Random person: oh, you're 4! Are you excited to start big kid school next year?!
Cajer: (strange look) I learn all the time!
Me: we homeschool!
Random person: *gasp* but how will he ever be socialized?!
Blah, blah, blah. This is so not a concern of homeschool parents, not at all. I probably speak for most when I say I have to pick and choose activities and skip some to make sure we have plenty of down time.
I think that it's just a generational thing, most younger parents seem to accept it as simply another option. I chatted with a young mom the other day who was asking me about homeschool options in Florida; she said she and her husband felt strongly that their children not be exposed to public schools. They both want to raise their children without the insanity that public schools have become.
So, how do homeschool kids learn to interact with people? Let's see. I'll start close, family interactions are the foundation for how we learn to interact. Every family member from great grandparents to a new born sibling or cousin teaches children interaction. Personally, I like that Cajer will learn from such a great range of people, he interacts great with grandparents as well as with friends at co-op or his baby niece.
And oh how many people we see in a week. Everyone from the mailman to the doctor, UPS driver, people in traffic, his brothers friends, the neighbors, family friends, people on field trips, and on and on.
Exposure to life is how we learn.
I want to prevent exposure to certain things while possible. Would you allow your six year old to hang out all day with stories of parents in jail, this boy wets his pants and has bruises, this girl cries in class, and this boy says bad words and talks about sex... and each year brings new situations that need to be addressed at home to provide your child with the ability to understand and deal with every other child's problems. While attempting to learn what he's told he should be interested in. Yeah. No.
And hopefully you're blessed with a great teacher. Hopefully. I don't have a teaching certificate, (oh! I could make one!) but I know my boy and have no doubt I can provide better for him than an overworked, under appreciated, under paid teacher! (Disclaimer: I love several teachers. But I'm just not rolling the dice with so many teachers overseeing my boy's childhood.)
Bonfire with his girlfriends. Because life should always be fun!
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