The socialization of homeschooled children is a common topic that many homeschoolers are asked about by non-homeschoolers.
When people are considering homeschooling, often they fear their child will miss out on the socialization a classroom brings.
When people are unaware of what exactly goes on in a homeschooling home, they assume the children are unsocialized or rarely get to play with children their own age.
People assume homeschooled children only socialize with their siblings as playmates.
Socialization seems to be one of the biggest concern of the non- homeschooling community.
As a homeschooler, socialization is my least concern, and I’d like to share with you why.
Each week on average we have 3 play dates with a variety of friends.
Each week we meet up with a homeschooling group and have a park or beach day.
The homeschooling group arranges monthly field trips.
We have sleep overs, camp outs, BBQs, parties, community activities, etc.
We sign up for clubs, sports, dance, horse riding, music, etc.
I was recently told by a friend whose children attend the local public school, that my children have more of a social life than hers do. She confessed, she had worried about homeschooling kids, thinking they sat at home all day with nothing to do, while the other kids were at school playing with friends.
The truth is, school kids spend majority of their day sitting in the classroom, not outside playing with friends. Where as homeschooled children are generally finished with their studies hours before school kids are let out for the day; therefore, homeschool kids get to spend the rest of their day truly SOCIALIZING with friends.
If you are concerned or would like more information on the topic of socializing homeschooled children, here are two really good books on the topic.
So true! My kids have so many friends I can’t keep up! Those books look great. I’ll have to get ahold of them for my summer reading.
I don’t see the book links. I think it’s cool too that kids can socialize with people of all ages. My 5 y.o. has been really focused on friends for about 6 months…for awhile she was only thinking of kids as friends but then she met a lot of adults and realized “I have grown-up friends too!”. She was super excited when she realized she could count adults as her friends too. I haven’t found a good homeschool group where I live yet(I just moved), but if there isn’t one I will be making one. Nevertheless, during our travels, we have spent a lot of time at the libraries and parks. Going there regularly, we’d see the same families and friendships would be formed during regular visits to the same places. We could tell which kids were typically homeschooled because during the weekdays they would be there at earlier hours or even if it was late, they would stay at the parks/libraries much longer(they didn’t have to go home to do homework), just as we did.
If you click ON the picture of the book it should take you to the web page. Please let me know if that is not the case. 🙂
And definitely start a group if you can’t find one that fits your needs. http://Www.meetup.com might be a good avenue to start a group.