u/Lululuvin

I’m looking for insight from parents, stepparents, therapists, or even adults who recognize some of their own childhood behavior in this.

I have an almost-13-year-old in my family who is extremely intelligent, verbally advanced and very perceptive. He can also be attentive and sweet. But over the last couple of years, we’ve noticed a pattern of behavior that is becoming increasingly concerning and I’m trying to understand what could be driving it rather than simply labeling him a “bad kid.”

He is already in therapy. His therapist describes him as a good kid who is lonely despite having family and people around him.

The problem is that his attempts to connect with people often seem unhealthy.

Some examples:
• He contacts kids he barely knows or doesn’t know and sometimes creates stories about who he is in order to get them to engage with him.
• When someone tells him to leave them alone, blocks him, or removes him from a group chat, he sometimes keeps trying to communicate or find a way back in.
• Other kids have directly told him he needs to stop bullying people or be more respectful.
• He asks people things like “Do you hate me?” and seems very interested in whether people like/dislike him.
• He has previously sought out sexual/romantic conversations with male and female AI characters online.
• More recently, we discovered extremely explicit sexual conversations with people online and conversations with strangers he met through online games. With at least one person, we cannot verify whether the person is even another child. He was acting like he was a woman to decieve the man.
• He also appears to introduce sexual subjects/jokes to kids his age who don’t seem to be at the same level of sexual curiosity or comfort. One peer accused him in a text of making a rape joke, touching himself and then touching her/other kids. He was suspended from school for this.
• He can be deceptive. There has been at least one situation where someone recognized him and told him to leave them alone and he responded by pretending he didn’t know who they were talking about.
• He also seems to enjoy “poking” at people emotionally or saying things that he knows may produce a reaction.
At the same time, there is another side to him that confuses me.

His therapist has previously assessed him after we discovered the sexual AI conversations, including asking about inappropriate touching/sexual abuse. Nothing indicating abuse came out of those assessments.
What I’m struggling to understand is the overall pattern.
He seems intensely interested in relationships, people’s reactions, whether people like him, sexual/romantic interaction and where he belongs. Yet some of the behaviors he uses to get connection actually push other kids away. Then he seems to pursue the connection even harder.
It almost looks like:
loneliness → intense attempt at connection → provocative/sexual/attention-seeking behavior → other person becomes uncomfortable or rejects him → he pursues them harder → more rejection → more loneliness.
We aren’t looking to shame him for sexual curiosity or label a 12-year-old as a predator. We’re trying to intervene before these behaviors become more serious, both because we want him safe from adults/strangers online and because he needs to respect other children’s boundaries.
We’ve already involved his therapist, but “he’s lonely and he’s a good kid” doesn’t feel like enough of an explanation or treatment plan anymore.
Has anyone dealt with a child like this?
Did it turn out to be primarily ADHD/impulsivity, social-skills problems, rejection sensitivity, attachment issues, exposure to inappropriate internet content, something else or a combination?
Did a comprehensive psychological/neuropsychological evaluation help?
What type of therapy actually helped with boundaries, impulse control, online behavior and healthy friendships?
And if anyone recognizes themselves in this description from when they were 11–14, what do you wish the adults around you had understood or done differently?
I genuinely want to understand what need this behavior is serving so the adults in his life can address the cause instead of spending the next five years playing whack-a-mole every time we discover another account or conversation.