another Hser goes to school.....

[kathymuggle]

Yet another Hser in this area has choosen to go to school. She is 8 or 9 - female. Obviously, her and her parents have every right to choose school for her (and I hope it works for her - or clearly doesn't and she gets it out of her sytem). I am still sad, though, and feeling increasingly isolated.

Since Septemeber, in our small community, 2 HSers have started full time, one goes part time, and a few parents have mentionned it as options......

Indeed, I feel that most HSers in this area are:

a) religous
or
b) male, and under 13.

We are not religous, my oldest is old for Hsing in this area, and my other 2 kids are female.

I am not sure, what, if anything I should do. We may try out a HS group further north - maybe it has a bit more variety.

I could let it go - but that may equal a slow slide towads school-dom and I do not want that. I would prefer no lecture on how school is OK and not to prejudge - it is something I would prefer my kids avoid until high school (and beyond if they choose).

On the plus side, they do have many friends and some activities with age-mates (usually non HSers).

Maybe I should just avoid HS events as we stand out so much (old, female, non Christian).They often do not meet out needs anyway. I do not want my kids to start seeing HSing as something odd that only certain people (see above list) do.

Sigh. I could use a little hug.

[RiverSky]

Ugh, yeah, I hate it when that happens. I also tend to feel a little judgmental about it, I admit. And nope, I won't be telling you that school is okay. For me, it's a last resort.

The only suggestion I have is to create your own events and be very very creative when coming to reasons why to have events, groups, field trips that interest your children, etc. Invite everyone else to join you and make it a destination. Once you have the cool events planned, search high and low to get other homeschoolers who are in the age range of your children and do your best to invite them personally and non-personally. Advertise. And keep at it. Chances are you have done all or much of this but all you can do is keep trying, right?

Personally, I have started many reoccurring clubs and set up many field trips in our homeschool group and have counseled others to do so as well, and find that though it doesn't always work, it usually does. Good luck.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by RiverSky

The only suggestion I have is to create your own events and be very very creative when coming to reasons why to have events, groups, field trips that interest your children, etc. Invite everyone else to join you and make it a destination. Once you have the cool events planned, search high and low to get other homeschoolers who are in the age range of your children and do your best to invite them personally and non-personally. Advertise. And keep at it. Chances are you have done all or much of this but all you can do is keep trying, right?

.

I have set up events in the past - locally it attracts youngish males. If I go further afield I can attract a larger variety. By "further afield" I mean an hours drive.

I think (up to this point) I have wanted local events, so I can :

a) not drive all.the.time
b) build friendships

But maybe I do need to suck it up and drive so my kids can see other Hsers that are like them in age and gender. I doubt friendships will form if we go this route (as we live an hour out of the city) but perhaps friendship is not the goal. They do have friends already from neighbourhood kids.

[RiverSky]

I have no idea what your area is like geographically, but what if you set things up 20-30 minutes away from you, and a half hour from them?

[Lillian J]

S'been a long day, and I have no ideas to add at the moment, but I can at least always offer a hug! : - Lillian

[momofmine]

I can relate too. Hugs to you. Sometimes I feel like all of my oldest's friends that homeschooled when he was little are now in school. Many of them are. Actually, the majority of his closest friends are in public school, and we just make an effort to plan things with them at non-school times. I sort of feel like all of a sudden we don't have as many homeschooled friends as we used to. But I am trying to plan more, and make more things happen, so we'll see.

Have you thought about planning things that could include kids in school, like a science club on Saturdays? Or field trips on the weekends?

[craft_media_hero]

Darn! So sorry that you're feeling out of place in your hs community. For what it's worth, we never engage in our hs group's events because we totally don't fit in and don't really feel like we're getting anything out of it. We, too, stick out like a sore thumb at these events (too young, pagan, hs-ing an only, unmarried hip family in our uber-christian, old, with tons of kids families).

It's okay to be different! At least you have the hs board at MDC, right ?

I think that if your kids still have friends and seem happy, then it's okay to cross the group's activities off your list of things to do.

Hope the situation resolves itself for you; try not to stress it to much, momma.

[mugglemom]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle

But maybe I do need to suck it up and drive so my kids can see other Hsers that are like them in age and gender. I doubt friendships will form if we go this route (as we live an hour out of the city) but perhaps friendship is not the goal. They do have friends already from neighbourhood kids.

Although my kids do have local homeschooled friends, a lot of DD12's peers went back to school over the last year and she felt a little isolated. We ended up trying another group about 45 minutes away. I didn't expect much from it in terms of friendships, but it turned out that the group draws families from a wide area. My girls have met several kids who live in between our house and the group meeting place. They've made a couple of good friends who live 20-30 minutes away. I think it would be worth trying the farther-away group -- you might be surprised at who turns up.

Margie

[Callimom]

Ah man - that's hard. We have a fabulous homeschool group but I am accutely aware that there are very few secular boys (and girls really) ages 12+ in our group. There are times it doesn't matter to me or my kids and times it really really does. After our good friends moved away last year I can see my boys feeling a bit lost as far as potential good friends.

I have no advice you probably haven't thought of yourself. Making connections in community /sports groups, going further afield to hook up with homeschoolers, using volunteer work to make connections with older mentors which can fill a social need during school hours are all things we are doing.

Hang in there....
Karen

[ReadyMom]

I think many homeschoolers today see homeschooling simply as one option, with public and private schools being other options. I know several people who were homeschooling in the 60s and 70s, and they say that families back then were committed to homeschooling as a lifestyle, not just an education option. I see families in my area who are very casual about homeschooling: "I'll try it for a year." "If Junior wants to go to school, he can." That sort of thing.

I am a committed, lifestyle homeschooler. My kids will never see the inside of a school unless/until they got to college. I wish that there was less turnover in our homeschool community. It's disruptive to have people come and go.

[chaoticzenmom]

I know that for me, school has been looking more like an option, but really, I don't think I could do it. I have been trying to establish more independant homeschooling friends so that we can wean ourselves off of the Homeschool resource center that we use and it's very slow going. I wish that some of our homeschooling friends were people that we saw more often. Some of our favorites, we only see once every 2 weeks or so. That's just not enough for my kids. Part of my not wanting to put them into school is the fact that I'm devastated when kids leave homeschooling and go to school. It's kind of a betrayal in an odd way. But, here I have these bored kids who spend all thier time playing guitar, piano, doing art, choir, playing on the computer. They can't write a stinking paragraph! When I see my friends' childrens' writing, I feel kind of panicked and I"m sure that I'm failing the kids on many levels.

I also hear you about being different. I saw a group of mom's hanging out with their youngest children at a homeschool gathering. I was all excited and went over there....and then I saw that everyone had their bibles open.....I pretended to get distracted and hightailed it out of there. It would be much easier to be a religious homeschooler.

Some of our homeschooling friends are friends we met at a Unitarian Universalist church. It's a non-religious church. If you have one near you, maybe you can check it out.

I hope you feel better today.

[Momma Aimee]

Hugs

[kathymuggle]

I am not totally feeling better yet - but I have emailed 2 people in an attempt to get contact info for the group further north.

I hope it is a first step in changing a growing concern I have about isolation/feeling like the odd ones out.

Kathy

[phathui5]

That can be disappointing. I wish more kids around us homeschooled and it stinks when homeschoolers you know stick their kids back in school.