by Bayan Khatib
Homeschooling is growing more and more popular these days. One of the many benefits of homeschooling is that it allows parents to tailor learning environments to their children and their family values. Although homeschooling comes with many benefits, there are some drawbacks. Many homeschooling parents worry that their children aren’t interacting with peers on a regular basis as they would in a school setting. Other worries include carrying the responsibility of ensuring your child’s education is up to par and covers all curriculum requirements. If you are new to homeschooling you probably have many questions and concerns. A great way to address this is to get together with other homeschooling parents.

Meeting on a regular basis with other homeschooling parents has many advantages for you and your child. You will be able to exchange ideas and teaching techniques with other parents. Most importantly, though, you child will get a chance to interact with some of his or her peers. Children can be very impressionable and concerned about being different from everybody else. Therefore, it is important for your child to get together with other homeschooled children in an environment where they feel they fit in.

Homeschooling parents face the challenge of explaining to their child why they want to homeschool and why everybody else goes to a regular school. Meeting with other homeschooling families regularly can help in with this challenge. It will help your child see that there are other families that homeschool and that will foster your child’s feeling of belonging.

There are many different ways you can get together with other homeschooling parents. One of the best ways is to incorporate it into your child’s education. Keep in touch with other parents and if find that your families are studying the same subject at the same time, suggest a joint field trip. This way, the field trip will not only be educational but it will also give your child a chance to socialize and work on their interpersonal skills.

Another good idea is to suggest a group project for your child and a friend from another homeschooling family. If the other child is also working on a biology unit for example, you could suggest that the children work on planting a garden together. This will help your child develop important skills such as cooperation, leadership and sharing.

Another great idea that works well while teaching your child writing skills is to find child a penpal from among your homeschooling famlies group. This will provide your child with the opportunity to write often and to learn the proper format of letter writing and sending. Getting together with other homeschooling families can help you deal with the many of the challenges of homeschooling. It will make the homeschooling journey easier and more fun for you and your child.

Bayan Khatib, mother of four and author of two books, has been homeschooling for two years. She holds a degree in English and Professional Writing. Read more of her homeschooling articles at http://www.homeschool-central.com

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