Maybe I'm over sensitive (nah, never!) or maybe I'm just misunderstanding something, but some things have been said to me recently that made me re-examine how I explain my children's functionality and interactiveness with the community.
My boys, being overly sensitive to noise and chaos, do not enjoy participating in scouts at church. We count it as a good week if we've made it through church itself, let alone any extra curricular activities. We haven't been successful at after school sports, heck PE is too much sometimes. My younger boys love to go to Chess Club every Friday, but that's a lot more low key than most after-school activities.
It has been pointed out to me (repeatedly!!) that I am depriving my boys from great life experiences as well as "required" church activity. Then it was suggested that at the very least I need to put them in Karate.
I fail to see how forcing them to participate with a rough group of boys, that have been known to blatantly attack my children, will benefit them. I also haven't seen how the only way they will succeed in life is if they get their Eagle Scout award. And does not going to scouts make us bad Mormons? That's like saying every primary age child should take piano lessons. While it's almost comically well know that Mormons are musical, that doesn't mean that every child enjoys that activity.
It's not like I've kept my children from learning any of the skills they might learn from scouts either. We talk about the stars and the solar system, my youngest loves nature and animals, we watch and read everything we can on the history of the world, and we also do many projects involving survival skills. We just do them at the level our boys can handle.
Besides, with the world pulling us in so many directions already, is it a bad thing that we are spending more time together? I'm happy putting up the tent in the backyard and watching the stars from there, I don't need a four hour hike to make it a learning experience.
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