Rural homeschoolers

[mamajag]

Where I live, virtually no one HSs. We aren't religious so the kids don't have that opportunity to make friends. We do activities like ballet and music class but most of that time is instructional and so they have superficial friends from that but does not know them well enough for invites to birthday parties and such. Cousins live out of town. The girls are getting old enough to want to have real friends and I feel like I am failing them. We are saving up to move within a year or so to Austin, TX, and hear there are great HSing groups there. I am just trying to think of what I can do in the meantime.

 

We don't really have same-age friends, either, because we settled away from them after traveling the country doing construction

 

Does anyone else in the same sort of situation? My kids handle themselves well with people of all ages but they are feeling the lack of peers. *sighs*

[TengoFive]

We are very rural. My kids have made their closest friends through 4H. They also have a lot of friends on the swim team, which we drive 30 minutes to.

[Elizabeth in MN]

There can be lots of places that you can make take your kids to give them the opportunity to make friends. Girl Scouts, 4H, library reading groups, the play ground, and the like.

 

However.

 

In rural communities there can be a lot of resistance to new people. Kids take their cues from the adults, and if the adults are xenophobic the kids will be too. We've lived here for almost nine years and we still have no local friends. We tried everything there was, and nada happened. We tried the local home schooling community, everything I listed above, and even tried different towns. Goose egg. We still plug away at it and maybe someday we'll catch a break.

[swellmomma]

We are rural, and the only homeschooling family in my immediate town. My big kids are making their best friends at cadets. There is a lot of bonding there because though there is a lot of instructional time, they are doing a lot of other activities etc together that promotes it. We have no friends here in town so it is harder on the younger 2 that are too young for cadets. They do go to kids church but have not made any friends there, and dd5 like big sister goes to dance but like you see dance is not really the place to find your best bud at the younger ages (sometimes when older they do because they are there so much, but in the younger levels not so much)

[dzingirl]

We live in a rural area and the only homeschooling groups I've found are religiously based with the whole signing of a statement of faith and what-not. I am not religious, so those kind of groups make me uncomfortable. DD bowls in a bumper league once a week Oct through March and I signed her up for gymnastics in an effort for her to make friends, but like you mentioned, the girls are kept moving and need to focus on the activity at hand, so they don't really get to talk. I'm thinking of trying Girl Scouts and/or 4-H.

[Mergath]

In rural communities there can be a lot of resistance to new people. Kids take their cues from the adults, and if the adults are xenophobic the kids will be too. We've lived here for almost nine years and we still have no local friends. We tried everything there was, and nada happened. We tried the local home schooling community, everything I listed above, and even tried different towns. Goose egg. We still plug away at it and maybe someday we'll catch a break.

 

:iagree: I was born and raised in Minnesota, but it was a different part of Minnesota than we live in now, so people will deign to speak to us, but they won't actually interact with us outside of superficial, chatting in the grocery line sorts of ways. :rolleyes: There are many pluses to living in a rural area, but making tons of friends definitely is not one of them. I can't even count the number of times I've given someone my phone number and said, "Let's get the kids together sometime to play," and then never heard from them again. It makes me miss living in a bigger city. :(

[swellmomma]

However.

 

In rural communities there can be a lot of resistance to new people. Kids take their cues from the adults, and if the adults are xenophobic the kids will be too. We've lived here for almost nine years and we still have no local friends. We tried everything there was, and nada happened. We tried the local home schooling community, everything I listed above, and even tried different towns. Goose egg. We still plug away at it and maybe someday we'll catch a break.

 

This has been our experience. The level of bullying we deal with is strictly due to the parents encouraging/egging on the kids that outsiders are bad. The rumors and crap we have to hear just because not only are we outsiders and my parents and myself did not attend the local school but now I am "proving how much better I am by not sending my kids to that school". The homeschool "support" group I found to be exactly the same. 1 lady was very welcoming, but the 2 most vocal don't like outsiders so we were not really welcome there. Too bad since the entirety of the group from a 1 hour radius is 7 families. We do all our extracurrics in the next town over. It is a small town but much much bigger than my own and everyone has always been very welcoming. If it wasn't for the people in that town I would have run away long ago. Living in my own town is very isolating and depressing not just for me but for the kids too. Nothing like realizing not only does no one want to be your friend but that they actively hate you and wish you ill everytime they pass you on the street.