What About Their Social Life?

As I stated in my last post, many people are worried about my children's "social life".  This is not an area where I wasted even a minute of my time because I truly believe that it's blown WAY out of proportion.

First of all, my children have lots of interaction with people outside of our family. They have friends within our neighborhood. They spend lots of time at church or participating in church activities. Plus, when they are in groups or clubs or activities outside our home, they get plenty of "social time".

My thought on this is...Do I really want my kids to be "socialized" in the public school system? And this is why this question is important. What type of social ideas come out of the public school system? A lot of them I try each and every day to shield my children from in the first place. Why would I want to immerse them in values that I don't support, such as...

• thinking they have to look a certain way or wear certain clothing to be accepted?
• thinking that you can only play and be friends with kids that are your own age, race, religion, background, popularity?
• or the "I'm gonna tear you down so I can build myself up" outlook that literally fills our public school system?

Believe me, the list could go on and on, and I wouldn't want my children to pick up on ANY of those negative social ideas that flow freely from the public school system. It's hard enough to shield them from such negative values from within the home without subjecting them to it for 6 hrs a day, 5 days a week.

I believe, as parents, the survival of our families and the delicate spirits of our children depend on us doing what we can to shield them from these dangers.

Now, with that being said, it's also just as important to ensure that my children get quality outside interaction with people of all ages, backgrounds, races, etc (because it can be just as damaging to a child to keep them from outside interaction completely). And since I'm the one allowing or not allowing the interaction, I can ensure that the "social ideas" exchanged are those that I support and feel comfortable with.

This is an area that I know I've made the best decision for my children. Right now they have quality friends with values and standards similar to theirs. What I want is for my children to learn to be confident and to feel comfortable around people of all ages. I want them to know that being kind to everyone, no matter their outer appearance, is what's important in this life. I want them to gain confidence in their abilities by their successes and not by other's failures. I want them to have an Christ-centered environment to spend their day in. I want them to feel blessed when they get to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. I want their lives to be full of prayer and not feel ashamed for being a believer. I want my children to be each other's best friends and I want them to look to me for quality mentoring. I feel I'm now providing that environment for them.

I'll end with a quote from "A Thomas Jefferson Education"...

"Homeschool is uniquely designed to be a wonderful place to socialize children and youth--with their peers and in interaction with adults. With a little planning, the right kind of socialization can be one of the real strengths of homeschool.... Homeschool is natural to socializing future leaders who don't feel compelled to follow the crowd or bend to social pressure, but who do feel at ease with others and work well in society."