What's the importance of community with other HS'ers?

[newmainer]

I'm not sure if that's the best question to ask, so here's the situation.

My dd is 2 1/2 and we are really leaning toward homeschooling (likely the unschooling path) after some waldorf early childhood preschool for the next couple years.

one thing that i'm hung up on is who we'll be hanging out with, doing cooperative activities with, etc... we are currently involved in a circle of moms/kids who are also likely going to homeschool. I like them all- some more than others, and the kids are all fine, though I like them better individually than in a group.

Several of them have already started a preschool group together and the kids are already a little clique. They are older than my dd- ages 4-5 mostly, and pretty much don't give her the time of day when we are at our regular open play/mama-knitting group. I am often apalled and dismayed at how catty and mean the kids already are. Their energy is *so* different from that of my curious, sweet, independent dd. I can't explain it, I'm just not sure that I want to get super involved with them though i don't want to shield my dd from them either, because i think it's important to be exposed to all kinds of kids and then we can talk about how it feels to be around different types of people, etc... and i do like a few of the moms a lot.

i know there are other homeschoolers' around, so it may be that once we get going, we'll find others and it won't be an issue. But in general- how much of a role do other homeschooling families play in your hsing/unschooling life?

[Jen123]

They play a major role in MY life. Knowing there are other mothers out there going thru similar situations , knowing I can ask their advice and it won't start with "put your kids in school"....I've got two moms that I know I can call when I am having a hs dilema , problem , question , etc...

as to the kids , it's nice that they get together (or at least know) some other homeschoolers so they see that we are totally 'weird'. It helps to have other kids that know the "horror of staying with your mother all day" on those really bad days. lol

all that being said , my kids only get together with one family that homeschools right now. Mabye once or twice every other week. All their other friends are public schoolers. We don't belong to a homeschool group right now. The only one in town is catty and quite frankly , a lot like public school cliques. It would make me embarrassed to be a part of them. Also , they do a lot of punitive parenting. I'm much more gentle in my parenting (no spanking , consequence vs punishment....). We just weren't a good fit.

[newmainer]

are you in a small town? our town is fairly small (like 8,000 people) surrounded by lots of other smaller towns... nearest city about an hour and a half away. i think that hs'ing is fairly popular here, but since dd is so young, i don't know a ton yet. but it makes me nervous that there might be a limited group doing similar things that we can connect with. i don't know....

but the hs'ing group you described sounds a bit like the group i know, though they are mostly AP parents.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by newmainer

But in general- how much of a role do other homeschooling families play in your hsing/unschooling life?

A huge one in the cases of families I've known who have kept up homeschooling! But since your daughter is only 2 1/2, you really, really don't need to worry about it at this point as much as you understandably think you do. For one thing, most children that age don't tend to have much in the way of social skills, but they'll be changing as they grow older. For another, it will be a very long time before you'll be needing a homeschooling group, and even then you don't need to be part of a co-op. You can go to social things and field trips, and just get together with various people in much smaller groups for ongoing enrichment activities if you want. It might seem as if the cliques will be formed even more strongly by then, but it's more likely that bonds will be changing along the way - and you can also keep calling individuals for ongoing occasional play dates in the years leading up to homeschooling, so it's not as if she'd need to go back into the group as a newcomer. New families join homeschooling groups all the time - the membership and dynamics are in constant change - so what you see now isn't necessarily anything like what you'll see in a few years. Lillian

[USAmma]

My dd is still young, but it's important for her to know other kids who don't go to school. It normalizes homeschooling for her. She's at an age where she wants to be like other kids and doesn't want to be missing out on anything. Tomorrow we are going to a Valentine's Party at a homeschooler's house. There will be 12 kids and they will exchange valentines and have treats and play. She's really looking forward to it. She has friends in her YMCA homeschool PE class that she looks forward to seeing each week. Most of her friends are in school so she would get lonely if she didn't have at least some other friends who also homeschool. I need the friendship, too. I like to learn from the other families and ask questions about curriculums and planning and organizing. It's nice to go someplace and meet with other parents and not have to justify or explain why my child is not in school.

[Bebelus]

I've noticed the same thing (cattiness and cliques) in the homeschooling groups I've been involved in (and dd is only 3.5). The main one I joined is supposed to be for preschoolers, but includes 3-7 year olds (and younger siblings are also there of course). It's been disappointing to me b/c I guess i naively thought the cliques were something we'd be able to avoid by hs'ing.

So I guess this is the long way of saying, "I don't know." Somehow I really do think it's important to find other kids who are also hs'ing, but it's very hard to join a group where hs'ing is the only thing you have in common. It doesn't seem to be enough. In the end, I think it is important to find a group, but the problem is finding one that you consider a good match.

Anyway I'm reading this thread with great interest and know you're not alone in finding the socializing issue harder than it appears it would be.

[rootzdawta]

:

[moominmamma]

When I read your subject line, I thought "oh, my answer is: HUGE!" But then I realized you were talking not about community at large but a sub-community of homeschoolers. And honestly, though we have one family we are good friends with who homeschool, in the grand scheme of things other homeschoolers play a pretty minor role in sustaining our homeschooling.

We are very active in our community which is a small community (~1,000) in a remote rural area. My kids are friends with seniors, schoolchildren, adults, teens, college students and various mentors. They know almost everyone in town. Sometimes it feels like the whole village is just a big extended family. Virtually all my kids' activities are 'inclusive', meaning that they include both homeschoolers and schoolchildren. We have an excellent relationship with our local K-12 public school in that we are welcome there for various things, and we contribute a fair bit of time and energy to para- and extra-curricular stuff.

A few times a year we meet up with other homeschoolers specifically, but that's certainly not a pillar of our homeschooling support.

Now, if we were treated like outsiders by our community and by the school moms, schoolchildren and schoolteachers, I suppose a homeschool support group would be more important. But for us, a real community is all we've needed.

Miranda

[Soundhunter]

Our DD's are the same age within 4-5 months, and I've noticed the same thing about the girls older than her, we live in a small community where there are only so many young kids. The girls who have a clique already all go to the same montessori house, and/or daycare, and they have clearly snubbed my Emma who is incredibly friendly, outgoing, sweet, and usually really non aggressive these other kids are also much more aggressive than her. However, most of them are 3 yrs heading towards 4, and I think that age difference is fairly significant when they are this young and not together enough to really know each other well as siblings or neighbors or whatever. Like you mentioned, these older kids all seem nicer one on one as well, but when they are in their groups they prefer each other, or older kids to the littler ones, must be normalMy advice to you and me both, is that it's really too early to worry about this yet, our kids will probably feel impatience towards younger kids in favor of their more developmentally similar pals one day too, and we really do have so much time to worry about these things, imho. .

[SagMom]

Originally Posted by newmainer

But in general- how much of a role do other homeschooling families play in your hsing/unschooling life?

Homeschooling *groups* are not important to us at all. We've belonged to a few groups, but have found we don't need or want that type of arrangement.

However, we have made a number of hsing friends along the way though, which are very important to us. I like having moms to chat with who have similiar beliefs about learning and parenting, (or at least similar enough that we can be respectful of each other, yk?)

The friends are important to my kids, because, with most other kids in school during the day, it's nice to have someone to call and say, "Hey, want to go tubing?" Just having friends who you don't need to explain your lifestyle to is nice. Simple things like being able tohave a sleepover in the middle of the week would make people around here scratch their heads, so it's nice to have friends with a common ground. I'm sure that friendships would be retained if any of them went to school now, but logistically, it would be more difficult.

They're also important to us because we see them for various organized activities during the day. Whenever there are sign-ups for a "Homeschooling ______" we tend to run into many of the same people. For instance, someone from homeschool park day invited dd to a bookclub, we see a few people from the library at homeschool skating, it's nice to go to a homeschool tour and see some familiar faces. There are always people we don't know as well, but it's nice to have that connection, sort of a network of families who you know and like.

Keep in mind though, that while I say this, my kids are older. When they were younger, we didn't have a strong circle of hsing friends and it turned out to be just fine. We enjoyed doing things together as a family and were not out and about so much. Of course, we STILL enjoy doing things together, but the older two have branched out and as they get involved with more people, it's nice to have the homeschooled friends we have.

[umbrella]

We don't have any homeschooling pals. We don't know any better. We're pretty happy.

[3momkmb]

I think it depends on you personally and your children. Our homeschool community/group is very important to us. DD looks forward to seeing her friends and taking coop classes and I really NEED that input from other adults who don't question my choices and who have school age kids who aren't in school. It's really a whole different vibe to me then talking with my other friends whose kids are in school and it's one that *I* need to tap into. Not everyone does though.

That isn't to say that we only relate to homeschoolers. I have friends whose children are in school, the kids know other kids who attend school. We participate in activities that aren't exclusively for homeschoolers (like gymnastics, rec programs, bowling leagues) but to us the hs group is very important.

[nicole lisa]

For us the importance of community with other homeschoolers is huge. It's huge for me and for BF and for DS.

That said, not every homeschooler you meet will become a friend and not every circle of friends will be a good fit with your outlook.

I could be off, but I really think the reason your daughter wasn't included in their play was her age. There's a huge difference between 2.5 and 4 or 5 years old. Within the group of friends we spend time with there's an everybody plays guideline and it's just amazing to see the 4, 5 and 10 and 12 year olds interact with each other. But even with that guidline I'm pretty sure we'd be hard pressed to find ways the kids would be comfortable including a child that young. Typically their play is fantasy and involves a lot of hopping up and down tables (when we're at the community centre) escaping from lava, chasing one another, rescuing etc and it's pretty active and fast paced and loud and very verbal as the story line keeps changing and evolving within the game.

So it's probably a mix of the children's ages and your daughter's and maybe the group not being right right now. Other posters were right that groups change all the time (and everyone on here at some point was the new member) as our kids grow and their interests change. Out of the friends I made while DS was still a babe I really only still have two that are close. As our children grew and we all made decisions about school or not, return to work or not (that really effects how much free time we have to get together) etc and we started to see our kids becomming they're own little people with more clear likes and dislikes and personalities we've seen those relationships change and some drop off and new ones begin. I think you'll find the same thing happening as your child grows and you'll find a group of friends that fits.


ETA: I was just thinking and having a community of homeschoolers around didn't become important to me until DS became of typical school age. Until this past year all his friends and mine have been the ones we met at the park etc when he was an infant. And of course DS has many non homeschooling friends through karate and the neighbourhood.

[Earth Angel]

hi newmainer! I'm in NM but researching a move to Blue Hill ME. In doing so I came across 2 homeschooling lists you might be interested in depending on the importance you end up placing on a homeschooling community

[e-mail]

and my new favorite.....The Waldorf Family Network (just type it in your search and their main page will come up with a link to the group) is a group for New England homeschoolers that are homeschooling with inspriation from Waldor cirriculum. The group has a list to post intros and info about familiesseeking groups or co ops (not a discussion list) as well as a calander of events that are suitable for Waldorf inspired homeschooling. WFN also has a great website that has Waldorf inspired homeschooling info, links etc.

I am just researching the possibility of homeschooling my 5 yo and almost 2 yo in Blue Hill or having my oldest attend the Bay School there. I'm leaning strongly to homeschooling, especially since I found WFN and saw there were even a few folks from Maine there.....and there are only about 40 members so far from all around New England. That felt sorta promising

Good luck....community is the one reason I'm hung up on possibly attending the Bay School for at least a year so that he can build a network of friends (but if he begins and doesn't go back again the next year that is a whole other issue to tackle...he is currently attending a Waldorf preschool here in NM). Moving to a new town AND homeschooling for the first time is feeling a bit daunting to me right now, but we will be in the area in April so will have some time to hopefully meet some others .....and if you are anywhere near Blue Hill....and would like some new friends to pal around with in the Spring......let me know

[oldcrunchymom]

We live in a small (around 1500 people) town and my kids go to a homeschool swim and gym class at the Y a couple towns over. Honestly, though, they have made way more friends in our town than in the homeschooling class. I don't think belonging to a homeschool organization is all that important unless you are really having trouble getting out there to meet people. Maybe you could try putting your daughter in an activity not restricted to homeschoolers, if you don't like the kids in your current group.

[Lillian J]

A few more thoughts to add -

Our "group" extended across a large county, so it was actually more like a network. It had started out with a tiny group of families who had met one another in parks when they had toddlers and then started doing field trips. As the word got out, and as homeschooling began to become more popular, the group grew and grew. Last I heard there were close to 200 member families. When it was still under 100 families, you could go to a park day one week and find no one there - and then skip the next one and find out that 13 families had showed up and had a ball. You could go to one event and not find a soul to chat with - and then go to another one and find a whole different group of people, and have fun.

It can be hard for children to figure out how to make connections unless they're very outgoing. Adults know how to go up to other adults and introduce themselves and start conversations, but children don't have the same tools yet - and have to figure out ways of joining into the play. It can be pretty daunting. What's really great is when adults can organize some fun cooperative games that break the ice and get kids to know one another in playful ways. Some of the kids in our local group who had never really connected in all the years they had been going to the same things ended up becoming ~great friends~ after a conference hours away where they were led in cooperative games that were specifically geared toward getting them to know one another and laugh a lot as they did so. So that's something to think about! Kids need to be introduced in some positive ways if you want the best outcome. I don't mean to get in and meddle all the time with their play - but to provide a structure like that on an ongoing bases where they can all really make personal contact.

After reading more posts, I realized the age differences that were being described, and I agree - children that age do tend to be very conscious of their ages as some are starting to think of themselves more as as "big kids." But at larger homeschooling get togethers, it's not uncommon to see a very wide spread of ages playing together, and that's one of the things that newcomers to homeschooling often note and get all sappy over ....
-Lillian

[newmainer]

Thank you! Those were all great, thoughtful replies. Many echoed things that i had been thinking myself- about the age difference, the fluctuation in who we might hang out with over the years, etc...but it is always nice to get affirmation from those who are already "in the field."

Like i said, we havent' even started yet (well... i think we do lots of things but not officially) and we do plan on having dd go to the waldorf preschool next year, and maybe the next. they have a wonderful early childhood program and with a new baby on the way, i think a few days a week of predictable, nurturing routine will be welcome for us all.

Hi EarthAngel!! Sorry to not have responded to your last pm... i hope your searches are turning up some good info. thanks for those links and good luck in your relocating journey- be sure and contact me if you do indeed move!

[Earth Angel]

Hey...no worries Kelly...I've found so many people on line who have been so generous in allowing me to pick their brains, that I couldn't remember if in fact I had talked to you or not

And, we are officially moving your way! We are under contract on our house here, and as long as that goes through, we leave NM 4/3....if this sale doesn't go through for whatever reason, then the house will go back onto the market, and we will still come to Maine, just a bit later than April.

Sorry to hijack......


I wanted to also say, I think it will be wonderful for your daughter to attend your Waldorf school there. The things that she will learn and bring home are so positive, and the support you receive from the teacher (at least in our experience ) has been invalueable!!

[CelticMomma]

I know other people have already said this, but I just want to agree with the age thing. 4-5 year old girls are very different than younger girls. I've been going to a homeschool group for almost three years now with my 4.5 year old. I was WAY early when I started, but I really wanted to be around other homeschooling families more for ME than my DD. It's only been this year that she started really playing with the other kids. Before that, she mostly played on the outskirts and did a lot of parallel playing, or trying to keep up with the older kids but not quite being on their level. In a lot of ways, it upset me that she was so "excluded" but it never seemed to upset my DD. She just kept on plugging along in her own cheerful way and eventually, it just all made sense for her. I realized that it was MY stuff that made me feel like she was excluded and not hers.

Just another perspective. Hope you find your group soon. I will tell you it's rotten once their playmates all start going to preschool. Even the crunchiest families start leaving you behind when that happens. It's a tough transition. But, you'll make it through.

[4evermom]

My ds is 4.5 and just starting to label younger kids as "babies" and being less tolerant of playing with them. He has had minimal exposure to others who have that attitude, so I suspect it's the age, being more conscious of self and feeling more independant.