My poor unsocialized homeschooled child….

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

7 thoughts on “My poor unsocialized homeschooled child….

  1. I know in another post, people were freaking out about your daughter going away at her age. I started boarding school at 13 and college at 17. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. I would hesitate to send my 13 year old away, but a 15-16 year old wouldn’t bother me. Having spent time studying in a foreign country in my teens, I am assuming your daughter will go through a degree of culture shock. Living in a new country is stressful and kind of scary. But within a week of two, once I got my Italian up to speed, learned the layout of the city and figured out the bus system, the shock wore off. Your daughter sounds emotionally healthy; she should be fine.

  2. we had a guest from my husband’s job who commented that we were different from “other” homeschooling families (obviously he’d met many…) because we seemed to be comfortable with rational thought… c’mon, world, let us know what you REALLY think about homeschooling!

  3. You are so inspiring Avivah. I wish I had the determination and energy to do this because I really beliieve in a lot of this. I will probably end up sending my children to regular schools, especially in the beginning. But I really do believe in its benefits and as much as I can, I go around trying to disspell the notion that Homeschooling is awful and stunts socialization, etc, if it comes up in a conversation.

  4. I hear you on this one! My response is always, “So you want a bunch of kids to teach my kids how to behave?”

    On the one hand, my kids sometimes have a hard time getting along with kids their own age, esp ds15 – often because all the other kids have to talk about is tv and video games. And because the other kids usually don’t behave up to my kids’ standards in a group setting. My ds8 hates scouts because the other boys act up, refuse to listen to the leaders, and nothing gets done. Pretty funny – oh wait, aren’t these kids supposed to be helping mine learn how to behave with others? Of course, we still go for that “social interaction”.

    On the other hand, my kids get along fine with adults, and really, who do we need to be able to get along with in life? My kids are always getting complements on their responsibility, ability to get along and be nice (most kids don’t seem to be able to!), follow directions, etc. I think we’re doing ok!

  5. As I see it, those who really believe in conventional education, have a hard time even considering the merits of alternatives, homeschooling being just one alternative. It wasn’t long ago that students were educated in one-room school houses. The educators in our family don’t like mixed grade education anymore than the idea of homeschooling. There is definitely a “marriage” between educators and what we have today.

  6. Hi, I am not a homeschooling mom and I am against homeschooling because we have seen negative experiences in our community. People think homeschooling is easy, just do half an hour academic work and for the rest they can work. As a result they have children who cannot read and act “weird” But since I am reading your blog I hear/see that there are also different ways of homeschooling,it wouldn’t be anything for me, but I think you do an exellent job.Diane

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