jenb

We live in a sparsley populated tourist area. There are few full-time, year-round families with children in Tommy's age range.

We meet kids here but most of our friends live in New York City but we don't see them often enough since it is 3 hours away.

The local kids we do meet are lovely but they are too tired to play after school or they stay late and do activities at school. Plus, often, they are connected to their school friends.

Tommy enjoys swim lessons but everyone runs off after the class.

I am looking for some advice on setting up a yahoo group or facebook page to connect with other homeschoolers in our area for play time.

I've never done this before and I welcome suggestions about how to present the group in order to increase our chances of making connections (with a parent). For example, is it important to specify homeschool or unschool?

Or maybe an entirely different idea?

Thank much in advance,

Jen Brown, Sag Harbor

Melanie Campanis

You might want to set up a group for "eclectic" homeschoolers - I think you
will then find folk who are more likely to think outside the box. This
might help unearth the kind of folk you want to meet in case unschoolers are
sparse in your area. We belong to a Waldorf group - though we aren't
following the Waldorf curriculum we love all the craftsy stuff and
celebrating festivals - and there are other folk like us in the group J



Good luck!



From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of jenb
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 10:06 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Friendship building





We live in a sparsley populated tourist area. There are few full-time,
year-round families with children in Tommy's age range.

We meet kids here but most of our friends live in New York City but we don't
see them often enough since it is 3 hours away.

The local kids we do meet are lovely but they are too tired to play after
school or they stay late and do activities at school. Plus, often, they are
connected to their school friends.

Tommy enjoys swim lessons but everyone runs off after the class.

I am looking for some advice on setting up a yahoo group or facebook page to
connect with other homeschoolers in our area for play time.

I've never done this before and I welcome suggestions about how to present
the group in order to increase our chances of making connections (with a
parent). For example, is it important to specify homeschool or unschool?

Or maybe an entirely different idea?

Thank much in advance,

Jen Brown, Sag Harbor





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Sandra Dodd

-=-
I've never done this before and I welcome suggestions about how to present the group in order to increase our chances of making connections (with a parent). For example, is it important to specify homeschool or unschool?-=-

If you're too picky about friends, you might not get any. And if you find unschoolers, they might not be kids he likes.

I would find (or create) activities and invite other kids. My kids have some friends they had from the park day gatherings when they were little, so either from La Leche League, or the unschooling park days, but in a very small town, maybe having a park day on a weekend (Sunday afternoon, maybe?) would be helpful.

Don't be too dismayed or critical about the other parents' parenting, either. You could isolate yourself into a lonely fantasy world. If there are kids who get along, you could maybe arrange smaller things at your house just for those kids, and one-offs�a party, a gaming session, a pizza-making dinner.

Sometimes having a friend leads to other kids through that kid.

As kids get older, meeting kids with common interests (art, games, music, sports, hobbies) makes more sense than looking for others by whether or not they go to school.

Consider online friendships too, with playing Minecraft or World of Warcraft or such things, and skyping. That's a way to be in social contact with unschoolers.

Sandra

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