Homeschool World Forum

MY hubby is argueing that our children need to interact with other people besides family. Which in some cases I do agree...Im not really sure how to win this argument....Because I do somewhat agree that our children do need to interact with others besides us...(this is all part of preparing them for life). We live in a small town where everyone knows eachother. Hubby and I have not made many friends and the friends we do have dont have any children...so...Im not really quite sure how they could communicate and interact with others, ya know. We live in a small town and there is nothing here for the children to do....no programs, no parks full of children,nothing. School is everything for the children here. ANd now that my hubby said that...I am kind of skeptical on this. I want my children to have friends and not to be lonley. I also remeber going to school.....I loved it becuase I could see my friends. It never bothered me until he had said something.
Has anyone else ever worried about their children not getting the interaction they need?
Thanks

Go to your local library, go to church, find families and set up play dates at the park or at one of your homes. Even small towns will usually have some kind of "kid program" at the library.

Also, who says your kids have to have friends their own ages? Let them have friends of all different ages, including adults, and they'll be much better well-rounded.

I can't keep up with my son's social schedule.. and that's just around the
neighborhood.

if there is a park, then something could be set up for time.
You could look about for other homeschoolers in your area also.

we tend to pop up lots of places.

mark

I had the same concern but after having my children in public school I came to this conclusion...some of their teachers I wouldn't hire as babysitters and some of their classmates I wouldn't have in my home so did I really want my kids with people like that for several hours 5 days a week?

I decided even they didn't get their social time in they'd still be better off HS'ed.

I live in a very small town also, (pop under 900), we have baseball, scouts, and we are finding that there are a lot of other homeschoolers out there. If you find even one other homeschool family, organize a play time at a central location, and invite others through the local paper, or radio. We had a float in the 4th of July parade and met some new people there. You would be surprised how many are out there. Our group grew from four familes last September, to 9-10 this year.

You didn't say how many kids you have, but my experience was that when I moved to a neighborhood with no other children and I had 3 (ages 4, 3 and newborn) my kids were perfectly fine. They were happy, they weren't lonely. We were very active in a church with lots of kids their ages. Any time they expressed any longing to spend more time with those kids we invited one over for a day. (That only happened once every few years.) We went to the library story hour every week in a larger city a little drive away. We had a homeschool group at our house. It was very small. There were only 4 or 5 other families. The family that came the most often had 7 kids, so that was a big bunch to play together. They came about 45 minutes to get to our place once a month.

One of the greatest things about homeschooling is that kids are not stuck inside a school most of their childhoods. They have time and opportunity to meet people of all ages, socioeconomic levels, etc. You say that the friends you have don't have children so you don't know how your kids can communicate and interact with others. Well, your friends with no children are the "others" that your kids can communicate and interact with! Yes, kids can become friends with adults. In fact, kids tend to do better when they learn to interact from adults than from other kids their own age.

Ramona