Quote from: TKGS

Quote from: MaterDominici

Oddly enough, the columnist is a homeschooler. I read a lot of her stuff. She's thought-provoking, but you have to sort the good from the bad.

There's still the question for a homeschooler, though, of where to find good places for your kids to form friendships and socialize. Church can be a very limited option especially when many there don't homeschool.

This is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of homeschooling and of raising children.

Children DO NOT NEED, nor is it necessarily desirable for them to form friendships or socialize with groups of children their own ages.  It is a completely artificial and unnatural situation.  Children do need, on the other hand, to socialize with others and form friendships.

The real question is not whether they should do so, but with whom?  The first place they should learn to socialize with others is in the family and secondly in the parish.  Friendships should form between siblings and with others they meet, especially in the parish.  They need no friends who are pagans, heretics, schismatics, etc., in the local community where they live.  I realize that this can "isolate" them to some extent, because, unlike the way many of our grand parents grew up, the local community and the parish are not physically in or around the same place.

How many adults do you know who socialize only with their own age groups? If there are any, they are likely to be the kind of people no Catholic, let alone traditional Catholic, would want to be anywhere near.  My family lives in a rural area.  While there are a scattering of houses on the street, there are very few children of the same ages as my children.  Yet, my children are very well adapted and can speak to adults (for the most part) properly.  They are not unable to cope when they leave the relative safety of our home.  And they never attend youth parties where there are not families and adults all around.

I had been taught the idea of forming friendships with those of one's own age, but would not age and experience matter to some degree as far as one person in a state of life relating best with another in a similar state of life?