Kaleidoscope: Part 2

I've been exposed to the idea of homeschooling in a several of different ways over the past 11 years; I've had friends that were homeschooled as kids and quite a number of friends that choose to homeschool their children now.

In Idaho Falls there was a family that homeschooled their four kids and I can remember other ward members saying, "She's crazy. I could NEVER do that. I'd go crazy!" And then there's the {dreaded},  "Plus, she's depriving her kids of learning social skills." (That one's my personal favorite.)

By nature (and nurture) I don't really like the word "can't" and by experience I don't use the word "won't" lightly. :) As I talked to this mom about her experiences, although kind of "radical," in my mind I put homeschooling under the category:

{Interesting Idea}

Later, I found that a close friend of mine had homeschooled her kids off and on over the years. I can clearly remember asking her about the social aspect of not being part of the public school.

"But Clancy, homeschooled kids are weird."

Her response is one that has hugely affected my views.

(paraphrasing) Clancy: "You know, there's actually a pretty large community of people here in Southeast Idaho that homeschool and they get together for big conferences on a regular basis. Because homeschooling is always on my radar, even when I'm not doing it, I attend and so I've met a lot of people that homeschool. One thing that I've learned is that the kids are only as weird as their parents."

Hahaha! HOW TRUE! And really, isn't that true for most people? We all knew weird homeschooled kids, because most of the people that chose to homeschool when we were kids were weird. :)

After that conversation, I amended my mental homeschooling file folder to read:

{Interesting Idea: Would Do If Felt Inspired (Thankfully I Don't)}.

As we've moved around the Northwest, I've met more families that homeschool - all with wonderfully social, polite, engaging, smart, and happy children - all with just enough inherited weird to make them fun. :)