One of the biggest fears that prospective homeschool parents have is how will their child develop social skills if they learn at home. It is also one of the biggest criticisms you might receive from friends and family regarding your decision to homeschool.

This fear tends to be overblown. Homeschooled children are capable of proper social development. Usually these skills are not developed intentionally by schools. The development that does happen is usually teachers guiding them away from negative behaviour such as bullying. Cooperative play, conflict resolution and turn-taking develop naturally over time in the playground and between siblings at home.

As a home educator and parent you can help your child develop socially. Obviously you can help them on the weekends as any parent can. During school hours you will just need to be more intentional about creating opportunities for these to develop. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Opportunities for social development

Homeschool groups

There are many local and regional homeschool groups on Facebook. Find your local one and join it. Often these groups will arrange group activities such as play times in a local park or group visits to visitor attractions. Also check your local council's services for home educators. Depending on what they offer they may be able to enrol you in services and support for home education.

Forest School

Get in touch with Forest School providers in your area because some of them do provide sessions for homeschool children or homeschool groups. If not, then you might find they do some after school sessions that your child can join.

Forest Schools will develop childrens social skills naturally through shared activities. Children work together to build dens, make things, collect materials or solve practical problems. This gives them opportunities to practise sharing ideas and working towards a common goal.

After school activities

Check your local area for after school activities for the evenings and weekends. You can find activities that match their interests or get them involved in sport. Sport is a great teacher of teamwork, discipline and leadership. Team sports are great but individual sports such as martial arts, archery and gymnastics should not be overlooked. They will still teach them discipline and turn-taking whist getting some exercise. These are also great for SEND kids if they are likely to underperform their peers. They won't feel like they are letting down a team because they are participating in a team of one.

Your local library

Libraries often run programmes of activities for children. Check your local library for details. These can include book clubs, craft sessions, lego building clubs, story times and coding clubs. The good thing about these it that they are usually very cheap or free compared to after school clubs that can run into 100s of pounds per term.

Holiday Camps

During half terms and school holidays there are much more events and activities available for children during the day. Local community centres, visitor attractions and youth clubs provide one-off events or multi-day camps. Book early because these fill up fast. Multi-day holiday camps can provide 30 -40 hours of activities per week for your child as well as playground play during the days breaks. You will also get a well deserved break! These can be quite pricey but many offer early bird booking discounts so watch out for those.