Socialization: A Home-School Mixer - A Meet and Greet
By Mimi Rothschild
No matter how much you love your children and love home-schooling them, the process of creating a solid and consistent learning environment through home-school is no easy task. The best way to keep your energy up and your creativity vibrant is to feed both by forging bonds with other home-school parents and kids in your area.
First of all, how do you find home-school moms, dads, and kids in your area? Secondly, how do you know if they home-school for the same reasons you do, according to the same values and with the same goals?
Your first step is to do your research. Check out bulletin boards at your church and local kid magazines. Do searches online with key words like “home-school” and your city or even your neighborhood. If your home-school is centered on a particular aspect of faith, check out faith-based websites and search for home-school information there. Forums online and home-school magazines are other good places for you to find contact information for other home-schoolers in your area.
When you've amassed a bit of information about the local home-school groups, co-ops, and resources available to you, make a tentative calendar highlighting different groups that apply to your child's age group, monthly meetings or activities, and the contact information listed for group leaders. Call everyone on your list and email them for information. Ask what their group is focused on, if there are age limitations, if their members are interested in home-school for religious reasons, child behavior-issues, accelerated academics, etc. The fact that the group is full of home-school families doesn't necessarily mean that they will be a group who shares your values and beliefs.
<!--[endif]-->
What if you can't find a home-school group that really speaks to you? Even forums and conventions that are based on the same faith and philosophical beliefs may not feel right when you attend. Should this happen, remember that most likely there are others who feel the same about home-school as you do. It's just a matter of finding them. Go back to your original listings of home-school information, conventions, meetings, and groups. Start by setting up a meeting, outlining who in the home-school community might find it interesting, and then post it at all the places that you originally found information. You never know who will come out of the woodwork, what other home-school families will find a home in your co-op, and the kind of new home-school family you will create together.
________________________________________________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
Electronic reproduction of this article is permitted if content is published unchanged, appropriate credit is given, and the article title links to corresponding article webpage.
