[email protected]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2002 23:24:15 EDT LsMe@... writes:

> And a (another) question - are there any other parents of young 'only
> children' who might be willing to share how much interaction with other

> children they seek/arrange access to for their child? Do you think the

> one-on-one or small playgroup is critically important, or are group
> activities like library storytime, etc, enough?

That depends on your kid, no?

I have a basically-only child (2 half-siblings living 2000 miles away and
15 and 17 years older). She's always spent a lot of time with other kids,
of all ages, in large and small groups and one-on-one. She also spends a
lot of time by herself... it seems to have peaks and valleys, but a day
when she doesn't play with or do something with at least one other kid
(between the ages of 2 and 17) is rare. When she was younger, like 3-5,
it happened with a little more frequency, but she would play with the
school kids after school most days.

I wouldn't worry about how much other people seek out or arrange - just
about what works best for your kid. One of Rain's closest friends now (2
yrs younger) did not want to have anything to do with other kids until
she was around 4 (luckily, she got a sister a few months later).

Also, have you gotten active with a local homeschool group? None of the
groups I've been part of have had age limits, and kids that grow up
within that community seem to have the easiest time dealing with the
"everyone else is going to school but me" thing. There always seem to be
nice ultiage tribes of kids roaming the parks, at least with good hs
groups....

dar

katielouba

--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., freeform@j... wrote:

> > That depends on your kid, no? < <

Absolutely! Our 3 1/2 year old loves to play with others, but she's
equally happy to be just with me. My concern is that she's getting
enough exposure to other children to feel comfortable, when she does
play with them. Is it possible for her to spend TOO much time with
adults, and not enough with other little ones, if that's the way our
path takes us?

> >Also, have you gotten active with a local homeschool group? > >
> dar

We're just staring to attempt this - Kalie's only 3 1/2, so we're
just beginning to think along these lines. Thanks for the help, Dar!

Linda

moonlitbatiks

I also have a practically only child (13yo half bro visits once a
week). My daughter is 5 years old. For the past year she has craved
sooo much social contact with other kids, that I've had a hard time
fullfilling her wishes. She said she wants to go to school, so I put
her in kindergarten. I found a 'good' one, open and arts-integrated,
no formal learning this year. Still, it's a school, and don't like
her having to be around 21 other kids 3 hours a day. I think it
should be a child's choice to go to school or not, so though I want
to unschool her, I struggle with the decision.

> play with them. Is it possible for her to spend TOO much time with
> adults, and not enough with other little ones, if that's the way
our
> path takes us?

I think if you are able to give her contact with other adults, it's
better than social time with other kids. I know parents who
homeschool and don't expose their children to other adults, and their
children are socially retarded. Look at kids who've spent there
childhood in daycares around other children. I know I don't want my
daughter acting like them either.

I am starting to question the value of her having lots of time with
kids her age. I think I pushed her into it when she was 3, thinking
she needed to have peer friends, and now I regret it. I wish I had
encouraged her to enjoy being by herself more at that age. I think
it's great that she's outgoing, but I see that she tries too hard to
impress her friends and is not discovering who she is. I am slowly
changing her mind about school (I can't imagine she'd like spending 7
hours a day there next year) and trying to find a small group of
homeschooled children for her to play with.
Amy

Mary Bianco

>From: "katielouba" <LsMe@...>


<<Absolutely! Our 3 1/2 year old loves to play with others, but she's
equally happy to be just with me. My concern is that she's getting
enough exposure to other children to feel comfortable, when she does
play with them. Is it possible for her to spend TOO much time with
adults, and not enough with other little ones, if that's the way our
path takes us?>>



My first was an only child for 9 years. Not only was I not familiar with
babies in general, but I had no friends who had kids her age. All my friends
were older and had started much younger having kids. So Tara was pretty much
alone with just adults for her first 4 years. The result was a very vocal
and mature child at a very young age. By the age of 2, an adult could
actually sit and have a conversation with her. I mean a real converstation.
When I would take her to a rare occasion where there were other little kids,
she would refuse to play with them. Always said they did stupid stuff that
she wasn't interested in. I took her everywhere with me, but again she was
only around adults. She had one cousin 10 months younger that she played
with at the most, once a week.

When I had to send her to preschool, she was teachers pet and refused to
play with the kids. She still tells horror stories of how awful it was. She
never really hung out with kids until like 3rd grade. She considered herself
a nerd until like 6th grade. Then she started going straight to the I want
to be grown up stage. Pretty sad. Now she's great and very social but she
missed a lot of being a kid. I'm sure some of it was just her personality
but a lot of it was also me screwing up.

Mary B


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Todd M.

At 05:03 AM 10/25/02 +0000, you wrote:

>Is it possible for her to spend TOO much time with adults, and not enough
>with other little ones, if that's the way our path takes us?
==
Not at 3 1/2 --IMO :)

Todd
"A day without sunshine is, like, Night"
http://rambleman.tripod.com/index.html

[email protected]

We have had several only children be regulars at our house over the years.
One current one is an only and very introverted. He doesn't mind being the
only at his house most days. And when he's here he's not the guest of any
one particular person.

If you're the parents of an only, don't feel you have to reciprocate hour for
hour (or maybe at all) if your child visits families with several. For me,
having four instead of three is not much change. And often my kids will
behave better if we have company (especially when they were younger) than if
we don't, so the borrowed kid was a catalyst for more civilized interactions,
and it was someone else to play multi-player games with and so on. But if
his mom took all my three, the difference for her between one and FOUR is
huge.

So don't feel bad if a larger family has your only over a lot. It's probably
good for their family too. Sometimes his mom sends $20 for food, and
sometimes she sends real food! Sometimes nothing, sometimes we watch the
poodle too, sometimes he's here a week. No problem.

Sandra

Mary Bianco

>From: SandraDodd@...

<<If you're the parents of an only, don't feel you have to reciprocate hour
for hour (or maybe at all) if your child visits families with several. For
me, having four instead of three is not much change. And often my kids will
behave better if we have company (especially when they were younger) than if
we don't, so the borrowed kid was a catalyst for more civilized
interactions, and it was someone else to play multi-player games with and so
on. But if his mom took all my three, the difference for her between one
and FOUR is huge.>>


I hear this all the time from parents of Tara's friends and also from other
friends of mine that I let their kids come over. Sometimes Tara will have
2-3 over and then one for the younger ones will be here. People always think
it must be so disruptive to me having so many around. Like you said, what's
the big deal? Having 2-3 extra when I have 4 already is not much of a
difference. Of course I would never expect them to take all of mine.
Actually, I get more done when friends are over. They keep each other
busier! <BG>

Mary B


_________________________________________________________________
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[email protected]

In a message dated 10/25/02 6:36:36 PM, mummyone24@... writes:

<< Actually, I get more done when friends are over. They keep each other
busier! <BG> >>

YEP!

And the same old toys are NEW when seen through the eyes of guests. And the
new kids can think of something fun to do in the same old yard that's getting
boring to my kids.

Sandra

[email protected]

On Fri, 25 Oct 2002 20:08:47 EDT SandraDodd@... writes:
> If you're the parents of an only, don't feel you have to reciprocate
> hour for
> hour (or maybe at all) if your child visits families with several.

That's nice to hear.

Rain spends a lot more time visiting friends than they spend visiting
here, and it's always been this way. It just seemed to work out better -
most of her visits are with *families* of kids, even if one is her age
and they do most stuff together, the other siblings are generally part of
at least some of the interactions, and when we just invite the one kid
over they both often miss the sibling - if I take Rain and a friend out
for ice cream, they've always wanted to buy one for the sibling left at
home. Sometimes it is nice, though, so they can just closet themselves
away and play long uninterrupted imagination games for hours.

Anyway, it seems like the more kids you have, the harder it is to pack
them all up for a visit, and the more stressed I get when they're here,
to be honest. I'm used to certain levels of actvity and noise and chaos -
we had a party here a few weeks ago with 50+ unschoolers of all ages
(spread out over the 3 houses and a few tents on the farm) and while it
was great fun, I also felt frazzled most of the time, and had to keep
ducking out for some quiet interactions with my anti-social friend and
the ball games. I'm really more of an introvert, and Rain right now seems
much more extraverted.

I try to do other things - bring food, buy pizza, babysit at their house,
run errands - that are easier for me.

And lots of people tell me how wonderful Rain is, and how much they love
having her over, and that makes me feel really good. I have one email
friend who I've known for almost 7 years now, who apparently knew a lot
of only children who didn't play well with younger siblings, and she
assumed that that was typical, and never seemed to believe me when I said
Rain wasn't like that. We've gotten together a handful of times in person
now, and the last time she told me that her girls (Rain's age and a few
years older) had told her with some amazement that Rain really *was* good
with younger kids. She had played a game of chess with their younger
brother, and had spent most of the rest of the day with a friend's 2 year
old on her hip. So that felt good... and there were times when she handed
me the 2 yr old and quietly mentioned that they were trying to play
pollies and they were too little for E to play with, and I was happy to
take her out to collect eggs for half an hour or so. I sorta like having
a 2 yr old sometimes, too..

This got long and off-subject and sort of braggy, and I'm sorry... I
guess this is a skill she has that I'm really proud of, something many
people told me she wouldn't be good at, so I had to mention it.

Dar

[email protected]

In a message dated 10/25/02 8:41:18 PM, freeform@... writes:

<< I have one email
friend who I've known for almost 7 years now, who apparently knew a lot
of only children who didn't play well with younger siblings, >>

Was she used to "school kids"?
Because we've found homeschooled kids don't seem to care how old the others
are, but kids in school are way hesitant to associate with those "below them."

Marty has been hanging around with a guy who's a senior in high school.
Marty would be an 8th grader if he were in school. But because Marty is NOT
an 8th grader, the older kid can socialize with him fine. <g> (Also they met
because of Kirby and the gaming shop, so it slowly became a non-issue.)

-=-This got long and off-subject and sort of braggy, and I'm sorry... I
guess this is a skill she has that I'm really proud of, something many
people told me she wouldn't be good at, so I had to mention it.-=-

It didn't seem off subject to me, but a really good point to make about
homeschooled kids in groups of varied ages.

Marty broke off with one friend because Marty couldn't stand the way the boy
treated his younger brother, and when Marty tried to include the younger one,
the older one would be meaner still. So Marty quit going over, and finally
asked me to tell the Grandmother (who was raising them) why. Another similar
situation came up, but Marty was older (8 the first time, 10 or 11 the second
time) and just talked to the boy himself, and sometimes when he's there, he
just plays with the younger brother all on his own.

Sandra

[email protected]

On Fri, 25 Oct 2002 23:19:24 EDT SandraDodd@... writes:
>
> In a message dated 10/25/02 8:41:18 PM, freeform@... writes:
>
> << I have one email
> friend who I've known for almost 7 years now, who apparently knew a
lot
> of only children who didn't play well with younger siblings, >>
>
> Was she used to "school kids"?

No, they're long-time homeschoolers with almost all homeschooled friends.
I know they had one only-child friend who always tried to exclude younger
brother, and I think, from things she'd said, that she felt some sense of
loss about how her relationship with her oldest child changed after she
had more children, and so she tried really hard to convince herself that
having siblings was The Best Thing That Could have Happened to this kid.
And it probably was a really good thing for her, because she was and
still is the type of kid who is very introverted and doesn't make friends
easily, and having siblings gave her a ready-made safe group of people to
hang out with while she gained some confidence in herself. And they all
love each other and are very close and have fun together, I'm not saying
having lots of kids isn't a good thing... but I think there's also a loss
of the old whenever you add something new.

Rain is an only child basically by accident, which is fine, it's worked
out for us, but it wasn't by design. I'm the oldest of three, and I am
really glad I had my brother around when I was growing up.

> Another similar
> situation came up, but Marty was older (8 the first time, 10 or 11 the
second
> time) and just talked to the boy himself, and sometimes when he's
> there, he just plays with the younger brother all on his own.

Almost two years ago when we were planning Rain's birthday party she
wanted to go horseback riding,which meant we were limited to 9 guests
because that's how many horses they had. Usually we'd invite whole
families to her parties, but this year I told her that we wouldn't be
able to invite 9 people plus all their younger brothers and sisters, it
had to be just 9 people. We were okay with the first few kids, because
their siblings were babies at the time, and then we got to her friend
Annie and Annie's 5 yr old brother, Joe. I reminded her that we were just
inviting friends, not little brothers, and she told me quite firmly that
Joe was not a Little Brother, he was Friend Too. Mea Culpa. I learned...

Dar

Kelli Traaseth

Dar, (you know I read your posts all the time but I'm not sure if your whole name is Darlene?) hope Dar is OK.

Please keep writing about Rain, she sounds great. I love hearing about what other kids are up to.
Take Care
Kelli
freeform@... wrote:
On Fri, 25 Oct 2002 20:08:47 EDT SandraDodd@... writes:
> If you're the parents of an only, don't feel you have to reciprocate
> hour for
> hour (or maybe at all) if your child visits families with several.

That's nice to hear.

Rain spends a lot more time visiting friends than they spend visiting
here, and it's always been this way. It just seemed to work out better -
most of her visits are with *families* of kids, even if one is her age
and they do most stuff together, the other siblings are generally part of
at least some of the interactions, and when we just invite the one kid
over they both often miss the sibling - if I take Rain and a friend out
for ice cream, they've always wanted to buy one for the sibling left at
home. Sometimes it is nice, though, so they can just closet themselves
away and play long uninterrupted imagination games for hours.

Anyway, it seems like the more kids you have, the harder it is to pack
them all up for a visit, and the more stressed I get when they're here,
to be honest. I'm used to certain levels of actvity and noise and chaos -
we had a party here a few weeks ago with 50+ unschoolers of all ages
(spread out over the 3 houses and a few tents on the farm) and while it
was great fun, I also felt frazzled most of the time, and had to keep
ducking out for some quiet interactions with my anti-social friend and
the ball games. I'm really more of an introvert, and Rain right now seems
much more extraverted.

I try to do other things - bring food, buy pizza, babysit at their house,
run errands - that are easier for me.

And lots of people tell me how wonderful Rain is, and how much they love
having her over, and that makes me feel really good. I have one email
friend who I've known for almost 7 years now, who apparently knew a lot
of only children who didn't play well with younger siblings, and she
assumed that that was typical, and never seemed to believe me when I said
Rain wasn't like that. We've gotten together a handful of times in person
now, and the last time she told me that her girls (Rain's age and a few
years older) had told her with some amazement that Rain really *was* good
with younger kids. She had played a game of chess with their younger
brother, and had spent most of the rest of the day with a friend's 2 year
old on her hip. So that felt good... and there were times when she handed
me the 2 yr old and quietly mentioned that they were trying to play
pollies and they were too little for E to play with, and I was happy to
take her out to collect eggs for half an hour or so. I sorta like having
a 2 yr old sometimes, too..

This got long and off-subject and sort of braggy, and I'm sorry... I
guess this is a skill she has that I'm really proud of, something many
people told me she wouldn't be good at, so I had to mention it.

Dar

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