Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or shake my head at questions/comments like below.  They aren’t uncommon, so I’m going to answer it here.

>>The only concern I have is the culture shock she will experience from being homeschooled and around you every day, to going away for (a year? how long will it be) a long, long time away from her family, and having this as her first real social experience. Wont it be a huge transition and a huge jump? Instead of local school, which you eschew for personal reasons, she’s jumping all the way to going to another country, away from her family? I’m confused, there’s a dichotomy here.<<

I’m not sure what you mean by dichotomy in this context, but what I think you’re politely saying is that I’m not consistent, correct?  This sentiment reminds me of people who feel I’m hypocritical because I don’t send my kids to school but I allow them to go to summer camp.  Because 12 – 15 years spent daily at school regardless of the child’s interest, and short term experiences at camp when the child chooses to be there, are obviously exactly the same thing.  🙄

The trust people have in schools to build healthy social skills in children is beautiful.  And so well-earned, too, since schools do a magnificent job in developing children with self-acceptance, confidence, and emotional maturity.  That’s why all kids who go to school are so well-balanced and socially adept – it’s because the framework has been thoughtfully created with the deep and sensitive needs of a child in mind, and much study has been done about the most effective way to help each one blossom in his own individual way.  Institutions are known to be deeply concerned about the individual and accomodate them even when it’s inconvenient.

Unfortunately, being the overprotective and shortsighted mother that I am, I keep my child out of school and thereby from any and all social opportunities that would allow her to develop independence and maturity of any sort, preventing her from being able to appropriately function in society.  If only she had the support of the school system instead of actively involved parents, how much better prepared for life she would be.  😆

In all seriousness, the unquestioned assumption that I’m seeing here is that school is where kids develop good social skills.  What support do you have for that position?  I strongly disagree with school as a positive breeding ground for good social skills, and believe that when kids develop good social skills, it’s in spite of being with their equally immature and inexperienced peers all day, not because of it.  Healthy social skills are developed much more effectively by the constant role modeling of adults.  Interesting that gang behavior, teen pregnancies, bullying, etc – are all found in significant numbers in schools – but very few take this path who have close ties with a parent.  Are the schools really getting better results than involved parents?

The next assumption is that schools prepare children for life because they are offered more opportunities to have new experiences.  This is almost breathtaking in its inaccuracy.  The kids in school have an incredibly limited life – dd has sometimes commented that when her schooled friends get together, there’s only one topic of conversation – school, which means talking about the students and teachers.  That’s it. They literally don’t have enough other experiences to draw on to keep the conversation going more than ten minutes or so before it comes back to school.

On the other side is the homeschooled child, who is much less limited in the experiences they can have.  Their learning can be more creative, they can have more trips and outings to interesting places, they can interact with those outside of their immediate peer group.  When dd gets together with friends, she always has plenty to talk about – her first year in camp (I think she was ten), it was a bit unsettling to her when girls would suddenly stop talking to their friends to listen in on her conversations because what she had to say was so much more interesting than the conversations they were having.  I realize this is hard for those who went through the school system to conceptualize, since our lives revolved around school – so it’s very hard to picture anything but a lonely child sitting at a dining room table when thinking of a homeschooled child’s social opportunities.  The inability of adults to picture the possibilities outside of school is a reflection of how stunted our imagination in this area is.

I believe that homeschooled children tend to be much more prepared to effectively interact with others in the real world, because they’ve had so many more chances throughout the years.  The opportunities will be different for different people, but there is always much more than the home itself to draw on if that’s what the family desires.  Outside of school, children learn to value others based on who they are, not how exactly they fit the ‘ideal peer profile’ (ie who’s cool).  They can become friendly with those of all ages – on Weds. when I wrote this, dd13 spent an hour shopping with a 20 year old for a family who needed the help, then babysat for several hours for a 9 year old who was home sick from school, and still had plenty of time to interact with her siblings when she returned.  Our recent Shabbos guest was someone dd introduced herself to in shul and invited over – she is in her mid thirties- and dd was able to have relaxed and friendly conversations with her week after week without either of them ever discussing age.  How many hours in school are spent having meaningful conversations or really getting to know someone?  How many 13 year olds are comfortable socially with a 35 year old – or a 9 year old?  Or their siblings and parents?  Do you think that someone who has more breadth of experience socially will be more prepared for new social situations?  I do.

By the way, I don’t ‘eschew’ schools.  I choose to focus on the positives homeschooling has offered our children rather than to make negative judgments about the educational alternatives.

Avivah