I am a really social person, and so are my kids. I don't find socialization a reason for public schooling, as my kids do participate in a lot of classes all week that provide them great social experiences in team work, heart break, rejection, compromise, rule keeping/making, etc. However, there is something lacking that is recently more difficult to ignore. My kids don't have kids that live close by that are available to be their friends. I mean they have friends in all their classes and teams, but being friends for six weeks here and there is not the same as being long time, long term friends.
I am glad that they are close to each other, Alice and Ruby are very dear friends, and I am super grateful for that fact, but sometimes you need a non-family friend to invite on a special outing or something. I'm starting to realize that Ruby's friends from church really like her and enjoy getting together with her, but they are socializing with the same kids on a daily basis and may only have time to socialize with her once a month. So these few friends are Ruby's everything, and she's kind of their nothing. Does that make sense? She can't really compete with daily contact on the playground.
This is the first year that this has gotten to me, because our awesome homeschool co-op disbanded and left us with just each other and semi-regular classes with others. I'm really happy not to have such an emphasis on non-family friends all the time, and I know moms who struggle with their young children who desire constant play dates and don't play well with siblings, so I think what we need are more friends like us...homeschoolers who need to get together once a month or maybe twice and be friends. On the same playing field.
I don't really know how to accomplish this, because I don't want to go back to the co-op options that live all over tarnation. I want homeschooling friends that live within a reasonable distance from our house. I want girls. For some reason, we have lots of boys. Ruby has literally no one (she has a friend, Paige that lives a solid thirty minute drive into the boonies and another, Olivia, who lives a good 20 minutes away and isn't available Tuesdays or Wednesdays because those are her daddy's days off). Alice has a kindergarten co-op that I started with some friends this year and there are seven kids, and they are all her friends, but only one is a girl...she loves her boys, and I love my girls to have playmates that are boys because the play is so different and fun, but a few little girls would be nice when she requests an "Ariel party" (which I turned into the balloon party).
I am not minimizing their awesome friends that aren't home schooled, our eggs are all in that basket, and we don't know what we would do with out them...but I feel like my kids are kind of the backup friends, the second stage, the B-team...and I want them to have some friends who call them FIRST! I need another co-op. It is true. Do I have to start my own? I really liked just joining and letting someone else do the work. Sheesh.
Tonight I asked Alice who her best friend was and she said "you are, mommy!" Thanks, baby girl. I'm your best friend, and you want to marry your dad. That's all fine and dandy for now, but someday you will probably want more.
Know any homeschoolers in the Puyallup area with girls that are between the ages of 4 and 10? Send them my way!
1 comment:
I felt like that last year with our kids. We had a homeschool group, but it was mostly older kids and really too big to see the same ones on a consistent basis. This year we made it to the top of the waiting list for the group I wanted to be in all along and it's been wonderful! I hope you soon find (or create) the same for your girls. In the meantime, just enjoy the fact that they want you =).
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