my 12-year-old son has no self-confidence

[ConcernMom2]

I have a 12-year-old boy who has very low or non self-confidence. We as his parents might have been the reason for that because we were hard on him with tones of expectations. He is not mature for his age and all he cares about is to play electronic games or watch t.v which he is limited to all those. He is not interested or curious almost about anything.  He loves to be with his friends and cares about how many friends he has. He is doing pretty good at school (all As sometimes 1 B). He has a couple of good friends but 6 or 7 other friends that they all hang out together. He says he is not sure if any of his friends consider him as his freind because there was an election in his classroom last week and none of his friends voted for him. He is short and he keeps on saying he wish he was taller or he wish he was popular. He says him self that he doesn't have a strong personality so he is scared of going to middle school and get bullied. He is a very picky eater but concern about his growth. He goes to same school as his cousin (girl) they like each other a lot but they are in some kind of competition too. She is very little but has a pretty strong personality  very sure of her self and she has a group of friends with whom she has formed a club and they are pretty popular and that obviously bothers my son. Overall he is most of the time a pretty happy boy. Please I am begging you tell me how can I (we) help him to boost his self confidence I am extremely concern about him especially now that he is getting close to go to middle school and high school with all the bully and drug problems.

[RockRose]

concern,  if he has a couple good friends and hangs out regularly with 6 or 7 more,  he'll probably do fine in middle school.  The kids who do the worst are kids who can't form any friendships.  Who knows how his height will turn out, and that is a big thing for boys,  but I think the best thing you can do to help him is make sure you support his friendships.

If you can regularly have kids over for pizza,  or take them to movies,  or . . .  video games,  whatever,  so that he is easily able to maintain a circle of friends he will be fine.

[RockRose]

Also,  what is he doing for his electives next year?  Band is a really good one to give them a group of friends and outside of school activities.