I have a 13 year old step-son. We are very concerned about his self esteem and social skills. He will be in the 9th grade this year. He goes to a small private school that maybe has 30 kids in the entire 9th grade. His grades are not great but ok, he does struggle at times with getting his work done on time. Being that it is summer time now we would love to see him get out and do things with friends or have friends over just anything rather than being alone. He would just sit in his room and watch tv or play video games all day if we would allow it. We have been trying to get him to call some kids to see if they can hang out but he just wont do it unless we make him. He seems like he is terrified. He never talks about any friends or does anyone ever call him either. We have told him that it may take him to take the first step with calling them first a couple times and then maybe they will start calling him too. We had a pretty emotional talk last night where he actually broke down in tears and said that when he is with kids his own age he feels like he will get the "facts" wrong when they talk so he just doesnt say anything. I watch him when he is around other kids and he excludes himself, he will stand like 10 feet away from them and kinda just stand there. I signed him up to help out at the schools summer camp this week from 1-4 just to get him out of the house. We told him if he could get some kids from school to come over on friday that he could skip camp and go fishing.