heartofdakota.com

Okay, here goes. Dh now says ds (Michael) should have more close friends, he only has one close/best friend and plays well with others anywhere we go. This friend is from church and is in public school.

Apparently dh has observed M being the "outsider" at baseball this season. As in he doesn't know what the other kids are talking about if they talk about what happened in school today.

We also are new, we moved to this small town last July. This wouldn't have mattered as much in our old bigger town in NC because there were so many different schools in the county, here there is one. And our church had sport teams so he played with kids he knew.

I just recently found two semi-local hs groups and have done a couple field trips and get togethers with them. It takes time to develop closer friendships, I have to know the parents' well before I will allow my child to be at their house without me. And it's hard to get together with ps kids , especially if the parents work. Dh now wants M to have friends in this town that he will play sports with.

M is in Cub Scouts 3 days a month, Sunday school and AWANA on Sunday (AWANA is done for the summer), and baseball 3 nights a week. We stay home all day most days.

I think dh only sees the baseball and scout stuff and does not know how great M plays with hs kids.

At this point I would not put up a huge fight to keep him home, just pray for God's will. But I think the reasons are dumb. I told dh that if M went to ps then sports would have to stop. We could not be out in the evening if he had to be up at 6:30 for school.

I don't think dh realizes that if M went to ps, it would be school all day, homework, supper, bed. Church on Sunday but nothing else.

I'm venting and looking for ideas.

Coming back to add, I think what really bothered dh was that these boys are not including ds in their chatting in the dugout and after the game. I say, we are new and who cares, it will come. If these boys are not including him now then I don't want him in school with them.

Please pray with me for dh to be "sold out" on hsing. If I have to have friends over more to make dh happy, then I will. But you all know how hard it is to get together with other hsing moms, it's even harder to get together wtih ps kids.

Thank you for any advice or prayers.

Katherine

I don't really have much advice for you. I have been one of those kids after moving and what not and I didn't have any friends right at first, and I went to ps. So like you said, that doesn't always fix things. But I can completely understand from your dh's perspective too. Could he ask your son maybe if he is happy with how things are? Maybe if he knew your son was happy with the current arrangement then he'd be more understanding. Oh-I just though of this. Could you invite a couple of the hs families over for a cookout or something, so that your dh could see that your son WAS in fact becoming involved with other children and was playing with them. That way too you could get to know the parents a little better and you'd feel more comfortable with him playing over at friends' houses.

We recently moved to a small town too that's 20 min from the city where we were living, so we still just do things in that city instead of in the town, so my kiddos have NO friends here and since we still go to church in the city, I don't see us making a whole lot of friends here any time soon. Small towns are really, really tough to become involved in. I hope that he's give your son a little time, since that's what he really probably needs. I will be praying though!

Could it be that these other kids have known each other forever? Could it be that M just doesn't care enough to join in? Could it be that they think he's "weird" due to an accent (which would be WAY worse if he was in school, thinking of getting teased, etc.)

I told DH that the kids aren't supposed to socialize in school... they get in trouble for socializing during school. How long have you been there again? 1.5 years? I can't remember when you actually moved.

Have you ever actually asked D what his issues with homeschooling are? Why he's SO against it? If it is indeed socialization and the fact that the kids are excluding M, have you asked him what his solution is going to be if M ends up getting teased and picked on and left out even more if it's IN school? I can't remember, has M ever been to school? If he hasn't, he wouldn't have a clue of what to do, how things go, kids are mean in 3rd grade.... language is horrible, they learn things they shouldn't need to know (this is when they socialize!!)

Good luck.... I wouldn't worry about it actually.... but just thinking of things you need to bring up to D... ask him what he really wants....

Lora Beth

We've been in this town for 11 months, before that we were in a town 40 min from here for 9 months, that is when we first moved from NC to NH.

I think it takes a year or more to really get to know people, beyond just surface level.

I've been wanting to have people over since we moved here last July, but dh didn't. He tells me he doesn't remember. He first wanted to get over soccer season, well then it was too cold and I don't want to cook for a lot of people inside. I was thinking one or two families. Lora Beth , I miss you!!!

Now dh is saying it's okay. He likes to just watch TV on the weekends. He is not anti-social really, just an introvert and likes his down time at home. I get it , so we do stuff during the week, well, when we meet people. I JUST found these two hs groups and have done 3 field trips with them. Some different moms each time and some the same. So now that I've found the groups it will just take a bit of time to grow relationships.

I closely observed Michael, and the other boys, at baseball today. I heard M ask a kid if he had a Wii because he (M) just got two Lego Wii games for his birthday, they talked a little about it. Then another kid handed out Big League Chew to the kids, they handed some to two boys, then M held his hand out and they gave him some. The boys did not interact too much while in the dug out anyway. And you can't socialize when you are out in the field.

I wish and pray that dh would value hsing and we could just be a hsing family and not re-evaluate every year. Praying for God's will in our lives.


I think dh does not understand that it takes a long time to develop relationships. Over the winter in NH is not an easy time to do it either.

I'm adding because when I got to a certain point it wasn't letting me add more.

Lora Beth, yes, it could be that these boys have grown up here and have known each other for years. No, I have not actually asked dh what his issues are, not sure if he knows. I mean we had an hour argument/discussion to which I finally concluded that he wanted Michael to have more friends and have them in our town.

It bothered him that of the 5 boys he's inviting to his birthday party only one has been over to play. So I asked my friend, the mother of that boy, of the 15 kids her son invited to his birthday party how many had been over to play? two!

I think if given another year and the people we are meeting we will begin developing more closer friendships. I mean, we've moved twice in less than 2 yrs!

There are also lots of classes and things we can do but they cost money. We are in debt recovery from job loss and I try not to do anything extra that costs money. Maybe I do to satisfy dh. Well, sports cost extra and we do that.

Katherine
ds (9 in 3 days!) bigger
dd 5
dd (3 in two weeks!)

I stupidly posted twice. Sorry. I have two of these threads running, didn't mean to, thought I had waited long enough before clicking again

kiloyd,

I will venture in here to share what we found with our own kiddos (that may or may not be of help to you). Our two oldest sons played tee ball and then our oldest son moved into regular ball after that. Our oldest son was about 9 at the time. At that age, in our town, we definitely noticed a change in the dugouts and on the field as the ballgames were now more competitive. It was also more obvious that our son didn't fit in, as he'd always been homeschooled. The boys on the team did all know each other, and my son was on the fringes. He really didn't seem to mind, as he was focused on the ball games, but my husband and I minded. As we watched and noticed the competitive nature of the parents, the competition among the players, and the group of boys (which our son didn't seem to fit into), we were actually glad that he didn't fit!

That was a changing moment for us, as we'd always thought we'd have to make extra sure our boys were "socialized" if they were going to be homeschooled. Yet, in that moment we realized that we didn't desire for him to be like all of the other boys. We were raising him to be different, and somehow we were surprised that he was! We also realized that we were placing him in situations that would only get worse as he got older, as we asked him to befriend boys who we didn't really know or families that we weren't really the same as we were goal-wise. So, the following year, we quit having our kiddos play baseball. This was quite something for us to do, as my husband was a terrific baseball player, football player, golfer, etc., and I had been an avid basketball and volleyball player! We had lived and breathed sports all throughout our school days together, and even into college and afterwards! However, my husband had read the book The Socialization Trap and it changed his thinking, and mine!

It has been 5 1/2 years now since that time. I have to say, we thoroughly enjoy our summers so much more. My boys have free time and do play all sorts of sports in our backyard (just for fun). We are no longer trying to make our kiddos fit in a public school world, and then wondering why they don't! Plus, my husband has realized that he needs to be the one interacting and playing with the kids (because they're boys) at night and on the weekends. If my boys were girls, that part would fall more heavily on me.

I see in your signature line that you have two little girls and only one little guy. So, I do think it will be important for your hubby to have "guy things" that he does just with your son. These things don't have to be major. My husband tosses the ball around in the backyard with the boys or plays a bit of basesball on some nights, throws the football with them (he's usually the quarterback), takes them bowling once a week in the winter and golfing once a week in the summer, rides bike with them once a week down to Dairy Queen to get a sundae, watches them bike around our cul-de-sac sometimes in the evening, teaches them outdoor work on the lawn in the spring and summer, and shovels with them in the winter, guides them in getting up early and starting their day right in the mornings, has a Saturday morning devotion with just the older boys to talk about the Bible and the passages he's reading and they're reading, makes pancakes/eggs/bacon with them on Saturday mornings and trains each of them in a different area of the breakfast-making, assigns the older two to the excercise bike in the winter and keeps them accountatable by having them mark down their distance and times (he rides too), teaches the boys how to do their own laundry and put it away on Saturdays, discusses the sermon with them after church on Sunday, helps them use tools to assemble things and oversees household projects as they help him, once and awhile he'll play a longer board game with them (like Risk or Monopoly), watches a DVD with them on Sunday evenings and makes popcorn in the middle for a break (often they watch Little House on the Prairie or Drive Thru History or something to that effect), takes them to swimming lessons in the winter, etc. My husband began with a few things slowly and added more as they just naturally occurred. Some came from needs we saw within the boys.

All of these things can fall into the "guy thing" category (and many can fall into the girl thing category too), but they all lead to bonding between father and son, as the young boy is growing into being a young man. It replaces the idea that a boy must have friends to occupy his time, because his time is instead occupied with modeling himself after his father as he spends time with him. None of these things require super training or large amounts of time, yet they make our boys feel like boys as their dad works and plays with them. Our boys covet time with their dad, rather than desiring to be with the neighborhood boys, but our boys do also have one another. So, I can see that over time it would feel good to cultivate a friend or two that comes from a family with similar values. Until then, I wouldn't put too much pressure on your son or yourself to rush the friendship process. It takes time, and it seems like church is the best place to meet like-minded families.

I will share, on a sidenote, that our boys are very comfortable with adults and talk easily to other children (even though they don't fit in exactly with them). They are much more "social" than any of our neighborhood children in that they are not going through the cycle where they feel that adults are "embarassing" to be around or that they do not want to be with their younger siblings anymore. They genuinely care for one another, and for us, and are happy overall in their day-to-day. They are "social" with all ages, care deeply for elderly people and their grandparents, and are aware of the feelings and temperaments of little children. While our children are not perfect by any means, we are grateful that they are not acting like typical boys their age.

Blessings,
Carrie