What About Socialization?

After my post yesterday I got to thinking, "What must everyone think ?" I knew right away some readers would think, "What about socialization?" Isn't that the next question after, "Why do you Homeschool?"

First let me tell you what I find to be the hardest part of homeschooling. The hardest part is staying home. Staying home is a key ingredient to homeschooling, which I tend to struggle with. I like to be out and doing things. I like to stay busy and, more important, I like to have fun. For this small family not engaging in "socialization" is not an issue. "Not socializing" is more of the issue. In other words, it is harder to stay in the house and be isolated than it is to get out. Does that make sense? Let me explain. We have so much great "socializing" to get done that school can get lost in the shuffle if I am not on top of it. When you homeschool schooling never stops and socializing is just one part of our school. We have gotten to do some cool stuff under the umbrella of socialization, art classes at the art museum, science classes at the local Explorium Museum, Spanish classes, geography classes and book clubs. Add to the educational field trips a bounty of great friends that are also ready to go out and explore the world, it becomes that much harder to say "no" to going out. Trust me, it is much harder to stay at home conjugating Latin Verbs than packing the kids up and rolling off to the pumpkin patch with some good friends and their kids. Fortunately, homeschooling allows for both, you just need to get the work done first.

Because we spend time learning the basics of school in our home, like reading, math, English, science, poetry, writing, piano and religion, that does not mean that my kids are locked away in a dark dungeon never to be see by other children. Quite the opposite, I have to make sure we get our school done because we "socialize" a lot.

All of the above is hard, if you send your kids to school or choose to DIY. Schooling is hard, socializing is hard, staying home is hard, going out is hard, getting up in the morning, folding laundry is hard, cooking dinner is hard, paying bills is hard, getting your kids out the door in the morning is hard. We all get to choose what we want to do with our day and schooling and socializing my kids is what I want to do with my hard day!