Our Great Homeschool Expreriment

• Aug. 8, 2007 - Back to Homeschool--Question 3

Today's question is "Getting out there...". Randi wants to know how we get our kids, well, for lack of a better word, socialized.

I, of course, hate the idea that "socialization" is important to our children on par with eating. So, I keep my children locked in their closets except when they are doing school work.

OK, now that I have that out of my system, I'll put together a quick (ha-ha) post about all the things my kids do and the benefits of doing them.

My children participate in a dizzying array of activities. They are on the go almost every day of the week. Sometimes they go but it is not to their activity, they simply go to get out of the house when another brother has a lesson. Sometimes they go just to watch the trains go by. :-) But, it cannot be said my kids stay home all the time.

We have ballet, tap, karate, ice skating, and Cadets during the school year. We also go to park days and try to have friends come with us. Our activities increase during the summer: Summer Intensives, various sports & drama camps. My oldest has been gone from home almost every day of the week since the last week of June. (He's had enough, btw, and still has two more weeks to go. lol)

I don't put my kids into these programs for socialization however. In fact, socialization is the one aspect that concerns me at these programs. Even at the church programs there are people of questionable character. DB1 learned his first swear word from another boy at Cadets, and there are kids at church who lie to him. But we can't keep him in a complete bubble, just teach him how to deal with it.

One by product of my children participating in extra-curricular activities is that they meet and befriend the lost. But, they do it in a controlled setting where the children are not in charge. For one hour (or two) a week they get to know other children in an environment that is very structured and there aren't ideologies being force fed to them. In this safe environment, even without me being there, they are able to stand. Why? Because I have them thoroughly "brainwashed" into the Christian way of thinking. ;-) In our home, we are not afraid to discuss opposing viewpoints. This is where it ought to be discussed so the children learn what we believe and how that affects our interactions with others. And that is the majority of their teaching, not just a few minutes each night before they go to bed, after a day long barrage of evolution, sex ed, and Heather has Two Mommies (or bad phonics & grammar & other things we oppose).

Being homeschooled does not mean removing yourself from the world around you, it means that you are prepared to meet the world around you and to be able to stand firm in your beliefs. Anyone who still believes the opposite has never bothered to educate themselves and holds to myths which, sadly, continue to be perpetuated by the media, NEA, and anti-homeschooling Christians.

You knew I'd end up on my soapbox some time this week, didn't you?