiety is coming from. If he does have people in his life he trusts and cares about, if he seems OK and reasonably content in this and other areas of his life, it really could be that he is fine—just more introverted than you are, and fine with a different type and level of socialization with his friends. —Nicole More Parenting Advice From Slate I have a 10-year-old son who is in fourth grade. I feel as though he is at an age where it’s appropriate to start introducing more mature topics, or at least signaling our openness as parents to his questions about those topics. I’m thinking about anything from puberty, sex, and substances to peer pressure, race, and violence. The trouble is that while we have a great relationship otherwise, my son completely closes up when either my husband or I try to initiate conversations about these topics Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Kids