Our children have public schooled friends and get along very well with them. This past week however, my 13 year old daughter participated in a horseback riding camp where she was the only homeschooled student there. There were some girls who made negative comments about homeschool (probably parroting their parents) and she had trouble initially making friends because the girls kind of excluded her on the first day. This is the first time someone's negative ideas of homeschool affected one of our children, but Amanda did not let that deter her.
Yesterday was the last day of the camp. She now has several new friends! After they took the time to get to know her, they didn't find her all that "strange." Not only that, but she performed the BEST in the entire camp ...even beating out riders with more experience and to her delight...two boys. (She had to TEACH the boys how to tie a safety knot and pick up hooves because they didn't "get it" the first time.) She won 7 first place blue ribbons, the championship ribbon, the trophy AND she was honored for her abilities by being asked to carry the American flag in the parade they taped for the soldiers.
I think having the girls find her different and having to prove herself to gain friendships was a good lesson for her too.
Let those parents and ps students think about how a "weird, undereducated, undersocialized" homeschooled child excelled over every ps student there.
