Advice from the more experienced, please? Regarding co-ops, other.

[BonnieLK]

I'm homeschooling an only child (4.5 year old, very social boy) without family around, without neighbor children. We've only lived in this community for a year so we don't have the kind of neighborhood kids/friends-from-birth network that many people have. Except for YMCA kid zone hours and seasonal sports (weekly soccer in the fall, weekly lacrosse in the spring) and library story time, we're actually fairly isolated, and it kills me that my kid doesn't have friends he can reliably look forward to seeing. We're a secular family, so no church community, and all the 4-5 year olds from the Y kid zone are going into public school so even that exposure will be to younger children.

 

So I signed up for a co-op in another town, about a 30 min drive. It meets 1x a week from 9-1 for its co-op day and then meets again on another day for "recess". Kiddo has been having a great time at the summer "recess" days.

 

My dilemma has a few points.

 

1) The drive to other town can be brutal in the winter. We have to cross a bridge and drive through flat open spaces and the wind, even if it's not bad weather, is terrible.

 

2) Fall soccer takes place on the same evening as co-op day, so we'd be out of the house from ~8 am to ~2 pm, and then have soccer from 5:30-6--which will be exhausting for him, and also leave ME no time for the gym (obviously it'll end up being a crockpot day).

 

3) He's also in physical therapy 1x a week in the other town. Right now I'm looking at three trips a week, an hour round trip each time, and for the life of me I can't figure out when we'll actually have a home life in all of that.

 

But...those kids 2x a week would be his "classmates", probably his primary friends, and I REALLY want him to form relationships with other kids. It's the one big thing that makes me question whether homeschool vs public school is the best plan (academically it is, absolutely, but math doesn't make a whole person).

 

 

Does anybody with an only and limited community have similar experiences? Advice?

 

The co-op would give us a "school" community but at what seems to me a fairly high price.

 

 

 

So I know this is super long already, sorry! Thanks for hanging in. If I didn't do the co-op in the other town, we could still connect weekly with a much more local group that meets for social hour rather than formal co-op classes. They meet 1 day a week in the afternoon. We'd have more time to spend at local playgrounds, we'd be able to spend more time in the Y kid zone (good for me even if the kids do end up younger--if we have evening YMCA time, they'll be older children), we'd be able to keep to a more consistent routine... he'll be in soccer 1x/week from Sept 7-Oct 26, and he turns 5 in December so I can pursue 4H at that point. We'd get to keep the 2 hours/week we'd otherwise spend in a car.

 

 

What would you all do? Co-op for pre-k in the interest of friends (and a sense of "going to school" for a child who is going to be terribly disappointed when he realizes he won't be getting on the school bus come end of August), or skip the co-op and focus more on the home routine, local activities (I can always join MOPS for another year and take him to playdates, although they tend to be mostly babies), family time, and so on?

 

If you're still here--thank you for reading and offering advice.

Edited July 27, 2016 by BonnieLK

[Ellie]

I wouldn't do it. The local group (I'm assuming it's a homeschool support group?), plus the other things you are planning, will be more than enough. Having children who are local is much better than being part of a group that lives so far away. Also, it will actually be more than two hours in the car; it will be preparing to leave the house (and don't underestimate how soul-sucking that can be) and regrouping when you get home.

 

Your ds won't be the first child to be "disappointed" because he didn't get on the school bus; he'll survive.  You can help that be less of a disappointment by not making a big deal about it, and by emphasizing how wonderful and natural it is for children to stay home with their mothers.

[Mama2BugNBear]

I wouldn't participate in the co-op either. It seems like it'll eat up too much of your time, IMO

[BonnieLK]

He was in a preschool 3s class in other town last year, and I do remember how miserable it was getting out of the house on time in the morning. We missed a lot of school during the winter between bad weather and child illness (which is another thing...) And I'm the kind of introvert who's entire day is shot after that kind of activity. Just our physical therapy day wears me out mentally.

 

Local group is I suppose, yes, a support group. They meet weekly in the afternoon and go on mini field trips together. I met them at a swap a couple weeks ago. They're nice people. The kids are a little older, except for one who is a little younger, but they're nice people.

 

Thank you both. I'm sure I wouldn't be second-guessing at all the other co-op (formal co-op) was REALLY the right experience for us.

[aaplank]

I would try it. Community is so important, and if you don't have community in other places, it might be worth the sacrifice. If it doesn't work out, you can try something else. I would drop soccer though. In my mind, finding community would trump sports, especially for a very young child.

 

I've had to make some hard sacrifices to keep going to a co-op that is 30 minutes away because after several years of trying, the kids finally feel like they are part of a cohesive group. We weren't getting that from ad hoc classes and sports we tried in the past.

 

Good luck finding your "people"!

[Peaceful Isle]

He is still so young. You are pretty much his world right now :) Maybe you could wait a year, and then try it. I wish I had realized how little my kids needed at that age.

[Farrar]

I strongly believe that preK-2nd grade is the time to build your homeschooling community and that time invested in that is time well spent. You won't have that time later because academics will take more time. Kids form friendships relatively easily at this age but it can be much harder to break into friendship groups as they get older.

 

However, that said, I don't know that I'd do this co-op. If you'd tried other options, then maybe I'd say give it a shot. But before doing that, I think I'd try to put together a smaller group that would be closer. Maybe you can run a park day closer to home and see who comes. Or, better yet, maybe you can organize something - Spanish circle, weekly games day, weekly nature walk, mini-art group, Lego building club, etc. etc. Whatever you think you could support that might draw a small, core group of other homeschool kids.

[busymama7]

I wouldn't be able to homeschool without my coop and what I call my tribe. Yes we have weekly coop for 22 weeks of the year and I have a driven further than that for it but without weather issues. I KNOW my kids wouldn't be as happy homeschooling if it wasn't for coop either. Several have said its the main reason they have no desire to go to public high school. They have their friends and they have a group to belong to. They don't need to look for it elsewhere. I have seen many, many, many pre teens/teens go to school for social reasons because the parents didn't make an effort to establish their social group when they were young. It's harder to make those long lasting friendships when older, IMO and experience. I consider it part of homeschooling to provide this. It's not optional.

 

Having said that, I would be very unlikely to commit to a coop day at your child's age. Can you just go to the recess day for now? We don't allow families to join our coop classes until the oldest in the family is 8. The younger kids need consistent play time and park days are perfect for that!

[Miss Tick]

I wouldn't do the farther away group. In addition to some of the other comments I would ads a caution about long term results. Best case, you would be setting yourself up for friends/playdates 1 to 2 hours away. Difficult. Stay with the smaller, local group. My kids preferred free-play time to scheduled work with fringe social time at that age. Perhaps you could arrange a trip on a school bus for the group, that was what my young homeschoolers always wanted to do.

[Carrie12345]

We're pretty isolated.  I have made it a priority for my older kids to be involved in co-op and other regular activities and it's been a very, very good thing for them.  When they were younger, I didn't, and it was fine. Sure, they had each other and that was "something", but I still don't think I would have gone nuts for an only at such a young age.  But that's rooted in my parenting philosophy of wanting family to be the focus and the primary influence in the elementary and early middle school years.

 

Today, my younger kids are a lot more involved than their siblings were, but only because they're dragged around to all the teens' activities, including co-op.  I'm rolling with it, but I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't have older kids.  Or if the older kids' activities weren't so far away.

[bethben]

I had a very social child at that age also. We never had the opportunity for co-ops and very little interaction with the local homeschool group just due to the makeup of our family. My son had one public school buddy across the street. Eventually, we got to know the other kids in the local homeschool group, but they were never his close close friends. Eventually, he made some close friends in church and now since moving, he has a good youth group with as many friends as he could possibly want. His life was not damaged by our isolation of a social child (by circumstances). He has matured into a very socially adept young man.

 

 

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[Reefgazer]

For my kids, the social aspect of things is critical to their well-being and happiness, so we would do it all even if it killed me.  Oh, wait, what am I saying?  I am doing it all and it is killing me, LOL!  But the kids are happy.  If your kid is really a people person, you can't change that no matter how wonderful you and he work together during the day.  I'd have seriously unhappy kids here if I were to try and convince them that I was a wonderful substitute for their friends; I'm not, and no amount of dressing it up will change that.

 

Can you take the 1X per week therapy and make it on the same day as the recess day to reduce travel time? Also, on a bad weather winter day, I would be inclined to bag a single day that was rough travel, rather than toss the whole thing.

Edited July 28, 2016 by reefgazer

[BonnieLK]

Thank you all for your insights.

 

I'm really not sure why I'm being so indecisive. If it weren't for the soccer on same day as co-op day, or if I could get OT on either co-op day or recess day, it would be an easier decision. I don't reeeeally want to let go of soccer because ds is overweight and needs the structured activity (he also enjoyed it last year--this year, I don't know, because he'll be an almost 5 year old in a 2-4 year olds group, too old for the "little kickers" but not old enough for the big-kids group). But co-op is all year whereas soccer is only 2 months. I very strongly believe he needs peers. He enjoys being with me but he's with me all the time and every time he sees other kids, whether he knows them or not, he begs to go play with them.

 

Parenting is hard. Remember when it was just a decision between purees and baby led weaning? :P

[The Governess]

Since this is not really an academic year for him, I would try the co-op this year. You have the time. Think of it as your year to sample what's out there! On that note, I would also do soccer and 4-h when he is old enough, and any other local things he is interested in. Then when you start k next year, pare down and stick with the activities where he made friends and you feel you have some community.

 

Disclaimer: this advice is coming from a mom who drives at least an hour round trip to kid activities just about every day.... ;)

[kaxy]

Not sure which bridge, but I used to live in Pittsburgh and it was kind of a running joke for planning something: "Do I need to cross a bridge? Go through a tunnel? Do I reaaaaaaaally want to do this thing?" haha. 

 

It sounds like too much. You already have soccer and outings. What about a library class? Some libraries have daytime story hour for that age set, and you might get some regulars.