He's a social creature and the two recesses are spent playing and expending the physical energy surplus instead of chatting. So, I don't see school as the social place it used to be when I was that age. His social time is after school/homework anyway, and he does have an extra-curricular activity, so I'm not as concerned about him missing that at school.
I think, more than anything, I worry that we'll make the wrong decision and it will have an impact on ds. We're researching all the options.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Two things: now that we're homeschooling, I feel like DS8 has more time and energy to be social. He was so tired and cranky after his bad school fit that he was losing friends and didn't really want to be with them anyway. He certainly was unpleasant to be with! This is really why we chose to homeschool: DS8 experienced a radical personality shift, and something major had to change. His teacher was clearly unreceptive, and it clearly wasn't going to be worth banging my head against that wall.
The fact is that happy kids do better socially. If you can find a good school fit, great. If not, homeschooling can actually make a kid *more* social. It does tend to be a bit more work for the parent to get to social opportunities. But it's manageable even for me, an introvert who desperately needs alone time. You adjust and prioritize.
Secondly, the good thing about homeschooling is that if something is wrong, you can turn on a dime and do whatever you think will fix it. With only your kid(s) and no required loyalty to anything or anyone else, you can do whatever works, changing every day if you have to! the flexibility is really what makes it work well for so many GT kids. It's a very responsive system. The only thing you have to overcome is your own resistance to change and the knowledge that you spent $X on books you'll never use.
Worst case, if homeschooling is a dismal flop, you can always send the child back to public school. They have to take him, even mid-year. So nothing is ever set in stone. You can't "fail" at homeschooling...you just change your mind! So if it doesn't work for your family, if it has repercussions that you don't like, it's an utterly reversible decision.
If you are already answering your child's questions and helping with his homework and reading together, you're pretty much doing everything you'd need to do for homeschooling. You just get to be more creative with it. There are bad days--sometimes bad weeks!--but you figure it out. It's not as far-removed from what you're doing as you think it is. I promise!
