When being homeschooled, kids can lack that sense of social connection with other kids.  They aren’t thrown into social situations or interacting with others on a consistent basis, therefore, parents should watch to make sure that their child isn’t spending too much time by themselves.  Taking your children out of the house to mingle and play with other kids is a great way to avoid the typical social dilemmas that home schooled children face.  One of the ways that you can do this is calling up the local school, take a campus visit and see if your child can participate in any of the extracurricular activities the school has to offer.  Many school districts will welcome the participation of home schooled children, whether it be with sports, clubs, theater or other activities.  However, because your child doesn’t attend that school, you may have to sign a waiver that says the school isn’t responsible for your child. 

Even though your child isn’t in a traditional school environment, you still have to think as if they are, when finding activities for them to do.  Many townships have certain clubs, orchestras or sports that are devoted to home schooled children.  One of the best things you can do is to join a local homeschool group.  This brings together all the home schooled children in the area and introduces them to a broad range of activities they can do together.  They will play games, take field trips, interact with others as well as many other things that children need and want to do.  This gives them the ability to be young and have fun as well as build up that social atmosphere they might be missing otherwise. 

Home schooling is a very flexible way of learning.  Therefore, helping your child be part of a social environment could mean something as simple as taking them out to lunch with your friend and their child, going to a church event, going to the local park for a few hours or taking them to a sporting event.  All of these scenarios put your child in a situation where they have to break out of their shell a little, which will slowly ease them into their social world.  Home schooling is most certainly a great way to educate your children.  Public schooling isn’t for everyone and private schooling can have a costly tuition tied to it.  There are a lot of perks that come along with home schooling and the one-on-one atmosphere is fantastic — just keep in mind that your children need to let loose a little too.  Let them explore and have some fun.