communicating with family on phone anxiety

[Marii]

Is it acceptable to take phone off teen if they don’t respond to texts from family members, but they are happy talking to friends for hours each day?
How do you deal with them having social difficulties with good family/ brother/Aunts/ grandparent relations and over coming fear of saying hello through text or call. (Age 16)

[Hannah-RO]

Hey @Marii,  this is such a tricky question! And ultimately it is up to you how you want to handle it. I'm wondering if there are any other strategies you've tried around your teens phone use? If you've spoken about it before with them, how do these conversations go?

We've got this resource here about communicating with teenagers which might be helpful for discussing this issue with your child. I also just wanted to clarify, are you saying your child has fears about calling/texting family?

[Marii]

Thank you for your response.
It is more a general social anxiety I think, I try encourage staying in touch with family but she has little interest, if family call her she is likely not to answer because she doesn’t know what to talk about. I told her it is ok and it’s because she isn’t used to talking to them often. I just don’t want her to get a habit of not talking to people in general.
I just thought I might get some insight or knowledge if this is a normal behaviour at this age.
I guess it’s an individual thing, and there is no typical answers. Something I’ll continue working on.