Sportsmanlike Conduct

Parker had his first T-ball game yesterday. He's been intense about T-ball; seriously excited, treating it with a gravity that he hasn't shown any other activity. I've had my heart in my throat these past several weeks as we've met his coaches, tried on his uniform and cleats and attended his first practices. He just seems to care so very much. I think that, for Parker, there's an expectation about T-ball; that this is what bigger boys do. 

"You know, you might not get the jersey number you want, Bub," I tentatively told him as we headed to Opening Day. "This is just your first ever practice, so it's OK if you're not super great at T-ball right away," I said with a smile and a kiss right before he ran off in full uniform to join his team on a windy Wednesday evening. My eyes misted over as I watched him "grab a knee" out on the infield and gaze up attentively at his coach at that first practice. It was one of those "Sunrise Sunset" moments. (Of course, he's still mostly little boy--not even in kindergarten yet--and little-boy-ness is supremely unsuppressable. He gaily skipped back and forth from the infield to the outfield between drills.)

For me, one of the most challenging parts about parenting is tempering my tendency to overprotect. It is so tough to sit on the sidelines and watch your sweet little guy enthusiastically shout, "Parker is the fastest runner!" knowing that he will learn in short shrift that he is not actually the fastest player on the field; or the best thrower or the best catcher or the best batter, for that matter. Not a whole lot tended to challenge Parker's sense of self when he was a homeschooled kid with no siblings living on a tiny island. Now we live in a sprawling metropolis; now he has a baby brother; now he goes to preschool; now he regularly interacts with older children (his cousin, my dad's 10 year old and 6 year old, the boys in our apartment building); now he plays team sports. He's getting the message, out loud and tacitly, that he's just a little guy in a big world with a lot to learn about a lot of things. I think he feels like he's shimmying up the totem pole a bit by donning his T-ball uniform, like he's more in league, so to speak, with the bigger boys.

Parker's first practices went well--nothing untoward happened to quell his fever pitch--and so he suited up for yesterday's game with gusto. Sure enough, though, about halfway through the game, the spring went out of Parker's step. He trudged toward me to say, "Mommy, this game is taking too long. I'm ready to go now." His eyes were red and his chin quivered. I asked him if anything had happened. He was adamant that he was just tired. "The practices are much shorter than this, Mommy." He didn't believe me when I told him that the reverse was true.

What to do, when your child wants to throw in the towel? How hard do you push him to "get back on the horse?" Thoughts bounced around in my brain: he'd slept plenty the night before so he can't be too tired; maybe he didn't eat enough lunch; maybe his uniform is too thin for this insanely cold wind; maybe I took too many photos, thereby putting too much pressure on this first game; maybe I should let him quit for today; if don't make him finish the game, will he learn that it's OK to give up? shouldn't I encourage him to persevere? but will he think that my love is conditional if I force him back out onto the field? aack, he's crying! what do I do? Meanwhile, Parker was sitting dejectedly on the dugout bench, Logan (my newborn) was snotty, tired and screaming on my chest in the Moby wrap, the other parents were covertly taking in the whole scene, and the same thought kept repeating itself, overriding all the others: "Maybe Parker just misses his dad."

Parker ended up playing out the game with aid of a Z-bar and the promise of a hot chocolate. I noticed that the other team's first baseman liked to shout, "You're out! I got you out!" at Parker each time he eventually trotted up to first base after hitting the ball. (I say "eventually" because Parker, like most other T-ballers, seems to have a hard time remembering to actually drop the bat and run to first base--and tag the base!--once he's hit the ball, thereby giving the other team ample time to field the ball. Aren't all Americans born instinctually knowing how to play our national pastime? Apparently not.) There are no outs in T-ball but that doesn't stop some competitively minded kids from keeping track of when they make an out; I'm sure those same kids were counting the runs scored, too. I again asked Parker, after the game, if anything had happened to upset him during the game. He mentioned that first baseman, those taunting words. It's so hard, as a parent, to watch your child's feelings get bruised, even when you know it's all part of the maturing process. That mother hen instinct to swoop your chicks up under your wings and keep them there bundled next to your heart forever is so strong. I told Parker that the only person he really needs to listen to on the T-ball field is his coach. He looked at me, a little deflated, and replied, "Can we go to the park after we get my hot chocolate?"

Carrying his gear to the game.

Listening to the coach, pre-game.

Parker's fan club. 

Watching the action from the dugout.

 

Dec, Papa Bo and Logan.

On deck. 

First at bat.

A hit!

Trotting up to first base.

 

Snotty Logan asks, "Can we go home now?"

On second base.

Playing second base.

Field Trip

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Making Patterns
• The Phonetic Alphabet
• Zoology - Anteaters
• Basic Weather Phenomena

Phew. I am finally sitting down. Sometimes, Manic Mondays reduce me to incoherence. My landlady just dropped by with a birthday present for Parker (who turned 4 yesterday!), and I couldn't complete a single sentence whilst briefly conversing with her. I'm pretty sure she is now convinced I've completely lost my marbles. Oh well. She's lived in the Caribbean for over thirty years. She's used to crazy people by now.

Well, both Parker and I woke up this morning still pretty exhausted from yesterday's birthday festivities. But I had high hopes--as well as a long "to do" list--for today. You see, Jack the Traveling Mechanic came to our house on Saturday and by the time he left, late in the evening, our little green Honda was fixed! What a difference possessing a working vehicle makes! I had a lot I wanted (needed!) to do today, and I absolutely wanted to make sure schooltime happened somewhere in the midst of my chores, too. And naptime; I knew that Parker and I definitely needed naps today. And we were actually doing OK on timing at first, but then my husband called and gave me the best Valentine's Day present ever: our (bright red!) Jeep Cherokee was finally ready to come home! So, just when we were about to start school, Parker and I quickly put our shoes back on, drove our old green Honda down to the bank (mechanics down here take cash, and only cash), waited in line in order to withdraw a bunch of money, stopped at St. John Spice to buy some whole coriander seeds for the restaurant, picked up my husband and drove up to Hally's gravel lot to find our Cherokee fabulously, fantastically fixed. (KNOCK WOOD!) After we paid for the repairs, my husband drove back to work on his own in the Honda and Parker and I drove to the playground in the Cherokee. (That my husband could drive away on his own was cause for joyous celebration; he and I have been sharing a single vehicle for almost six years. It can be a little stressful: two drivers, one car.)

Now, it was almost noon by the time we'd collected the Cherokee and were driving down the hill, back towards Cruz Bay. We definitely could have dutifully returned home, done some school activities, eaten a quick lunch and then settled down for naptime. It was totally possible. Did we? No. I looked at Parker, Parker looked at me, and we drove straight to the playground. Sometimes (especially those times when you've finally gotten your car back after being stuck at home for weeks on end) a field trip is necessary. We had a grand time at the playground today. We experimented with a simple machine (a lever, aka the seesaw), we had fun with gravity (descending and ascending multiple slides), we made patterns out of leaves and rocks, we practiced the letters a, t, n and o (using sand in lieu of salt), we discussed (and then pretended to be) anteaters (digging holes in the sand to look for ants and termites to eat with our sticky tongues), we polished our social skills after meeting a nice little boy and his mother and then we had a quick chat about weather, as some storm clouds approached and we hurriedly gathered our sand trucks and said goodbye to our new friends. (The rain turned out to be fortuitous in that we had enough time after we got home to shower and snack before Parker's afternoon tumbling class.) It was so nice to get out of the house for a while. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Walking Down the Street

Well, we found out last night that it wasn't the thermostat that was causing our Jeep Cherokee to overheat; it was the head gasket (I think?). Now, even though I religiously listen to Car Talk, I really don't know much about automobiles. Apparently, a broken head gasket is a Really Big Deal, and means pretty much the same thing as a broken engine. This, in turn, means that we will be vehicle-less for at least a week while the mechanics rebuild the top half of our Cherokee's engine. Hooray. So this morning, instead of doing a good hour or two of homeschooling and then zipping down the hill to pay rent and pick up some groceries before lunch, my son and I put on our walking shoes and embarked on a fun-, sweat- and errand-laden peregrination through our neighborhood.

Living on a small island is much akin to living in a small town: we were constantly stopping to socialize as we made our way through Cruz Bay. From the woman who owns the bakery (breakfast was our first priority this morning) to the two lovely librarians (our library books were of course due today) to the man who sells us our internet service (the internet was inexplicably down this morning) to the hardware store owners (suddenly Parker is fascinated by hooks, especially when attached to a string, so we stopped to get him one, which I tied to a piece of thread) to the Mail Center employees to the woman at the smoothie stand to the grocery clerk to the assorted friends and acquaintances we kept running into (thankfully not literally), my son had ample opportunity to practice his social skills today. To continue with the theme, we ate dinner at my husband's restaurant earlier this evening after returning my husband's partner's car, which I'd been able to borrow this afternoon to shop for enough food and water to hopefully last us until our Cherokee is fixed. (Have I mentioned that we live uphill from downtown? Carrying sacks of groceries, jugs of water and a 42-pound kid up the insanely steep hill atop which sits our island home is high on my list of activities to avoid.) Parker sat at the bar, ate his fish and fries and chatted with his favorite lady friend (blonde and gorgeous, naturally), several of the customers, the bartender and wait staff. My son and I will be fairly isolated--stuck without wheels at home--for a while starting tomorrow, so I figured a day of running around, out and about, would be good, for both of us.

Postscript: This repair on our Cherokee is going to cost us an arm and a leg. While we have our wallet figuratively open, I thought, "Hey, why not spend another arm or so on a printer?" Reading about all the homeschool materials I'll be needing to prepare in the coming months, I'd been realizing that a home printer would be incredibly handy to have. So I ordered one today. Of course, my husband-the-techie made me get a much fancier one than I'd at first selected ("But with this one we'll be able to print from our phones!"), but that's OK. I'll have fun watching him nearly levitate with glee the first time he presses "Print" on his iPhone.

The library books we borrowed today.

Parker's hook (which he's been merrily using to raise and lower a countless number of household items).

Extracurriculars

Last October, while sitting on some characteristically uncomfortable wooden bleachers, watching my 4-year-old little sister purposefully jump, roll and tumble her way through her weekly gymnastics class, I began to descend into a pathetic state of self-pity. "Oh, poor us. We live on a little island in the Caribbean, instead of in a suburban city in the States. My son will never be able to take gymnastics like his aunt or learn to play an instrument like his (9-year-old) uncle. Poor, poor Parker. Sure, he'll be plenty book smart, but he'll never know the joy of rolling and tumbling or making music. Boo hoo hoo." In an attempt to shake myself out of such abject despair, I decided that, upon returning home, I would start to teach my son both rudimentary gymnastics and how to play the violin, in addition to continuing to homeschool him. This, despite the fact that I am notoriously uncoordinated (I myself dropped out of gymnastics at 6 because I couldn't complete a cartwheel) and haven't seriously played a musical instrument since I was 18 (and, to be honest, "seriously" might be too strong a word to describe how I used to (attempt to) play French horn and tenor saxophone). I went so far as to browse Amazon for "how to teach kiddie gymnastics" and "how to teach violin via the Suzuki method" books, as well as for tumbling mats and a pint-sized violin. (Have I told you about my superpower of self-deception?) Though I didn't actually order anything from that fulsome internet superstore, I remained resolute: I would supplement our homeschool sessions with extracurricular activities even if it killed me. I would!

Well, my son must have the luck of the Irish (he is almost half Irish, after all); he never did have to suffer through the sad spectacle of his maladroit, functionally unmusical mother trying to teach him how to do a backwards somersault or play some scales. At a playdate last November, a week or so after Parker and I returned home from our epic Stateside journey, a mommy friend of mine presented me with the 2010-2011 class schedule for the St. John School of the Arts, a nonprofit academy here on island dedicated to offering St. Johnian kids instruction in all things (or most things, at least) artistic. Maybe she had intuited my quixotic plan to add extracurriculars to my son's homeschool sessions and decided an intervention was crucial. Probably she just wanted to spread the good (art school on island!) news. Her son had apparently been enrolled in Tumbling and Music Circle at SJSA for over a year; he loved attending the classes, and she couldn't say enough good things about the teachers and the curriculum. I returned home that afternoon tremendously relieved, and immediately sent an e-mail to the school, asking how to go about enrolling my son in some classes.

What's that old adage? Be careful what you wish for! Soon after sending that e-mail, a sense of trepidation descended upon me. Was my (heretofore solely homeschooled) son ready to heed the lessons of a teacher (one who is not me, I mean)? Would he get along with his classmates? Would he even want to go to class? I suddenly pictured scenes of Parker crying at the classroom door while I simultaneously pleaded with him to go in and tried not to appear too embarrassed by his antics. I did, of course, realize that my anxieties did not offer any rational reason why my son shouldn't at least try a class or two of Tumbling and/or Music Circle. He could conceivably even benefit from experiencing being taught by a teacher who is not his mother, in a setting that is not his home, with other kids besides him, instead of all alone. If he really hated it, we could try again next year. Knowing this, though, did not lessen my anxieties appreciably much. Not until the first time I took him to Tumbling--he happily joined the class and followed the teacher's instructions, laughing and enjoying the company of his classmates all the while--did I calm down. Man, this parenting stuff can stress a mother out!

It hasn't all been cartwheels and kumbaya since. Parker's Tumbling teacher is super "old school" in the way she manages her classroom and motivates her students. It's pretty much "be quiet and do what I say." Kids who perform well receive loud, effusive praise, and kids who get a little chatty or cut in line or act too animated get yelled at. It's easy to understand why: how would you go about teaching tumbling to a class of twelve extremely energetic and enthusiastic preschoolers? And, lest you wonder, "Well, why does she persist in taking her son to Tumbling, if the teacher is such a tyrant" I do have to say that, teaching style aside, the class is by and large fun for all involved. The kids giggle, the teacher grins, the spectating parents swell with pride. But, if you're a kid who has never stepped foot inside a traditional classroom, one where students are expected to sit down and shut up, where behavior is controlled via rewards and consequences, where students must constantly work to produce tangible results (worksheets, exams, reports), you might very well experience something akin to culture shock the first few times you're yelled at for talking to a friend or ignored for not completing a forward roll. I can see my son struggle with this aspect of Tumbling. He flat out refused to go to class one day last month, though he'd seemed excited enough in the car on our way there. Talking to my husband later that night, I realized that I'd been pushing Parker to practice somersaults at home; he'd been having trouble tipping over, and I misguidedly decided it was my job to help him succeed. I'd even gone so far as to say, "Won't your teacher be surprised when she sees how good you are at somersaults now?!" Well, my son has never enjoyed playing the role of performing monkey. I'd carelessly induced a full-blown case of performance anxiety in him. By ignoring him when he failed to complete a forward roll and showering him with praise when he did manage to actually tip himself over, my son's teacher had already put enough pressure on him. The last thing he needed was me making him feel like everything hinged upon a silly somersault.

Parents participate in Parker's Music Circle class, so it falls on us to control our kids, rather than the teacher, but there is a similar--if much muted--expectation of performance. We sit close together, facing each other, singing and playing miscellaneous percussion instruments. Well, I should say we parents sing (most of us anyway) and the kids sometimes play along using drums or shakers or what have you. It'd be awesome if the kids sang along, but they seldom do. And I'd love it if the kids--the very students!--would consistently use their instruments to practice keeping the beat, but clappers inevitably become clamping jaws and rhythm sticks inevitably become hammers and nails and bells get ignored in favor of jumping up and down or cuddling in parents' laps. But I recently stopped and thought about what I want my son to get out of his Music Circle class. Do I want him to learn that he must obey the teacher and perform accordingly, or do I want him to be exposed to music, to develop a love for it, to learn that making music is accessible to him, if he should ever desire to do so? (I think you can guess the answer.) Apart from the actual music, I really appreciate that Parker's music teacher begins each class with a song of greeting--during which we all sing/say hello to each child--continually makes eye contact with her students throughout the class and concludes with a song of farewell--during which we all sing/say goodbye to each child. Parker has a hard time with the attention he receives when the class is singing hello or goodbye to him; he usually fails to make eye contact, and never returns the greeting. He's still learning about social niceties. One of these days, he'll look up and say, "Hi!" I'm sure of it.

Postscript: In case you're curious, the St. John School of the Arts does offer private music lessons, so Parker can someday learn to play an instrument like his 9-year-old uncle. OK, everyone breathe a big sigh of relief now.

Tattle Prattle

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Hardware Busy Board
• Dusting
• Bead Stringing
• Transferring
• Sweeping

My son and I skipped school yesterday and participated in an impromptu playgroup instead. (This served as a sort of raincheck for last Friday's cancelled playgroup.) Both Parker and I had a pleasant time, he sharing his friends' trucks, me gabbing with the other moms. At the end of the morning, though, I found myself thinking about tattling, pretty much for the first time ever. An extreme prejudice against tattletales exists in our culture. I grew up indoctrinated to believe tattling to be the worst crime you could commit as a school kid. Name-calling? Not nice. Spitting? Gross. Kicking? Mean. Hitting? Hurtful (literally). But tattling? Man oh man, if you were unfortunate enough to get caught tattling, the best you could do was just pick up stakes and transfer to another school. Known tattletales faced a certain destiny of cold shoulders and even colder disdain. And that from the other kids. The teachers seemed to possess even less tolerance for tattling than their charges, turning a deaf ear to any child who so much as hinted at telling on another. Having started school at an extremely early age, I cottoned on to this quick and never let hurt feelings or bodily injury entice me into tattling. As an adult, I've often experienced a gut reaction of disgust upon encountering tattletales, both young and old. It suddenly occurs to me--and it kind of scares me--that I've never really examined this prejudice I instinctually possess. I'm normally not one to go along with an accepted ideology just because it's, well, accepted. So, about this terror of tattling...

The subject comes up because my son approached me a couple of times yesterday morning to say that his friend did this or his friend did that. My initial (unexpressed) reaction was one of irritation; having no desire to abide his tattling, I wanted to tell Parker to deal with the situation himself. When interacting with my son, though, I have started to use a time-delay system, sort of like the FCC's broadcast delay that's meant to catch celebrities' curse words. I don't curse, but my initial response to my son can sometimes be reactionary and self-centered. A ten-second delay is usually enough of a pause for me to remember to take myself out of the equation, so that I can actually listen to my son without a "but how is this going to affect ME?!" bias. Once I could hear Parker objectively, I realized that he wasn't so much tattling as asking me, his parent/teacher, for guidance. If he could have been more eloquent, he would have said, "My friend did such and such. Is this OK? If it's not OK, how should I respond?" I'm 33, and I still at times have social interactions that cause me to ask those questions. Existing within a society can be tricky, especially since we're not always on our best behavior. Preschoolers have notoriously little impulse control, possess a tenuous (at best) grasp of morality and have only just begun to figure out the codes of civility. We should expect them to have a hard time playing nice with their friends, and we should also expect to have to exert some energy ourselves when certain situations arise. One of our most important jobs as parents and educators is to provide young children with a moral framework that will serve them for the rest of their lives. When our kids come up to us and say, "So-and-so did this," they aren't tattling; they're providing us with teaching opportunities. I'm not saying that we should stand up and intervene; angrily shouting, "Hey, Johnny! Stop throwing sand at my kid!" won't teach anybody anything. We should sit down and explain, instead, giving our children the guidance they're seeking. When a child tattles, he's looking for confirmation that something that happened is or isn't OK, and he's asking for help formulating an appropriate response. It's not as easy as waving a dismissing hand and saying, "Work it out between yourselves," but I think it's the more considered course of action.

Unconditional Parenting?

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Library "Field Trip"

My son's friends (and my friends, the little boys' moms) couldn't make it to the playground for our weekly get-together this morning, so Parker and I decided to head to the library instead. My cousin, Jill, gave him a Skippyjon Jones book this past Christmas and he's lately become obsessed with it. Since I have started to inwardly groan whenever my son pulls Lost in Spice down from the bookshelf, I thought that, at the very least, we could benefit from borrowing a couple different, "new" Skippyjon books. And if we got out of the house for a little bit and found some other interesting books to borrow, too, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, either. The recently renovated library here on St. John is quite nice and quite cool--they always have the A/C on high there. It's situated in a beautiful old estate house and has a fairly extensive children's books selection. There's a large taxidermied iguana lying directly beneath a display of LEGOs, the placement of which I find a little odd (how about moving the dead lizard away from the colorful, enticing toys to somewhere, oh say, in the adults' section?), but this is the Virgin Islands so I shouldn't be surprised. We met a little boy while we were there who lives on the other side of the island, so I guess we did do some socializing on our day specifically set aside for socializing, after all.

In my last post, I wrote about how I would like to start praising my son's efforts--as opposed to his achievements--in an attempt to teach him to place less emphasis on "success." He already shows some signs of performance anxiety, at times not wanting to try things, uttering, "I can't do that!" I feel like Parker would attempt more, and persevere through challenging tasks more often, if he didn't place so much weight upon doing well. My friend, Jen S., commented on yesterday's post, recommending that I read Alfie Kohn, an author who advocates "unconditional parenting." I came across an article by Kohn in the New York Times back in September, in which he stated, "Some people who wouldn’t dream of spanking choose instead to discipline their young children by forcibly isolating them, a tactic we prefer to call 'time out.' Conversely, 'positive reinforcement' teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a 'good job.'" Those words gave me pause when I read them last fall. I revisited them this afternoon upon seeing Jen's comment and, again, I had to stop and think. Later on in the article, Kohn said that unconditional parenting should be accompanied by "explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view." I feel like I do all those things pretty well. What I don't do well is keep mum when my kid does something I find amazing. If I agree with Kohn's assertion that heaping praise upon Parker when he accomplishes something I deem to be great (that is to say, "positive reinforcement") sends him the message that my love is contingent upon what he achieves--and I do tend to agree--then I really need to work on not voicing my judgments. It was so easy to get into the habit of saying, "Wow! Look what you can do!" when Parker was a toddler and just beginning to do things like walk and talk; those were exciting times. Now I'm realizing that my kid doesn't need me to tell him that he's performed well because he can (and should!) judge for himself. This, to a degree, falls in line with the educational philosophy of the Montessori method. The "control of error" included in each Montessori activity lets the child see on his own whether he has made any mistakes; he doesn't need to sit there, waiting to find out whether his teacher will give him a gold star. I think I will read some more Alfie Kohn, starting with his book, Unconditional Parenting. One of the great side effects of this homeschooling experiment is that I'm becoming more mindful of myself as a mother. (Not that I was out to lunch before, but there have been some definite "auto pilot" days.)

No Kid Is an Island

I am not at all crafty. I don't "scrapbook," I don't knit, I have a hard time drawing anything that looks like, well, anything and I never learned how to use a sewing machine. So the knowledge that I will soon be needing to create Montessori teaching materials daunts me. But it is a challenge for which I am ready. What I find more daunting about my decision to homeschool my son is the fact that I will not only need to develop his intellect but also his social skills. Socialization is integral to the learning process; a child never ceases in his quest to figure out the nuances of social interaction as well as his own identity within his social framework. I feel confident that I will be a skilled guide in my son's quest for knowledge; I am fraught with insecurity about whether he will grow into a socially well-adjusted human being in the absence of classmates (and siblings).

This is where living on a small island is both helpful and a hindrance. It's helpful because the community is strong; we've lived here for over a year and by now it is difficult to run an errand without bumping into a friend or acquaintance (and thus having some sort of social interaction). Parker is almost always involved in these run-ins. Though he still at times likes to "play shy," islanders never fail to say hello to him, ask him how he is, what toy he's holding onto--whether he's in the mood to answer or not. And he cannot fail to notice while I conduct neighborly conversations with the people we encounter throughout the course of each day (e.g., neighbors, store clerks, friends). Another beneficial aspect of living in a small community is that a trip to the playground is pretty much an instant playdate. St. John has a total of two playgrounds and my son nearly always sees a friend of his when we go to one or the other, which we do at least three times a week. Plus, I quickly met some other mothers when we first moved here, with whom we now have a weekly playgroup. The downside of living on a small island is the limited population. There aren't a ton of kids Parker's age on St. John, and all of them (except for Parker, of course) attend school outside the home. In a larger community, we could conceivably get to know other young kids whose moms have decided to homeschool, and even do school activities together with them. Here, it's getting more and more difficult to arrange playdates due to Parker's friends' school schedules.

So, running into people around town, playground excursions, a weekly playgroup and occasional playdates: is it enough? Our weekly playgroup consists of Parker and two of his little friends. This morning we had it at our house because the aforementioned rains made the playground where we normally meet up nonviable. Playgroup on his "turf" definitely stresses my son's social skills. The last thing I want to do is overanalyze his every interaction with his playmates but, as I said earlier, I am fraught with insecurity about this whole socialization and homeschooling thing. My son yelled at his friends this morning; is this a certain sign that he's doomed to be antisocial for the rest of his life? Should I derive confidence from the fact that he apologizes readily and seemingly sincerely? He generously shared his toys with his friends but he also had a potty accident; did he pee his pants because socializing causes him anxiety? I know. He's 3. I'm overanalyzing. But what about when he's 6, or 16? Will this decision to keep him home with me prove positive?