Thanks so much for sharing! It sounds like your kids are learning how “to be social” just fine. That’s what we really want for our kids – a good balance of understanding how to interact well with others without letting what they see affect how they behave. I think that’s true self-confidence, which is probably one of the most important life skills children need.

Oh, I absolutely agree about the need to be selective in choosing role models. Interacting with kids of all ages is great! And that would have been helpful for me as a child too. I just didn’t get that. I was almost purely around adults, which is not the healthiest environment for a kid.

Our kids are probably naive too. They don’t know anything about any popular musicians or dances or fashion trends. And I’m more than fine with that. There’s plenty of time for them to become acquainted with those things if they choose, when they get older. I’m all for protecting them from negative influences – until they are equipped to handle them. That’s what parents are here for! 🙂

Yes! Social cues are very important and they are definitely not things that you can teach in a classroom. I had a good friend who was homeschooled from birth and she never had to be around peers at all. She had some habits that were, shall we say, unusual. And she’s fairly socially awkward to this day. All kids (public schoolers and homeschoolers) do need to learn those social coping skills.

Hee hee! That’s great! My experience was, I think, partly due to the fact that I was an only homeschooled child. (My older brother had moved out by the time I began homeschooling.) So I was by myself a lot, unless I was with adults. I think if I had siblings around my same age then the adjustment wouldn’t have been quite so difficult.

The thing I found hard was learning the balance. I want to do all the trips, play dates etc but somewhere we needed to learn to fit in the literacy etc. So, we have to pick and choose carefully and we can’t do everything.

I think it is massively important that the children learn and play with other children but I don’t think they need someone elses idea of cool or not cool, I don’t think they need to grow up too fast and I definitely don’t want them seeing things like twerking. We want them to find their own cool, if that makes sense. My little lad has long hair and loves to dress up, he would die in school, if he wasn’t bullied to death. He started reception at age 4 because of his August birthday and hated school uniform, he wanted to be a dinosaur or a pirate or a Jedi knight and he wasn’t allowed. At FOUR! His cool is dressing up and reading stories and acting it out. He will probably be on the stage. My daughter is more conventional, pink and pretty and she is fine!

We have sessions of free play that we attend with our friends, eg Monday afternoons is den building in our local woods. We let them alone and they work out their own relationships and just muck around. Then on other days there are more organised trips to museums or whatever. Our library is about to offer reading groups especially for home ed kids. Big deal here in the UK where it home ed is often frowned upon!

We noticed when there were some school children playing that our children were less concerned with competition (the school kids were trying to set one up) and more concerned with co-operation, working together to build their den, pooling ideas and skills. We hadn’t really noticed but they have developed those skills on their own. Somehow, my shy daughter with a speech impediment was appointed spokesperson and said to kids twice her age, ‘We not want a compytishin but if you help us wiv ours we will help you wiv yours.’ I was so proud of her and of all of them. For me, that says it all, they are confident, co-operative and happy in the company of others and that is good socialisation. My children struggled with socialisation at school but excel at it now they are home.

Yes, that should say “adds”. I love typos.

Then again, my kids who never experienced those things were fine to grow up and suddenly be a part of those things. Oh.. wait.. they’re Disney kids. They’ve always been trapped in crowds. LOL!

Great post!