Do your homeschooled teens have non homeschooled friends? Does this create any difficulty? How do you manage it?

Christine

They did, before we moved. Most of their friends were not homeschooled, mainly because we were one of two homeschool families at our church. The rest of the youth group went to public school. The main problem it caused was that youth activities were usually planned around the public school schedule, and sometimes we were not off school on the same days. The only other issue we had was my kids sometimes feeling "left out" because they couldn't really relate to some of what the others were talking about (final exams, prom, etc). But as far as their individual friendships, it never really caused any problems. As for how we handled it, we finally decided that we would set our school schedule (usually based on when Dad was off of work) and if the youth group had an activity on a day we had planned school, the girls could choose to do their school work ahead of time so they could attend the activity, or skip the activity. But we would not change our school schedule. We never really "handled" them feeling left out. They had no desire to be a part of those things, and just would try to shift the conversation to something else that they could relate to.

Since we moved they haven't really made many new friends. They have a few friends at co-op (other homeschoolers) and are just starting to make friends at church. They have one friend across the street from us that goes to public school, but so far that has not been a problem at all.

My teenaged daughter has public-school friends and I think it does cause problems for her at times. She has struggled time and time again with issues dealing with these "friends". For example; boys, gossip, prom. I have talked many times w/ my older two girls (one is 12) about the difference in worldly things and godly things. Just because they go to church w/ you doesn't mean they are "like-minded". You can still love their friends but don't expect them to think the way we do. That has really helped over the years. Any thoughts??