Please calm my latest hs fear..

[Ohio12]

I have made my peace with "socialization" issues and a lot of my other initial fears regarding hs, but can anyone talk me through the issue of "friends"?

Who are your kids' good friends? Who comes to their birthday party?

DCs have some friends at church, but they all have their best friends or group of friends through their public or private school. I am not worried about socialization per se, but I do hope that dds would have 1-3 friends they can see regularly. Any thoughts?

[JFS in IL]

Have the fun house that kids want to visit. We have a used drum set in the basement, keyboard and guitars, along with the Playmobile doll house and a dart board. Have a big swingset or treehouse in the backyard. And do not hesitate to have your kids phone other kids after public school lets out to ask them to come play.

[Alice]

My kids are young like yours, so I don't have a ton of experience with this. For us, church provides our main social network. We have a small church and have several families that we've been close friends with for 10+ years. My 4 yr old has several very close friends within that group. His birthday parties for the past 2 years have been his Sunday School class which is 4-5 kids and consists of his closest friends.

Sometimes, I start having Mommy guilt and wondering if I should be providing him more opportunities to make new friends...but then I remember he's only 4 and I try to talk myself down. :D

As he gets older..I can't predict where his friends will come from but I would suspect he'll still have close friends within our church group. Good friends of ours who homeschool are in a co-op where they have made some close friends. I could see us doing a co-op when he is older both for the opportunity to meet new people and the opportunity to try some classes I can't do at home.

Other people I know have close friends in the neighborhood. There are kids in our neighborhood that play together but he's not really at the age where I'll let him just go out and ride his bike around or go hang out with some kids playing down the street. When he's older though, I could see that being another way to meet new people.

[ChocolatePrincess]

My dc are now 9, 11, 14. When they were younger like yours, I too worried about their friends or should I say lack of friends. My dd (14) had no one. All of our friends (my dh and me) had kids who were younger than her. She is now 14 and has made friends at church, in the neighborhood, at homeschool events, during sports contests and in 4-H. I think it will all fall into place for you. As they become older they are involved in more things and they have no trouble making friends. BTW, this dd was so shy she would hide behind me so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone. At 14, she has no trouble making friends even though the shyness is not totally gone.

Hope this helps.

[summer]

I realize that until recent history, children were geenerally raised with most of their contact being with just their family. This was okay. Even when they went out in public, children were often expected to be very quiet and well behaved and so on...not talk, not fall asleep..you get the idea. Their socializing really happened as they got older.

I think the coming of large public schools trained society in to thinking children NEED daily interaction with non family members. It took a while,. but I have finally rewritten my view point on this that society and people in general seemed emotionally more healthy and such, when they were raised with family first and non-family members were an the outside of the family, seen at church and such.

[MomSchool5]

Yep, my boys had friends when they were in ps, but now after 5years of homeschooling, we are down to one friend for my youngest. My oldest has no friends. Yes, we belong to a homeschooling group but he has never jelled. We are the only homeschooling family in our church and are although I am very involved, my children are starting to stick out like a sore thumb. The enjoy their parents. They have NOTHING in common with the youth kids who all have cell phones (a friend of my daughter's has a cell phone..at 6!!!) and are loud and have tv's in their rooms compared to us who don't have cable for our one family tv. (We do like documentaries and family movies from Netflix) Anyway, my oldest has complained about not having any friend, but I don't have a clue what to do, especially since he is shy anyway. We used to invite families for our birthday parties: 5 or 6 with tons of children. Now it is one poor boy to spend the night.

Mara

[Ohio12]

I realize that until recent history, children were geenerally raised with most of their contact being with just their family. This was okay. Even when they went out in public, children were often expected to be very quiet and well behaved and so on...not talk, not fall asleep..you get the idea. Their socializing really happened as they got older.

I think the coming of large public schools trained society in to thinking children NEED daily interaction with non family members. It took a while,. but I have finally rewritten my view point on this that society and people in general seemed emotionally more healthy and such, when they were raised with family first and non-family members were an the outside of the family, seen at church and such.

I agree with this 99%, but can you..or anyone else tell me what birthday parties look like at your house? Is that just family too?

[starlashine]

Birthday parties at our house involve my son's 5 or 6 good friends and their families. I get complaints that he feels alone, but this is mostly because he wants my undivided attention. It depends on how many friends you have with children I think. If your son is not gelling with the kids in his homeschooling group, maybe see if there is another in your area. Or boy scouts or martial arts classes-both things I am looking into for my son. I agree with those that have said people were a lot nicer when socialization involved the family and its friends, so I don't worry about it too much. I am happy about his small circle of friends right now, cause he wants his birthday at chuckie cheese, and it's expensive.

[Parrothead]

Having an only child I like dd to have a few friends. The little boy next door plays over here most days after school. He was the only kid on the street until we moved here in October. Now since they are the only two on the street they play often. There is a girl the next street over. She plays periodically but I have issues with her. She took all my linnens out of the linnen closet and dumped them on the floor for some unknown reason. I don't let her in the house much now.

We have one couple that we are friends with. They have a dd the same age as mine so we make play dates fairly often.

As for birthdays parties we have a bit of a unique situation. Dd's birthday is two days before our anniversary. Usually the weekend of these events we have a big cookout. We invite all the couples we see socially and all their kids. We have had upward of 30 people at these. We call it dd's birthday party. She has people of all ages from infants to adults celebrate her birthday (and our anniversary). In the past I've tried to organize typical party games for the kids, but they would rather play together then get a goody bag to take home.

[Just a Jen in Mississippi]

I agree with this 99%, but can you..or anyone else tell me what birthday parties look like at your house? Is that just family too?

Well, I think we've been conditioned to think that good birthday parties can only occur with 20 of their "best friends"! I know we've been to our share like that and at one time, I felt that was what I needed to throw together as well (and it was expensive and exhausting!!). As my kids get older, I am appreciating more the family party thing. Sometimes we do invite a few friends. My daughter turns 13 on Sunday so we are picking up two sisters that are my girls' ages. Plus, my 7 year old dd will be going as well. So, it will be my 13 year old dd and her friend, my 10 year old dd and her friend, and my youngest and myself. We are going out to eat and to see Prince Caspian. My dd couldn't be more excited and all my girls get to reap the benefit of the special day.

For birthday parties, we usually invite our extended family and have dinner and cake.....no big theme things. It's always on a smaller scale and much more enjoyable as far as I'm concerned.

[SnowWhite]

Traditionally our bday parties have always been a big family party with all of the twelve dozen (well, one dozen anyway) cousins.

However, my SIL had a girly party for my niece this year so I think we will do a boy party for ds. We are inviting his Sunday School and hs enrichment class classmates (boys).

Realize that children will be more and less sociable based on personality as well. I was always a loner and I *went* to school. I think it's more lonely to be alone in a crowd than to be companionable with one or two friends.

[chiguirre]

Both of my kids have gotten bday party invitations from our hs coop, dance class and playdate friends. We don't do parties for our kids because it's just too stressful to have to do the party thing and watch our oldest at the same time. IMHO, you'll have plenty of invitations from outside activities at least until your kids are upper elementary.

[pmegan]

I realize that until recent history, children were geenerally raised with most of their contact being with just their family. This was okay. Even when they went out in public, children were often expected to be very quiet and well behaved and so on...not talk, not fall asleep..you get the idea. Their socializing really happened as they got older.

I think the coming of large public schools trained society in to thinking children NEED daily interaction with non family members. It took a while,. but I have finally rewritten my view point on this that society and people in general seemed emotionally more healthy and such, when they were raised with family first and non-family members were an the outside of the family, seen at church and such.

I don't think that this is true at all. Humans are social creatures and for thousands of years have lived in communities. Until westward expansion in the 19th century US, most people lived in small villages or within very close walking distances to small villages. Houses were small and dark, and children too young to do serious work ran around outside with all the neighboring kids while people too old to do manual labor did handwork and ostensibly watched them. This is universal, so far as I can think of.

Now, pioneers in the US usually lived far apart, but not nearly so far as the popular ideal. These folks were not self-sufficient, per legend, but relied on a barter economy (which requires neighbors and a general store to barter with) and cooperation between neighbors to get massive amounts of work done in a very limited time period (during planting, harvesting, barn-raising, sugaring, etc).

[Night Elf]

We did best when my kids were younger and we were involved in a homeschool group that had a weekly park day. We rarely saw those people outside of park day but at least it was a regular thing and the kids did get to know one another. Unfortunately, when we moved on we never found another group that suited us. Now my kids are older and park days are no longer appealing. The last one we tried to visit was full of children preK to 2nd grade.

My advice is to try to form some friendships within your homeschool community and neighborhood.

[Night Elf]

I agree with this 99%, but can you..or anyone else tell me what birthday parties look like at your house? Is that just family too?

Why are you so worried about birthday parties? Just curious. We have never done big parties in my family. I was a private/public school child and had small parties with just a few friends.

FWIW, birthdays are a big thing in our house, but not for parties. The birthday person gets to choose where to eat birthday lunch or dinner. We have a cake and presents at home. Occasionally we'll ask a friend to do something. When my dd turned 10 in March, she invited an old friend from public school to go to a movie and have lunch at the mall. I surprised them with going to Build-a-Bear too. My son's last birthday was him picking out gifts at the Lego store with his best friend along for the ride. We had lunch at the mall too. I suppose our birthdays are low key but they are still very special.

[Ohio12]

Why are you so worried about birthday parties? Just curious. We have never done big parties in my family. I was a private/public school child and had small parties with just a few friends.

FWIW, birthdays are a big thing in our house, but not for parties. The birthday person gets to choose where to eat birthday lunch or dinner. We have a cake and presents at home. Occasionally we'll ask a friend to do something. When my dd turned 10 in March, she invited an old friend from public school to go to a movie and have lunch at the mall. I surprised them with going to Build-a-Bear too. My son's last birthday was him picking out gifts at the Lego store with his best friend along for the ride. We had lunch at the mall too. I suppose our birthdays are low key but they are still very special.

I shouldn't make it sound like birthday parties are that big of a deal. It is on my mind because we have always had fun ones for dd with just 2 friends. She just got invited to one that was a ton of kids. I really am much more curious whether the hs kids of the people on here have a couple good friends or struggle with that.

[H.S. Burrow]

I think that the number of friends your children will have will depend, in part, on you. If you are willing to involve them in activities where they will socialize with other kids their age (or close to their age!) then they will make friends and you will find yourself in the position of saying "only 1 friend make come over/go with us". My kids are on a swim team, a shooting sports (4-H) team, soccer, 4-H, weekly park day, and a weekly "school" day with one of my friends whose kids are the same age/grade level as mine. They also have friends at church.:auto:

I pulled my kids out of public school 2 years ago when they were in 5th & 2nd grade. Also, in public school, kids DON'T have that much "play time" to socialize with their friends!! Most socializing MUST be done AFTER school. We have NEVER had a lot of friends over for birthdays or any time. I prefer that they have 1 (or 2 that play well together - VERY important!) over at a time...less stress for me;). For birthdays, they are mostly family affairs. When my dd turned 13, I took her and her best friend (also turning 13) to the mall for make-overs and where ever they chose for lunch. THAT was my dd choice!! I gave her the option of a sleep-over with up to 5 friends. The next day we had a her favorite cake and favorite dinner with all the grandparents...aunt, uncles, & cousins all live too far away.

Making the decision to homeschool can be a scary one. I don't think that worry about friends needs to be too much of a concern. Personality will play a big role in how your dc make friends - their personality and yours. I am NOT a social creature, but my dc ARE - so I make sure they get that...even though I would rather stay home & curl up with a good book :001_smile:

Hope this helps!

[WendyK]

We have attended some of these types of birthday parties and I can tell you, these kids aren't really friends. They are often classmates, or whoever mom and dad scrounged up. Some of them are a friend of a friend of a friend's mother's best friend's neighbor who happens to have a 5 year old who would like to go to a party. The last one I went to felt weird because besides the person who threw the party and the birthday boy, we knew nobody there and lots of other people there didn't know each other either.

If I were to throw such a party I would invite my son's ballet "mates" and the people in the homeschool group. But nobody there would be in the category of close friend.

Growing up the kids I was closest to were probably kids in the neighborhood. Most of them were not my class mates. We just had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together because we lived close by. I do feel sad my kids aren't getting that same experience, but it seems we don't live in that sort of neighborhood or things aren't like they used to be.

So I decided to stop worrying about it. I have a friend who is upset because her son (in school) says he has no friends. So apparently school is no guarantee of friends either.

[Cadam]

This is one of the reasons I am trying so hard to put together a small co-op for the Fall. My kids know a few friends from church that homeschool and I hope that regular scheduled interactions will take "fun to play with friend" to "close friend" level.

[tbmoran]

This has been a challenge for us also. Most of the kids in the church youth group are public or private school students. So my kids feel left out when they all talk about teachers, subjects, or school events. Many times they have learned that their "friends" at church had a get together and "forgot" to invite my kids, which really hurts their feelings. We have tried having kids over to our house all the time, but they don't seem to return the favor. My dd has been blessed to have a couple of homeschooled friends. She feels closest to these friends and feels like she can relax around them and not have to pretend she is someone that she is not. My ds, on the other hand, does not have any real friends. However, we are in the process of moving to a community where the homeschool population is much greater. We visited a church that had 20 homeschooled children and within 10 minutes, my ds was surrounded by homeschooled boys his age and was having the time of his life. Pray about it and God will provide your children with friends.

[attachedto4]

I agree with this 99%, but can you..or anyone else tell me what birthday parties look like at your house? Is that just family too?

I agree with what she said too. Bdays at are house are about family. My kids get to pick anything they want to do- my dd wants to go to Build a bear workshop and The Rainforest Cafe this year, last year my ds wanted to go to the waterpark, etc. We have great memories and it's just family. Tbh, I don't like kids bday parties at all, the last one we were invited to just turned me off of the idea completely, there were 50 or more people, and the bday boy opened a huge pile of presents while everyone was supposed to gather around to watch him not say thank you and greedily rip through the next and the next. It was consumerism at it's worst.

[mcconnellboys]

We do group activities with other homeschoolers almost every day of the week. It doesn't take long to build up a sort of loose group of folks who regularly do things together. We have an entire set of people we can invite for play time (if we're ever home long enough), birthday parties, etc. It hasn't been hard at all. I think that if you live in a rural area, smaller town with fewer homeschoolers, or a place where there's maybe just one hs group that's really tight, then it might be harder to grow a group of friends. But in a larger metropolitan area I would hope that just getting out there and mixin' and minglin' would be enough to get you in....

[Emmy]

I'm kind of anti-friend birthday party so that isn't a big issue for us....our birthday celebrations are usually family parties. My 2 school age kids have asked for parties (having seen all the bevy of gifts given at the parties they attend for other kids I'm sure!) and we just encourage them to invite their one favorite friend to do something special - a sleepover or a trip to the kids museum or similar.

I spend a lot of time dealing with the friend issue by pursuing playdates for my kids with their friends from church or preschool. My kids enjoy going to homeschool stuff and play with other kids there but never seem to connect. At church they do though so that seems to be where we make the most effort to maintain friendships. I try to call and organize playdates for the kids every so often and that helps. I'm also ok with our kids not having tons of friends - if they each have 1-3 kids that we could call and invite over (one at a time of course LOL) then I'm content with that.

I think where it gets old for me is rarely do we receive reciprocal invitations. My oldest has one true friend that reciprocates invitations and playdates but the other kids we get together with never call here. I could invite the same friend over 3 times in a row and for some reason they never think to call us. it's ok - I think that public schooled families are just busy and they tend to get together with the people right in front of them, not the ones they have to make arrangements to see on a regular basis. Sometimes it just feels like one more job for mommy though LOL. It would probably be easier if we lived in a neighborhood with more kids.

[snickelfritz]

My dd is almost 5 and we have had a pretty large group of girls her age that she has always been around. We were friends through church and it was very convenient. They have gradually been going different ways (private school, public school, switching churches, moms back to work) and she doesn't see very many of them very often.

She is in activities, but many of the girls go to school together and join activities together. When 4 of the gymnastics girls all go out to lunch because the moms are in a book club, she wonders why she can't go too.

Our answer is that I have decided to make it important and to balance friendships with convenience. We are driving to a dance class on the other side of town so she can take a class with her 2 friends. There is a class 5 minutes down the road that would be more convenient. I asked the mom about the dance class and made the effort to switch, just to give them an activity together and keep them in touch. I also spend a lot of time sitting out on the front lawn, so my kids can play with the neighbor kids. It would be easier to put them in the back yard, where I can watch them while I fold laundry.

I don't feel like she needs 20 people she can invite to her party. She has a built-in playmate in her sister, but I do want her to have friends her own age. She came up with 2 friends and a neighbor that she wants to invite to her upcoming birthday party. That's something I'm comfortable with.

[dragons in the flower bed]

Who are your kids' good friends? Who comes to their birthday party?


I realized at some point that my mom was inviting every girl in my sister's class to her parties, and that I could do the same with our church. So one year we invited every kid we knew from church. We had never had playdates before with most of these kids. As soon as they showed up I felt awful. They had all brought gifts! Duh! The guilt propelled me into making playdates with each and every one of them, lest they think we just wanted the presents. Now we have friends, and for this year's round of birthday parties, I'm sticking, "no presents please!" notes into the invitations.

I find it helps, too, if I pretend I'm six. Then I can walk up to a mom we've only met once at one function and say, "Our kids are the same age/gender/personality type/have similar interests, so let's have a playdate. Wanna come over for cheesecake and Legos on Tuesday from 2-4?" If it doesn't go well, just don't have another one.

[Sasharowan]

Our friends come from library storytime, homeschool classes, baseball, basketball, and scouts. We have a few that we see regularly and others that we see at meetings and occasional parties.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I have made my peace with "socialization" issues and a lot of my other initial fears regarding hs, but can anyone talk me through the issue of "friends"?

Who are your kids' good friends? Who comes to their birthday party?

DCs have some friends at church, but they all have their best friends or group of friends through their public or private school. I am not worried about socialization per se, but I do hope that dds would have 1-3 friends they can see regularly. Any thoughts?

Well, we are military. So we can pretty much count on either our friends moving or our moving almost every year. We get very good at making friends and leaving friends. And sometimes coming back to friends. My children's buddies right now are a family that introduced us to homeschooling over 10 years ago when dh and I taught their oldest dd in Sunday School.

I also remember that some of the worst heartache in my childhood was at betrayal by the girls that I thought were my friends. So I love that my kids have friends. Our neighborhood has lots of little boys for my boys to play with. But I'm not the type to go scheduling playdates etc.

[LisaTheresa]

For me, this is one of the hardest part of homeschooling. I want my children to have friends and that means I have to work very hard to remain involved in activities and socialize with people when I'd rather not. My children take classes, such as a homeschool PE class, music, art, etc. and whenever we meet someone that one of my children takes an interest in, I go out of my way to meet the Mom and see if we can get the kids together.

I try to set up one playdate a week per child. One thing that has worked well is to set up a regular playdate for each child with one friend where we have the friend over to our house once a month and then my child goes to the friend's house once a month. I don't feel like my kids need tons of friends, but 2 or 3 regular ones is what I strive to help them with.

Lisa

[April Showers]

My daughters friends are a few neighborhood kids who vary in age. My daughter is 11yr. in 5th grade. She just recently began playing outside with some of the kids who go to local public school. One day I saw a little girl outside on her bike, so I thought to encourage dd to go out and get some fresh air. Well, she did and made a new friend instantly. The little girl is a petite 1st grader who just adores my dd. It seemed that each day that went by, more kids began showing up outside. My dd said "wow, nobody used to come out and play until I started too". My 15 ds in public school noticed the clan of playing kids afterschool seemed to get bigger and bigger every day. The ages are from 4 to 13 and they sort of all play together. This was a blessing at just the right time.

Birthdays are kept small. Just family usually. One time we did a party with no more children invited than my daughter was in age. So, for 10yr. old you invite no more than 10 friends.

Adrienne

[SnowWhite]

I think where it gets old for me is rarely do we receive reciprocal invitations. My oldest has one true friend that reciprocates invitations and playdates but the other kids we get together with never call here. I could invite the same friend over 3 times in a row and for some reason they never think to call us. it's ok - I think that public schooled families are just busy and they tend to get together with the people right in front of them, not the ones they have to make arrangements to see on a regular basis. Sometimes it just feels like one more job for mommy though LOL. It would probably be easier if we lived in a neighborhood with more kids.

I have this *all.the.time*, but not just for kids playdates, but *my* "friends" as well. I have decided that most people are just not hospitable. I think people tend to be more worried about the condition of their house than I am (I'm tremendously laid back), so I just decided to be the hospitable generous one. I know the feeling, though.