As I stated in my previous post - What About Friends? - Will My Children Have Any Friends If I Homeschool?: Part 1, I do think that friends for one's children is a real concern and not a trivial one. The short answer to this question is, yes - given a minimum degree of effort on a homeschooling parent's part, a homeschooled child will, most likely, make friends.
Today, I'll discuss what I've done over our years of homeschooling to give my children opportunities to make friends during the preschool and kindergarten years.
Preschool and Kindergarten Years
My experience with my children during the preschool years was that while my children did prefer playing with some children over others, they simply didn't have the kind of deep, meaningful friendships that they developed as they got older. The focus was on playing side by side, and then playing together as they gained maturity. So, at that point in their development, it seemed most important to give them opportunities to interact with other children but fostering friendships was not nearly as important during the preschool years as it would grow to be.
During the preschool years, I do think it's important that children get out and about to be with other children sometimes but I don't think that necessarily calls for a ton of structured, often expensive activities.
One of the best activity experiences I had as a young mother was a structured weekly playgroup that I was involved in with two other young mothers. We got together for a few hours each week to socialize and let our children play. Sometimes we would plan activities for our children to do and sometimes we just let them play. We continued our playgroup for several years but eventually grew apart over time.
We had our oldest child, Amber, involved in a LOT of preschool activities. Our middle child, Mason, was involved in some preschool activities. Our youngest child, Duncan, was involved in very, very few preschool activities. By the time Duncan was a preschooler, I was actively homeschooling my older two children. Therefore, he was included in all of the field trips and our homeschool support group's activities but he wasn't in any preschool activities of his own. For example, Amber and Mason both attended a two or three day per week morning lovely preschool program at a church in a neighboring town. While it was a good experience for my older two children, sending my youngest child to preschool just didn't seem to fit in with the path that we had chosen for their education by that time.
If I had my children's preschool years to do all over again, I would have stayed home a LOT more. My happiest memories of their preschool years are not rushing to this enrichment class or that team practice - my happiest memories are the crafts we made together at home, the time spent reading picture books by the stack, and the hours upon hours playing with homemade play-doh. While many of the outside activities we did were great and I'm sure quite enriching, I also remember them often being quite stressful. I can remember tired, hungry kids and a tired, hungry mom.
I truly think there's an incredible amount of pressure on preschool parents to have children doing lots of activities at a very early age. While some of the activities we did were quite valuable, I think we should have just said no the vast majority of them and stayed home more.
Having said all of that, there are an overwhelming amount of activities for young mothers to choose from for their preschool children. Structured activities give children an opportunity to be with other children and learn how to act in group situations. As well, they may be places where friends can be made. Between all three of our children we participated in many activities when they were younger including:
- YMCA Soccer
- YMCA Basketball
- T-ball
- Gymnastics
- Tap Dancing
- Vacation Bible School
- AWANA
- Storytime at the library
- Field trips with our homeschool support group
- Homeschool group holiday parties
- Co-op art classes
- Swim lessons
- Kindermusik
- Mom's Together group at church
- Playgroup
- Morning preschool program at a local church (2-3 times per week)
Yes, homeschooled children do make friends and there are lots of things a homeschool parent can do to try to foster friendships for their children, in the preschool years and beyond.
But, even as I talk about fostering friendships for children, I think that the importance of the family and family activities must be elevated above the issue of friends for children. For the most part, friends come and go but a child's family will be a part of his or her life for the rest of his or her life. Family relationships must come first and be elevated over the importance of friend relationships, even during the teen years. When I focus on the importance of family relationships, I find I have absolutely no worries about my children making friends.
I have two more posts that I will be writing in this series: What About Friends During the Elementary Years? and What About Friends During the Teen Years? Hopefully, both of those posts will be written and posted over the next week.
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