Yes, his friends are all in brick and mortar schools. Two of them have moms who are teachers--one of them happens to be a special ed teacher with gifted sons. She has known my son for four years and he has spent the night over at her house several times and her kids come to sleepovers at our house. She noticed my son's sensory issues and motor planning difficulties and convinced me to take him back to the doctor. So I guess she is probably the closest thing to a friend I have--and she is close to my age. In fact, all my son's friends' parents are close to my age. They all have college degrees, one is an engineer and two are teachers. I feel like I fit in with them.
Where I live, 30 something year old grandmothers are common. There are two women in the homeschool group that might be about my age but they have a lot of kids. One woman in the group told me she had a lot of kids because she always wanted to homeschool and couldn't imagine just homeschooling one. She said she grew up as an only child and didn't want her kids to be lonely. I told her that I had only one child at home because I didn't think I could afford any more and I didn't want my son to do without things he needed like his dad (one of 8 children) had to do as a child. Another woman in the group overheard me saying that I wished part time school were available and they all seem to think this is terrible. When I mentioned that I might talk to my legislators about having the laws changed to require schools to offer this, they told me that I would ruin things for them. Most of them are homeschooling for religious reasons and they are afraid the "government" will make things more difficult for them if laws are changed. So my chances of finding friends in this homeschooling group are not good.
I enrolled my son in homeschool PE several months ago in the city about 30 miles from where I live thinking I would meet other moms like me. No such luck. They wore nice clothes, looked like they spent a lot of money on their hair, and of course they were younger. I could feel them looking at me and my son, but they didn't speak to me. So no luck there either.
Several months ago I saw a homeschool newsletter that talked about a free day at a weather center and I noticed a name that I recognized the name of a woman who used to post on a gifted message board several years ago. I remembered that her son was close to my son's age and had similar interests. But he is also in public school but grade skipped and they live about 45 minutes away. I think this boy would fit in really well with my son's group of friends, but he lives too far away.
There is also a woman that I found from TAGMAX that lives about 45 minutes away that also homeschools but my son is in between her kids' ages.
I have not found any other 2E kids like my son. I realize he is very lucky to have the friends he has. He and his musical theater group performed at a New Years Eve event last night and several former members of the group came to watch and they also talked to my son. I realized he has more friends than just the four. I think the kids in this group will be friends for life.
