If you are currently homeschooling or considering this for your child, you probably know all the benefits it can provide. You’ll have more control over the curriculum, be able to customize teaching to your child’s personal learning style, and avoid the pressures and dangers of public schools. There are however, consequences to schooling your child at home - sometimes it can affect their mental and social development.
Remember al children need friends and playmates and they find them in school. What will the other kids think of your homeschooled child? Like it or not, children in public schools often think that homeschooled children are not in public school because of mental disorders, behavioral problems, or “freaky” parents. Your child might be made fun of or picked on because he isn’t considered normal. These challenges must be overcome if you want your child to have a positive social life and be able to function amongst their peers when they get to college.
Friendships with other children of a similar age must be found if they are homeschooled as they cannot be allowed to develop in isolation as this is unhealthy. For the child to have a positive social sphere later, here are some tips that would help you to put him on the right path. Start with your neighborhood: are there children of your child’s age living close by? Are you familiar with their parents? If no, start today. Seek out parents nearby and let them know you have a child that you’d like to set up a play date. Since you’re the one initiating these meetings, you’re also the one who needs to do the organizing so have a party and hire a clown. You cold start by calling all the kids in the neighborhood with their parents for a party full of kid activities like a ball game, fishing, bowling and more and also be ready to baby sit when called for.
Sporting activities offer the best opportunities where children bond with each other. They spend a lot of time at practice and root for each other in games and you’ll be meeting other parents while watching all the games. In case your child has some physical handicap, which would prevent him for participating in these types of sports activities make him join groups like girls/boys scout or other similar kid organizations.
Many parent of homeschooling children have rigid rules about what their kids listen on the radio, view on television or their activities on the Internet. Though it is wise to safeguard children from all the bad things out there, it is also critical that they have similar exposures as other kids. Remember your kid is fighting a lone battle with other kids who think that he is from Mars, imagine his predicament in public when he shows his ignorance about what is hot on TV, what other kids are wearing at parties and which bands are making a mark? Unless they are exposed to life as it is, they would have a tough time interacting with others and would soon be treated as an alien.
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