Socializing Your Homeschooled Children

“How do you socialize your children?”, “But she’s such a social butterfly”, “They need to be socialized!”, “You need to think about socializing your children”, “They can only be properly socialized in a classroom with other kids their age”, “I could never do that to my children, they need social interaction”, “Homeschoolers are un-socialized”, “Why are you isolating them?”, “How will they learn social skills?”……………………………….

These are just a few of the statements I have heard about homeschooling. My children are social butterflies even though we keep them at home with us. We have found many ways to “socialize” them. Here are a few;

• We teach them appropriate social skill at home.
• They are around a wide age range of people insuring that they know how to interact with all kinds of people.
• Girls Club at Church
• Awanas
• Community Sports
• Group Art Classes
• Library Clubs
• Library activity groups
• Family friendships
• Co-Op
• Park Days
• Swimming play dates
• having other families over
• Going to other families houses
• Church
• My children are taught to view everyone as equal, and spend time with all types of people; Physically Handicapped, Mentally Handicapped, Elderly, Middle Aged, Youth, Young children, College Students, Homeschooled, Public schooled, Christian, Non-Christian, Other Races, Other nationalities. They are taught to respect everyone, and love them with the Love that Christ shows us.
• Homeschool Choir
• Homeschool P.E.

Those are just a few of the things that my family does, or has done to socialize our children. What are some of the things you do?