I am finding out that although every one was concerned about the kids social life, that this is the biggest problem for all the opposite reasons! How exactly am I supposed to cater for the wildly varying interests of my offspring without needing a month in the nut house for myself to recover? I recently posted about this and got a few welcome comments about how it will all settle down, but I need a bit of a more in depth answer, so please feel free to comment away!
I realise your children may not he the same age as mine, but because abilities and interests vary so much from child to child there is a chance you have experience in steadying the flow of social engagements without disappointing a child or tying yourself in knots.
Thing is, I can't see how I do this without upsetting some one. Now nobody is at school, they are all finding themselves things to do and my bank balance/ car/ sanity cannot cope with the demand. I had planned a gentle easing into HEing of all of them, but instead have been thrown head first in to a social whirl.
In short, we could quite easily be out of the house and doing some thing every single day and night of the week (Oh how I laugh when I remember the worrying about being stuck round the kitchen table, this was a winter thing obviously. I would rather like some time round the table.) How do you pick and choose what activities or groups to attend? Are there unwritten protocols regarding HE groups that I don't know about? Is it acceptable to make an occasional appearance at a group or is that bad form?
These are ponderings I am having lately, as I am fast coming to the conclusion that the biggest myth about home education is the lack of socialisation that people outside the community seem to think my children must endure. ARE YOU CRAZY? I would love some anti-social time, I just can't see that happening any time soon.
6 comments:
My kids don't really like groups all that much, so our attendance is very sporadic, I think that most groups are pretty flexible and you can dip in and out as you want to.
I'd definitely try to build in some down time - I always had a rule that there was at least one day I didn't drive, and at the time we lived somewhere fairly remote that required driving to get pretty much anywhere.
i suppose it depends on the group but we attend HE stuff sporadically and it's all fine.
Even when we still had 2 in school, we had a few guidlines about activities... While we want to support an individual's interest, it's not fair if it swallows too much time or money away from the others... So we tended to have one thing per person (on top of swimming, that's manditory)
now, we have them all swimming (fortnightly) eldest three going to karate once, sometimes twice a week, eldest (Saurus) going to football once a week, and Roo and Wig planning to take up horseriding. Also we're hopeing to go back to cricket club this year.
We review these arrangments often, under the headings of 'help, money!' and time. The cheepest activities that the most are interested in get top billing.
Balance is attainable - I like to have a day or two in the week where there is nothing regular, so we can have day long field trips, or lots of catchup work, or just vegging. But, i find at least, you're always going to have to keep an eye on it and adjust accordingly.
Hi! Thank you so much for visiting my blog and for commenting. It's so nice to meet you! I wish I had some advice to offer but it's just little Sweetpea and me for now...
Thanks for the comments and ideas. I will ponder some more, and see if there isn't some things we can trim back a little to may be fortnightly as opposed to weekly.
And thank you 6 o'clock for commenting, even if you don't have advice, it's still nice to get a comment :)
I find some weeks with have nothing on and other weeks we're booked solid. We don't go to groups but that's mainly because our local group is still some distance away and all the children do is run round madly. These next three weeks we're booked solid every day, I don't think we're going to get any formal week at all. In fact there are days when we've got the choice of doing two or three things! It's madness, but in a nice way!
Can you choose one activity everyone can do & enjoy ~ Tae kwon do, soccer, band? I got lucky & had a big gap between my sporty kids & my musical one but she has me out of the house more than all the others put together.
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