My first Blog Carnival Post for FOTRs (Families on the Road)

The topic of the blog carnival is finding friends for your children while you are traveling. The kids who travel with us are 13, 12 and 8. And our 21 year old college kid.

I have never really given a lot of purposeful thought to finding friends for my children whether they are on the road or stationary. When we are home at our house, we are miles and miles from the nearest children. We've never really lived in a neighborhood, so the friends my older children had when they were small were all at school. When we started homeschooling, they befriended each other and kids from our church. We did not live in a particularly homeschool friendly area; most folks there believe that the public schools were superior to all other public schools in the world and sent their children to the government schools. We've never experienced the joys of co-op or play groups, etc.

I don't think my children suffer from this.I have given purposeful thought to encouraging them to befriend each other. For our older kids, this was a little more difficult since they'd spent some time in the school system learning that they couldn't play with each other because they were in different grades. Eventually, though, they have worked things out and, mostly, they enjoy each others company.

When we are in RV parks with lots of kids, they get outside and introduce themselves and find games that they enjoy with the *locals.*  It's a wonderful thing. When we are at home, they reunite with their friends from church.
Mostly, they are each others best friends. They fuss with each other from time to time. But these three brothers share a close bond. They enjoy each others antics and they enjoy playing and learning and hanging out together.

One important thing we have learned is that friend does not necessarily equal peer. Because we are in RV parks year round, there are many opportunities to interact with persons who are much older than we are. From these passing acquaintances we have learned many, many lessons.  From angling to telegraphy to marble collecting, we meet folks whose passions are contagious. This is one of the great joys of our roadschool adventure.  These are the folks who satisfy our need for outside companionship. We hope that our interest in their interests meets a need for them as well.

We have learned that there are no borders on friendships. I love that my children have met folks from many regions and countries and found ways to interact and discover things with them. I love that they are (mostly) comfortable sharing their experiences and travels with others. They listen respectfully, speak respectfully and realize that the other persons with whom we share the road, the rv parks and the planet aren't very different from us after all.