As a homeschooler, I’ve heard the dreaded “socialization question” more than I would care to talk about. When someone asks if I think Munchkin is getting enough socialization (especially since she’s an only child), I think “really?? do you think we live under a rock??” While I may want to say that directly to them, I don’t. Instead, I pleasantly respond that she gets plenty of socialization and change the subject.
Most people don’t really care if Munchkin is getting enough socialization. It’s just small talk when they find out that we’re homeschooling. (Thankfully, most people that we’ve run into think it’s pretty cool that we are homeschooling.)
The reality for us is that Munchkin could easily get way too much socialization. There are an abundance of opportunities available to us. Between field trips, church activities, homeschool group activities, sports, base activities, library activities, neighborhood get togethers, other lessons…, we could be out and about socializing every single day of every single week if we really wanted.
The problem is when we have too many outside activities, we start to lose the home in our homeschooling. Right now, Munchkin is involved in basketball and Awana. When you throw in our newly formed homeschool group here on base once every 2 weeks on Thursday mornings and the cool homeschool library program going on this month on Thursday afternoons, you see the schedule start to fill up very quickly.
When I see that we’re away from home every day, I know that my priorities are out of line. You can see it by looking around our house (dirty dishes, pile of laundry, unswept floors…) and in our homeschool (not prepared for that day, ungraded papers…) You can also see it in our attitudes (more irritable, less patient, overly tired…)
On a side note, I don’t consider time away from home as a family a problem. (The day trips, like pictured in the photo to the left, are important bonding times for us.) After all, a house is not a home without a family. It only becomes a real problem when we’re all going in different directions, and it starts to take away time from our home, our family.
I know that I need to be at home to keep our home running smoothly. It is my responsibility to provide my family with relaxing place to call home. It is also my responsibility to be a mentor to my daughter on how to effectively run a household. She takes her queues from me. None of this can take place if I over commit myself or my family. By scaling back on outside activities (no matter how great they may be), I am able to make sure that we keep the home in our homeschooling.
We have had people comment on socialisation, too, but usually work out pretty quickly that our children are well socialised, especially when they can talk with a 60 year old woman or a 4 year old.
My daughter is known as "Little Miss Talkalot", but people have recently commented on her maturity, and ability to hold a sensible conversation – oh, the advantages of homeschooling.
God bless you,
Jillian
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