How do we meet like minded people?

[Sprogged]

Hi folks, after a lot of struggling with the fact that we live in an area where there are still Grammar schools and it would be nuts not to use them, hubby and I have turned full circle and decided that we're definitely going to home educate. We'd really like to meet like minded people, just to socialise and let Sprog make some friends, but she's only 22 months. Would people think it's just weird to join Facebook or something when our daughter's so young? It would be nice for her to have play dates with kids that aren't going to disappear to nursery and school and leave her wondering why they're there and she's not iyswim. What did you do when your children were younger?

It's certainly not odd to join online HE groups and many RL groups will be happy for you to go along with your DD. General HE groups usually have children from 0 to about 15. If you post your whereabouts, we can point you towards groups.

I go to HE groups and neither of my DDs are school age yet. I think it's nice for the children to mix with other age groups.

I've been taking Toddler (now 2.9) to a regular group since he was about 9-10 months old. At that stage I was about 90/95% certain we were going to home educate but I wanted to meet others, ask questions, etc. The group we attend (because it's local) was very open and welcoming. Some of the older kids in the group, aged 8 & 10/11, consider Toddler one of their friends and Toddler just worships them. Now that he's rapidly approaching three we're going slightly farther afield for one off activities with other groups just to expand our circle a bit. But as it is our group has three or four boys (mine included) who would be in the same school year.

Toddler does have friends who will be going down the traditional school route, too. It's good for him to have both, I think. But one of the advantages of starting going to H.E. groups young is that he'll know/learn/realize that H.E. is a valid/acceptable/"normal" option and all of his friends won't suddenly disappear when he's three/four/five.

No, join up :-) We decided to HE when our eldest was 4, and I started going to groups then, and didn't have much choice about taking the 2 year old and the baby along too! So your dd might turn out to be the youngest firstborn at an HE group, but there are bound to be little siblings there too :-)

Btw, home educating now certainly doesn't mean you can't use a grammar school in 10 years' time :-)

Thank you so much for all the lovely replies people. I contacted a local HE group in Canterbury a week ago and I was getting worried the moderator hadn't responded, it's a yahoo group. I thought 'oh dear, they must think we're weird wanting to take a 2 year old! But they emailed back today to welcome us so must have been just busy then.

It's good to know she can use the Grammar schools if she wants to go down the academic route aliportico but I feel so much better knowing she won't be coerced into anything. I'm sure that's where all the rot starts.

Thanks again for the lovely, supportive replies

Completely random question, but are you still breastfeeding at all? All of the HEers I know locally hang out at our La Leche League group, it's like the feeder nursery of the HE groups If not breastfeeding there is always something like sling meet if you have one near, just to meet a few like minded people and get an "in".

Yes BertieBotts I am. That's a great idea, thankyou

Definitely seek out a LLL group in that case - they're so supportive.