Why join a support group?

By making the decision to homeschool your child or children, you have already demonstrated great strength of character by making a commitment to "go it alone." So why should you join a support group?

A support group can make your life easier and it can add to your enjoyment of your family's homeschooling experience. It can help you redefine your sense of a "neighbourhood." And it can provide a close network of friends, socializing experiences, and a wealth of adult mentors for your children and for yourself. It can remove the isolating stigma that can come from staying at "home" to "school."

We come to homeschooling for a variety of reasons. And we homeschool our children in many different ways. Ideally then, a homeschooling support group serves many functions.

Most importantly, in order to feel completely supported, you must feel that you belong. A support group must make you feel welcome and it must make you feel that your particular way of homescooling and your right to homeschool your child or children is accepted. However, a truly brilliant support organization does this while also exposing you to a lot of diversity --- to many different ways of homeschooling and to people who are at many different levels of experience with homeschooling.

Second, a good support group strives to increase your learning and understanding of homeschooling. It functions, in part, as a network, providing you with ways to connect to the ideas and experiences of others --- either through direct contact with other homeschoolers at support group functions, with a newsletter, through formal professional development, with a website, using a forum for discussion or through access to texts and resources that are important to other homeschoolers (and that aren't necessarily available to you through your local library or school board).

It also provides ways for chance encounters to happen --- meeting that parent at the park day who has been through exactly the same difficulty that you are experiencing now, or overhearing a conversation about a great field trip experience, or connecting with others informally over coffee. Perhaps you're looking to learning about other "formal" or "curriculum" based methods of homeschooling, or perhaps you want the exact opposite --- you want to know how "unschooling" can and does work. Or perhaps you want to look ahead and find out how others have homeschooled, successfully, through the high school years. A good support group does all of this while also connecting you to products and services that are designed especially with homeschoolers in mind, and to activities and events that are happening in and around your area.

A homeschooling support group should be an advocate for your legal rights when dealing with the government organizations that oversee homeschooling. It should provide a strong vehicle by which you can make your opinions, interests and concerns known. It should be well abreast of any changes that might come to the legislation and be able to communicate your rights to you in an effective and timely manner.

When you are feeling overwhelmed, a support group can provide you with access to those who are more experienced with homeschooling --- or with those who are at a stage where they have more time and energy to put into helping others. It can allow you to use the energy of others to do more than just "survive."

There are many different ways of participating in a homeschooling community, either through organizing an event yourself or with others, drawing on a pool of others to bring down the costs of something you'd like your family to experience. Or perhaps you simply want to sign up for an event and participate with others without organizing it yourself. No matter what, a good support group strives to add a sense of fun and to energize your life. And, ultimately when you're ready, a good support group gives you the opportunity to be a leader and a contributing member of the homeschoolign community -- to empower you --- and to liberate you.

A good homeschooling support group is able to provide these opportunities for you. The key lies with you: join a support group, seize the opportunities that interest you, or create your own with the help of other homeschoolers in your community. And go for it! A good support group will help you get there!

By Sheri H., November 2004