How to connect with others...

[Kasey Frazier]

My question is this.. if you are not part of a homeschool group, how do you connect to others?? I am undecided on joining and want to know how others connect with friends and what not... 

 

Thanks

Kasey 

[Dana Hoffman Ellis]

The same way you connect in all parts of your life. I am partial to Facebook now, but back when my son was little, it was yahoogroups....and when my eldest was little, it was pen pals in the back of home education magazine! Lol...

Do you mean, friends for yourself, or friends for your kids?

When your kids do things enjoy, they will find people also doing those things. They might be friends.

How old are your kids? And where do you live?

[Kasey Frazier]

My boys are 11 yrs old 12 in Nov... and 10 yrs old.. We live in Everett which is north of Seattle ..
Friends for both..

[Robin B.]

We have belonged to a few groups over the years, but parenting and homeschooling practices varied so widely that it was sometimes uncomfortable for us. My daughter has never really been a social butterfly and prefers one-on-one interaction. Having said that, we've found most of our connections through unschooling conferences where there are lots of people <g>. Conference funshops or casual get-togethers that focused on her interests were the best ways to find kids with whom to connect. That's probably the most important thing for us. Just being unschoolers doesn't provide enough common ground to be friends with just anyone. We have some casual acquaintances and I've met folks I connect with but our kids don't necessarily have anything much in common.

So, for us, it comes down to interests. My daughter plays MMORPG and she has online friends all over the world, some of whom we plan to meet in the coming years. Only a very small percentage are unschoolers. She has irl friends north, south, and east about 2 hours away, all ways; we already travel around to see them and they *are* unschoolers. And as I said before, her needs for socializing with groups of kids is pretty much non-existent, so it all works for us.

 

HTH!