Just Musings...

So, today Cameron made his first friends and it was so cool.  I loved watching him outside, playing hide and go seek and tag with this little boy his age and a little girl.  He had a lot of fun, running around our courtyard with them.  

One of the things I seriously considered when I started thinking of home schooling was that age-old "socialization" question.  You know, the "how will he make friends" thing.  I read everything I could find on it and I discovered what I had already thought--that the "socialization" from 5th-12th grades in public schools is far more detrimental than good.  Peer-pressure, bullying, drugs, sex...it all gets progressively worse as they go through public schools.  I had a pretty good idea of it, but after reading the studies from all over the country, I was shocked at the statistics on the number of kids that come out of high school who have had sex, done drugs, been victims of all sorts of different things.  It's just ridiculous.  I have to say, it scared the hell out of me really, as I'm sure lots of parents can relate.  We did not choose to home school Cameron for this reason (although it probably would have been a good one!) but it's a definite plus, knowing he isn't being exposed to that.  (I plan to do a longer post on how we came to the decision to try home schooling later.)

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here--children will push limits.  I get that, totally.  They will experiment with things and I accept that this is something that no matter how much you want to control, you just can't control all of it.  The thing is, that I want to make sure I am doing my part to limit the amount of access my child has to situations that he doesn't need to be in.  With the home schooling, Cameron will have friends in much more supervisory environments--outside with the kids in plain view, or in boy scouts under leaders (I'm getting him in that in February). It's done a lot for my peace of mind to see him out playing and having a good time, and knowing that it's good, clean fun. 

I know that the days are coming when Cam will be off and running, going to friend's houses and just getting into mischief, trying stuff I will warn him against, but for now, just that slice of time when he was out yelling and laughing, it's good to remember that he's still just a little boy with limits, yes, but so many possibilities as well.