How to connect with 'wholesome' families

[RosemarySutcliffe]

Please no tiresome comments of offended outrage. I was hoping for ideas on how to meet home educated families in the hope that my children (ages 13,11, 7 & 4) could make friends with children more like themselves. Children who are familiar with classic literature (nesbit, ransome, tolkien, lewis etc), who are imaginative, interested in culture (shakespeare, poetry, enthusiastic, outdoorsy, well-mannered and have a sense of good sportsmanship, traditional childhood fun, how to be a friend and so on.
It feels like a needle in a haystack. We don't do gaming, my children don't have ipads or phones, they have only been exposed to edifying, wholesome films. They don't have behaviour problems or mental health problems. They are just decent, normal, imperfect, regular children. They don't know who Taylor Swift is, they've never played minecraft. How to meet like-minded people? It feels as if home educated children these days are often far more homogeneous than children who attend school. I don't mean any judgement of offence, it just can feel a little lonely as a family when you are raising them outside of the prevailing culture. We would love to have friends to invite for afternoon tea and poetry, dinner parties, bonfires, book clubs, put on plays with, swallows and amazon style adventures.. you get the idea.

I’d love to help but my children are currently having a Swallows and Amazons style adventure (they’re camping solo on an island without any adult supervision). When I next see them in a week or two I’ll see if they’d like anyone else to join their camp. Do yours have their own boat?

I haven’t let my 3 year old read some of the nastier Shakespeare plays yet though so your 4yo would have to agree not to spoil the plot of Macbeth, Coriolanus for them while they chat.

Do you have home ed meet ups in your area? I home edded my children and we did quite a lot of home ed groups over the years. We probably met maybe 2 or 3 families who didn’t do electronics even with their teenagers. Not too sure met any with teenagers who’d want to do tea and poetry with their parents. Lots who did a fair amount of outdoor activities and bonfires etc. I think it’s probably a matter of (probably using Facebook) to track down all the home ed groups within reach of you and posting on there or going to their meet-ups.

I don't know. Taylor Swift is extremely talented. Don't rule things out because they're new.

Chess clubs and competitions?

Hanford boarding school?

You would have your media black out in an extreme religious setting but I doubt you would find the arts focus.

Drama club in a privileged area? Cricket team?

The swallows and amazons stuff, probably by having a holiday cottage or camping somewhere remote and hope to find like minded families.

If you live close to a university, there may be parents with a similar interest in the arts and eccentricity. But it doesn't mean they're passing it along to their children. You could find out, though. They will be at events.

My other suggestion would be to put them all on ponies and join the pony club as pony crazy children are at least involved in a wholesome sport.

I'm not entirely sure that what you're trying to do is entirely wholesome, though. My kids are very hiking and pony and raising their own hens but I recognise they need to be familiar with the world as it is and people as they are, not as they were in the yellowed pages of my nostalgia.

@Changeintheweathet thank you, there is some good advice here. I'm sure I have come across in the wrong way and sound both snobbish and rude. And I do take your point about TS and being familiar with the world as it is today.

My kids do all of what you said - independently read Tolkien, has done all of Narnia by y4, take themselves off to the cricket nets and all the rest of it, But they also are ninjas on Super Smash Bros, spend loads of time on Minecraft and the DD built an app for managing curly hair this summer, so you probably wouldn’t want to hang out with us, especially given we go to bog standard state schools.

The point I’m trying to make is that you find friends all over, and nobody is as perfect as you might like. So unclench a bit and you’ll find some great people to hang out with. I’m as judgey as they come but I can’t manage to judge my friends on a reasonable attitude to technology. It will also depend on where you are in the country - there are quite a lot of people like you describe near me (Cambridge).

Also my DC and their friends all get that different houses have different rules. They know that some houses are screen free, and some houses have no screen limits, and they adapt accordingly.

In the spirit of actually answering your question -in my experience families like those you describe are found at my church, at cricket and music school.

@Pottingup thank you, we live in a very remote and rural area with poor travel links and the couple of home ed groups we've tried over the years have not been particularly fruitful. They do have numerous lovely friends but due to several families moving away it has become thinner on the ground, especially for my eldest. The majority of their friends are not local and the few who are local attend school, which is fine obviously but it would be nice to have more home ed friends.

Do your children go to school? It isn't clear from your OP as you're saying you want to meet home educated children, rather than other HE ones.

You've already won the parent lottery if your children are as you say, so learning to rub along with others less like themselves will be valuable. Wholesome can be interpreted several ways including naive.

Are you preparing them for life in the 1950’s or life in the 2030’s?

I’m an older mum (had DS in my mid forties) and recognise that whilst DS read lots of Enid Blyton etc. (as well as playing Minecraft), little of it will be of much use to him as adequate prep for living in this century. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The pace of change is so fast that my childhood and adult work experiences (postgrad IT qualifications are seriously out of date!), are largely irrelevant these days unless you’re expecting them to live in some sort of rural commune as adults?

My daughter is well mannered, interested in culture, enjoys spending time outdoors and reads children’s classics but also loves Taylor Swift and playing on her Nintendo Switch. Maybe broaden your mind a bit and you might find it easier to help your kids make friends.

Yes they've never been to school. They are very normal children, not angels or geniuses. Happy for them to have a diverse group of friends but thatis my point, home ed circles increasingly seem to have only one type of child in the older age category. Virtually every post on our local FB board reads '13 year old only child, ASD, anxiety, loves gaming, manga and pokemon go.'
Nothing wrong with that at all, but I would like them to have the chance to make friends with children more like themselves.

From your last post I gather they don't go to school.If you live in such a remote location but there are, evidently, schools,why not try that as you're seriously narrowing their options and ability to socialise appropriately by keeping them so isolated.
The world is out there and they need to be able to navigate it, rural or not.

My 10 year old loves Taylor Swift and Minecraft. But she is also an amazingly talented reader and writer, a scout and part of a drama group. She is incredibly creative and is always drawing something or sewing. She loves playing out with her friends getting up to all kinds of adventures. Playing minecraft does not stop her from doing all of these other things.

They are not 'normal' children and they will not grow up to be 'normal' adults. You sound quite eccentric and I assume your kids will be too. And that's fine.

Perhaps I should have made it clearer that Taylor Swift, nintendo etc does not preclude friendship, but we have met so many children with no interests outside of these two things. I am happy for you that your daughter is more well rounded! It's not that I think nintendo is the end of the world, my children have also never skateboarded, gone skiing or been part of an archaeology club.. there are such a wealth of pursuits in this life that we can only fit in so much.

Have your children never listened to music radio or been in a shop where music is playing? It’s one thing to not know TS but not knowing any famous songs is pretty extreme.
Do they play musical instruments and play some classical composers?
My children have derived so much pleasure from music - especially during their teen years.

To answer your question (a bit): music ensembles- choirs, orchestras etc; scouts and similar; sports, especially when explored more deeply eg training, teams etc; art clubs and many other regular 'interest' groups are some of the ways to make deeper friendships with like minded others, especially if they have 'residentials' occasionally.

If your location excludes these then are there local groups or activities specific to your part of the world?

The other thing to bear in mind is that for your older children, the days of parents getting involved in friendships has generally finished, and they tend to sort out their own friends via school or hobbies, almost always using mobiles to message and stay in touch. I should think it would be rare to find many 13yr olds who are looking for their parents to set up a social life, which may limit your pool of social options further, though if you’re rural they have to involve you to some extent as you have to drive them places!

It can be luck or not as to who’s around and the ages. When my eldest got to 13 he struggled for enough home ed peers he clicked with and ended up going to a home ed provision at a local college a few days a week. My other kids though had enough peers all the way through.
It’s really hard if they don’t click - especially if they don’t want to go to school and may well find they don’t get on that well with people at school if they do. My son travelled quite a lot to hang out but we’re near London and so that was pretty easy.
Would your eldest like to do D of E? Mine did this and also found friends through volunteering in an outside activity from 13.

This sounds as extreme as letting an eight-year-old sit for hours on screens.

It is balance that will allow them to find and maintain a range of friendships, and create their own satisfying lives in the world that they'll encounter.

This level of restriction (I doubt you'll perceive it as restrictive, but really?) is not healthy for the vast majority of children.

Come back and update us in 10 years time. Honestly, you are isolating your children from the real world, and like it or not, we all have to be equipped to deal with real life as it is right now. Will they be going to university at all? If so they need to navigate their own social lives, but if they aren’t able to go/don’t want to, will they get jobs? Will they be able to cope with a diverse population of colleagues, who may talk about trash telly and Taylor Swift! Our job is to prepare children for life as fully functioning adults who can get on with lots of different people. Find clubs they can join, you haven’t talked much about extra curricular activities with other children which would, in any home-ed family, surely be a priority?

Oh very much, they all play piano to varying to degrees.. one plays very well. Heaps of instruments around the house. They know plenty of classical music, composers etc as well as lots of more modern music like Bob Dylan, Elvis.. also hymns and folk music aplenty. It's not like they not are allowed to listen to Taylor Swift. I only mentioned her specifically because we know multiple children who are obsessed and she is the only music artist they are interested in. Which is fine for them, but is another facet to what I mean when I say we seem to only meet the same type of person over and over again... all dressing the same. Even just something basic like meeting another child who like John Williams music would be basic.. hardly niche or eccentric.

Modern music = Bob Dylan/Elvis 🤣 You almost had me until that

I think you need to try and broaden the experiences of your children. Im not saying to let them game and be glued to a screen but perhaps just relax with who they spend time with. It does sound quite isolating and you may find the children get lonely as families like yourselves are fairly rare from what I’ve seen in both schooled children and those who are home educated. It almost sounds like you are trying to hold them in the past. Whilst it’s absolutely wonderful the experiences your children are having and the way they enjoy literature and poetry, you are also possibly preventing them from spending time with other wonderful children who are just different. There’s a huge chance your children will become very lonely as they feel like they’re on the outside looking in and don’t quite fit in anywhere.

I would post on your local home ed facebook pages and state you're looking for other families who are strictly no screens/gaming and avoid popular culture. Maybe families that take a Charlotte Mason approach. Don't use value judgements like 'wholesome'.

I think you are looking for a needle in a hay stack though.
Most home ed kids are just like any other kids in that they live in the modern world and will be aware of Roblox and pop music as well as enjoying nature study and imaginative play.