Socialising My Children: Part 3

The biggest factor I have noticed in the developing social skills of my own children is the atmosphere of our family home.  I take effort to have some lovely, inspiring artwork about our home.  Something changes when you have something gently encouraging in daily life to lay your eyes upon and think about.  The type of music we listen to - often having some form of instrumental or classical music playing in the background during different times of our days helps create a relaxed, soothing atmosphere for our work and play.  Plenty of time out of doors, fresh air, sunshine, exercise, nature rambles and observations adds a dimension to our days, and soothes nerves and anxieties like nothing else can.  How talk to my children, in day to day instruction, discussion, and when they require some discipline.  When I speak softly, gently, firmly, choosing words that are respectful to my children, they feel valued by me, they know that words and how you say them, your body language, all means something important and they pick up on those things.

Ever spent time with a family that has uninspiring posters all over their walls, listens to loud, grating music most of the time and does not take care with their words and actions?  Generally I tend to feel exhausted, uncared for and irritated in an atmosphere like that.  And it has no positive effect on my social skills, as all I want to do is distance myself, or make some irritating retorts as I slip back into unfriendly, unhelpful habits.  It is just plain old hard, unrewarding work to try and be positive socially in an atmosphere like that.

In teaching my children social skills over the years I have found the wide reading of good books together helpful, as during the stories various characters and personalities appear.  We are able to chat about the characters we love and those we dislike, and why and occasionally we reflect back on how we might meet with similar characters in real life.

Watching myself, and how I respond in various social situations - How do I respond when I find myself the new person in a group?   How do I respond when I see a new person enter my group?  How do I talk to people serving me in the supermarket and shops?  How do I answer the phone?  How do I deal with conflict?  I still remember the rude awakening I had one day, when my children were all preschool age and under.  I caught them talking to eachother using phrases and a manner that was quite disrespectful and I wanted to put a stop to it.  I puzzled for some days over where they could have picked up that particular behaviour.  And one day, I discovered the answer.  To my shock, they had picked up that behaviour from me!  I caught myself using the very same phrase and body language one day to them.  Oh my!  Yes, I am a model to my children.  I have since learned to watch my tongue, my tone of voice and my body language.

Building friendships is also an important factor.  Home schooling has allowed us the opportunity to build friendships with families.  And based on people we meet, the characters we meet in books and movies, and principles and ideas we read about in Proverbs have provided opportunities for us to discuss what we should look for in people we would like to call our friends.  And it helps us to learn what we need to work on in order to be the kind of friends we would like to have.  Our children have also developed individual friendships, but the time spent together is usually with the family.  This has had the added benefit of giving opportunities for both us and our children to learn to relate to people of all ages within a community-like setting.

Ernest Walbourn
Bringing Home The Sheep

Loneliness is something important to address here as well.  Many homeschooling families do experience periods of loneliness and feelings of isolation from time to time.  We have experienced this twice over the years.  The first time was when we first began homeschooling and was finding our way in the homeschool community, trying to make new friends and work out where we fit and getting used to not being at school every day.  The second time was when we moved and finding ourselves new in a very large community and having it take a long time to find people to socialise with and then to begin the process of making friends.  I think most people experience feelings of loneliness and isolation at some point in their lives.  Dealing with it in a positive manner is important, otherwise we can very well find ourselves depressed and miserable.

We coped with our feelings of loneliness and isolation by using those times to really connect together as a family.  The idea of creating some long lasting happy family memories is important.  Having some lovely daily routines was a help - like a back yard lunch time picnic, or an afternoon tea time together with something lovely to eat and lovely cups and table setting, running out in the rain and playing in the mud on those summer rainy days.  Playing games together, watching a family movie together one night a week complete with pop corn.  The occasional special outing like going to the beach, or a bush walk, or spending the afternoon on our boat fishing and swimming, were days where we created many memories together.

Developing some interests and working on projects by keeing our days full with something to think about, something to do and something to love, was something which took our focus away from our lack of social activity and connection, and gave purpose to the loneliest of days.  Craft projects like sewing, painting, creating our own books and photoalbums.  My girls spent this time making their own mini-movies with their dolls and creating their own story lines, costumes and backgrounds.  Making up their own dances and learning music. 

Pets created the opportunity to have something to care for and have a live presence in our home that wasn't just family.  In one home our girls discovered an injured blue tonge lizard (he had lost a leg).  We named him Leslie the Lizard and kept him in a tank for a couple of months while his leg recuperated, until we set him free back into our garden.  We learned what he needed to eat and how to set up the tank to care for him.  In another home we had dogs for a time that the girls played with each day in the yard.  These days we have some pet birds in the house and our chickens.  Inviting wild birds into our yard also created interest - planting a few native bushes to attract them and also adding a bird feeder was a wonderful addition to our home.

Building good friendships and living in community is important.  We were  not meant to live on our own.  Some people enjoy their own company more than others, that is ok.  But essentially we need other people.  For us, while we were busy creating happy, positive and fulfilling lives, we were also busy praying.  Asking God to send us people that we could make friendships with, and asking God to help us in our period of loneliness.

Now that our lives are very busy, where we have children involved in work, homeschooling groups and church community activities and ministries, and involved more with their own peers, those years of quiet family time are looked back on with fondness.  And the ties and memories we created then as a family, see us through times now of separation and busy activity.  Opening our home to our childrens' friends is important for us to maintain an active interest in their broadening lives and also to get to know their friends.   Family meals are now important as a connecting point during our days and weeks of hustle and bustle.  Often I try to make the effort to create a lovely meal time atmosphere - quiet instrumental music, lights turned off, candles lighted, table set nicely.  These things encourage connection while we eat, and make our meal times enjoyable while we discuss our days together.  Lately we are also working on implementing a Family night, the idea being that we spend the evening together in a family activity being a movie, or playing a game together, or enjoying dessert outside while watching the stars in our back yard.

So that has been our social journey with our children as a family.