I wasn't in SO in high school because they didn't have it. Now I'm a homeschooling mom of four kids (ages 10 through 17) and at a homeschool mom's group meeting someone mentioned SO and my three older ones (9,11, and 13) at the time enjoyed science so I thought I'd check out the local homeschool SO team. They had a competitive team and a JV team where kids could "try out" SO with just one or two events. That team did okay but it wasn't cohesive. It fell apart after competition season and one of the nicer moms in the group asked me, "Should we start our own team?" I wasn't sure about it, but we DID have fun at the competitions, so why not? 
If it weren't worth it, I would've quit by now, as it takes a lot of the family's money and time. And, this time of year (States is in three days) it is absolutely insane. There are bird flash cards strewn across the family room floor, scars on the dining room chair from a too eager sumobot, spilled sand from the MP sand timer, and batteries in the trash from the battery buggy's last runs. We have boxes of notes, files of practice tests, and I get printer ink refilled nearly weekly.
But it's good for the kids... They are learning things that they don't yet appreciate because, unlike me, they are not yet middle aged! While it is great that all the kids know that a red-winged blackbird says konklareeeee, it's even better that the kids know how to study, how to work with people that they are necessarily fond of, how to push through really hard learning, how to plan a project, brainstorm, problem solve, and laugh through the tears. They have learned that often a hard effort is rewarded, but not always; that things are not always fair; the sometimes you luck out, and sometimes the flu hits on competition day. They've learned to work with people who view things a lot differently than they do, and who have different priorities. They've learned to value people for their strengths (some kids are great memorizers and some are better builders; some are strong in math, and others have better writing skills) and not envy those strengths. They've learned that commitment isn't easy. These kids (and YOU!) will be able to enter adulthood able to plan, budget, rework, debug, think, be careful, etc. And they've learned that they DON'T like food science but DO like ornithology, that building balsa wood things is too tedious but robots are more fun. Furthermore, when their SO days are over, I'm pretty sure that they will have some lifelong friends. That's important too.
) and only the base was left intact. She left the room crying and I didn't know what to do aside from tell her that it was okay. She's still upset about it. Any suggestions???
