I am sure that each and every homeschooling parent and even some public school parents have had to defend, explain or deal with the concept of the appropriate amount of “socialization”. What I have noticed is that more and more children are pulled out of public schools due to bullying and anxiety, issues with crowds, with not fitting in… issues with their PEERS.

This brought me to the point where I felt the need to examine my OWN peer group. Who do I hang out with on a regular basis (or did as right now I am rebuilding a social life after all)… are they all my own age? Are we together 5 days a week? Now I know that does not equate the experiences a child has but at the same time I wonder… who are our peers?

If a child/teen/etc feels anxiety in their own age group who could be their peers? Their support? Well, who makes them happy? Could a peer group not be a combination of ages, genders and circumstances? Who do you want around yourself and your children? Who makes you happy, feel safe, makes you become the best person you can be? These are all more important questions, in my mind, than are they in your grade and your age.

Another mom on my local Egroup had a great post that she is allowing me to share portions of regarding her hunt to find friends for her kids. Thank you Amy for the permission to share these bits from your email! I know that for many people it is not so much growing up homeschooling as we have with the kids but pulling them out and starting anew… anyway…

“…For many kids when their friend’s life and schedule change, they don’t transition with him/her. Making and keeping good friends is an on-going challenge for us and I’m sure for lots of other homeschooling families. A few years ago, my daughter and I made a Venn diagram of friends who were safe, fun, and available and realized that we had zero friends who met all three criterion. Yikes! This realization shaped our decisions about which communities to join and where to invest our energies and led us to changing churches, joining a homeschool co-op, starting new hobbies, and now several years later to a significant reorganizing of priorities in time, money, and effort. We are always on the look-out for ways to cultivate relationships which nourish us…

…Are there any ages or situations in which she feels more comfortable? Does she like babies or seniors or mentally-challenged people? Does she like to garden or train dogs or play board games? Maybe rather than looking for traditional “peers” maybe she’d like to make friends with people of diverse ages and interests. My 6 year-old invited all teenagers to his birthday party because “they don’t make a fuss.” My 11 year-old daughter loves to square dance and partners with a variety of people, including a number of grampas who delight in her pre-teen enthusiasm. Maybe a coffee and tea date with another homeschool mom and her daughter would be a nice start. Or maybe she loves to run so she could look for a jogging partner. Or maybe connecting with a mentor.

Brainstorm with your daughter about her interests and passions and think outside the box. Sometimes befriending people in a different season of life brings a fresh perspective rather than everyone being in exactly the same place, struggling with exactly the same challenges. Including kids in all the interesting bits of life with all the happy, fun, well-adjusted people is one of the joys of homeschooling.

Being a homeschooling mom can be quite daunting as we shoulder so much responsibility for the ebb and flow of our kids’ daily lives. I encourage you both to lean into change, knowing that finding good friends is partly luck and partly hard work and won’t be rushed. I tell my kids that you won’t catch a fish every time you go fishing but that you for sure won’t catch a fish if you don’t put your hook in. There is a mystery and serendipity to friendship that can’t be forced.

What your daughter learns from you about respecting herself and her limits, about working with herself rather than against herself, about the process of being friendly and making good friends, about disappointment and choosing and releasing and walking on- all of that is priceless for her future happiness. Each of us has to learn to tolerate the consequences of being ourselves and coaching our kids through that process is so valuable.“

What I take away from Amy’s email is a rather amazing concept… instead of forcing friendships with an age group lets create a social network of peers that include that age group and beyond. Lets surround our family with mentors, with people that we know are a  good influence… lets focus less on quantity and more on quality.

There is an excellent blog entry on the site Schoolhouse Review Crew that deals with levels of socialization. You can find that entry: Socialization and Homeschool: Finding a Good Balance right HERE. The main point I took away from that entry is that kids require different levels of socializing. Some are happy with one dear friend and some need many. Just like any of us, our needs differ! So we need to fulfill the needs of our children not the needs of society’s opinion.