Saturday, January 10, 2009

Socialization, Racism Plus 8 lbs, 1oz

I joined a local homeschool group last year to give my kids an opportunity to meet other homeschooled kids. It was not like we anticipated as the families were very stand-offish and the other children would not talk much to my kids. My kids were put off and no longer wanted to go to the functions. I told them we were going to try again and we did; we went bowling and ice skating and roller skating. My daughter would make friends, but my teen would not make any connections.


When it was time to renew our membership, let's just say the kids were less than enthusiastic, but I wanted to still be able to have the benefits of membership.


Yesterday we went roller skating with our homeschool group.

I love using teachable moments with my children, but there are some lessons I wish I could avoid. Yesterday, my daughter made a friend right away and the girls skated and giggled together for about 30 minutes. Then my daughter came to me with moist eyes and told me the her friend said she could not skate with her anymore because her grandmother did not like us. I explained that this was apart of life and we need to make sure that we never treat other people like that and so on and so forth. But I was led to approach the grandmother. I explained to her that my child was sad that she could no longer skate with her grandchild and ask if it was because of our race or because of my size. (I am a very large woman.) she hemmed and hawed and got very flustered and said she did not mean it like that and would talk to her grandchild. Five minutes later the child came back over and said she could skate with her now.


While I felt protective of my child, I could only feel sad for the little girl that would be taught the lesson that should be erased from all curriculum.


Anyway... here is a short video.




Oh, and that 8lbs, 1oz.... Well when we got home, we got a call from the agency that they had a 4 week old baby boy that needed placement. He is a cutie and such a peanut.

And on we go!