Seeing other unschooling kids couldn't be coming at a better time either. Everyone that doesn't homeschool is always worried that kids that do homeschool won't get "socialized" somehow. Isn't that funny how those that don't worry about those that do? And that pertains to a lot of things in life, not just schooling. Anyway, the last month the kids have been playing with a lot of kids, a lot more than they're used to. At Lake McConaughy Jonas had an encounter with a little boy that wouldn't stop calling him a girl, yet Jake was friends with this kid. The last night there he(Jonas) met a friend and teared up when I told him we were leaving the next day. He said he made plpans to meet his friend the next night. By the next morning Jonas had forgot all about it and we happily moved on. Whew. Now we're here in small town Nebraska where everybody and their dog knows eachother. Girls quickly gather around the boys at the pool and they make fast friends with a pair of sisters. I notice right off the bat a gang of tween boys that can't do anything for themselves without their leader telling them how to do it. I'm happy the boys found nice girls to play with. The lifeguards have also fallen in love with the boys by now. They tell them they want to be their girlfriends and date them. Now the other boys are starting to take notice and try to befriend Jacob. They include him in their stupid game of chicken and immediatley Jake doesn't like their rules, and won't play their way. He won't flip off the diving board and these boys are trying to make him. He calls them freaks and jumps off. The next time they're all at the pool together Jake makes friend with a different boy and this gang comes and tells the boy not to be friends with Jake, and by the way Jake, tell your mom short hair is in so you need a haircut. Jake stands up for himself and heads to the boards, where ELEVEN boys now proceed to throw balls at him while he's twelve feet in the air. His lifeguard girlfriends kick all eleven hometown boys out of the pool for the rest of the summer!
How's that for socialization? I felt horrible I wasn't there to protect him, but so thankful the lifeguards were watching out for them. It was sad to think that if my kids were in school with those boys, they could have turned out the same way. They can have their competition, greed, narcissism, and feeling of entitlement, we'll keep our peace, love, respect, compassion and empathy, and we'll be gone by next week.
