It’s amazing that one of the biggest concerns that people tend to have with homeschoolers is the socialization issue. The questions of interaction with other children and activities are the ones that always arise and are simply taken out of proportion. A homeschooler need not worry about socialization skills because those are learned on a daily basis. The main concern should be the quality of the education and not how the child will socialize.
Actually a homeschooler will have more time to socialize than a child that attends a traditional school setting. In all honesty, parents closely monitor the type of socialization that a homeschooler gets, unlike when they are in a traditional school setting. In a public school or private school setting, there are bullies, unstable individuals and teachers you would not want your child socializing with. It is unfortunate that children in a traditional school environment have to be subjected to the negative type of socialization such as bad behavior, rumors and bullying, to name a few.
There is also a misconception that a child should be subjected to the regular, negative, social interaction often seen in public schools in order to learn how to handle conflict. However, like I said, this is just a misconception. Most children who are home educated usually learn HEALTHY ways to resolve conflict. Being bullied is not a means of learning conflict resolution, instead it is a means to cause insecurity and a lack of self confidence.
Homeschooled children have the opportunity to get involved in after school activities such Boy and Girl Scouts, 4H Clubs, and many church activities. There is no shortage of opportunities to interact with children their own age. Children also have the opportunity to get involved in team sports such as soccer, baseball, and cheerleading, which will increase their ability to interact with many other children.
There are also homeschool groups where children will interact with other homeschooled children. Parents have the opportunity to plan group activities with other homeschooled families, such as field trips, meet and great activities and community service projects. As the children get to know each other, the parents get a well deserved break as well and an opportunity to socialize themselves.
The notion that homeschooled children have no socialization skills is far from the truth. Homeschooled children do not spend every waking hour at home; they are involved in many activities that involved children their age. Finding friends is not and should not be a concern for them.
About CSAHM
My daughter is in K and she does school from home. It is a e-school, but she still does it from home even though it is considered a public school. I have to agree with you that the first thing people would ask once they heard she was going to be doing school at home was about socialization. At first I was a little nervous and thought that this the wrong thing to do. But as I sit with her everyday and see her progress in her learning abilities, I am so glad that my husband and I chose this route. The school offers social events and other parents and families get together, so there is a lot of socialization. My husband and I feel like we are raising our children to be adults and some adults don’t stand there and take the bullying, they take themselves out of the situation. In a brick and mortar school that is not possible. I also feel that brick and mortar schools with these bullies take away from the confidence that a child has. I wish I did school from home, because I would have gotten better grades if I wasn’t bullied everyday of my school life. Homeschooling and E-Schooling is a blessing from God.
I am so happy I stumbled upon this!!!
I am raising my 6yo niece and 8yo nephew like they were my own. I recently starting believing more than I have ever before and I have thought about homeschooling both children after my nephew had been having many behaviour problems at school. He was hanging out with the wrong kids, who he is now forbidden to hangout with.
I shared my thoughts with my boyfriend of 1 year, who is helping me in raising both kids, like they were his own as well. He wasn’t completly against homeschooling BUT did mention that our niece would probably not do so well because of the lack of socialization. She was(and still is) a very very shy girl. She didn’t attend preschool and always kept to herself. That was when my sister(their mom) was still in their lives(she left Oct 09). Now she started Kindergarten this past September and her verbal skills have dramatically increased and she is a very talkative little one. Which she never was before. She has blossomed since starting kindergarten.
I see his point, but I can’t stop thinking that homeschooling them would, in the long run, be for the best. My sister would ‘baby’ my niece. Allowing her to use baby talk at ALL times. Now that she is with me 24/7, she is talking more because I don’t allow her to use baby talk or just point to what she needs/wants. I tell her to use her words and sentances.
I believe they would do great being homeschooled..but I know NOTHING about it. How do you get started?
I come from another angle, I suppose. I have been homeschooling for 5 years now. Honestly, I wish I would have involved the public school sooner. We just found out our daughter has mild autism and she’s in 5th grade. The last couple years we noticed some odd things, but because we have odd families (inlaws mostly) we thought it was genetic. Finally, I caved and had her tested at our school district. This really is one thing that bothers me about the homeschool community, atleast in my state. They frown on this involvement. Needless to say, my daughter lacked social skills. It wasn’t my fault but with autism, she needed skills on how to cope and deal with social interaction. I couldn’t do that at home. Right now she is in school (public) 2 hours a day and I homeschool her the rest of the time. She takes Math and Reading at the school as well as learns social stuff with an occupational therapist and speech therapist too. It has really helped her! I wish I would have done it much sooner. I couldn’t just put her in a social setting on my own. I needed help. I hope parents who homeschool their kids don’t make my mistake. I do have a younger daughter who is WAY social so I know what you are saying about typical children not needing socialization. I disagree that we need to focus or worry about academics. For me, I worry more about their faith than anything. I think that is THE most important. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then all these things will be added unto you”. That is my verse right there.