I have a question for all you homescoolers. There was a family where I lived that had homeschooled children. They didn't really have any freinds and everybody thought they were wierd (I would call them socially inept). Do you think you miss out on the social atmosphere in public school?
I was home schooled.
First off, let me ask: would you
want your children to be 'socialized' in the animalistic environment that is public school? You can see the same basic behaviors that middle school students and high school students demonstrate as early as pre-school and day care; the attitude is roughly the same and the only significant differences are biology and vocabulary. (If you've ever been to a preschool, you'll know what I mean: kids are always fighting, bickering, and being petty, only shortly turning away from such pursuits to enjoy themselves and be mature after an adult chastises them.)
That is not an environment in which it is easy to raise a thoughtful, intelligent, moral individual. However, it is a very good environment to train a member of society who fits in.
When you say these kids you've were socially inept, did you notice how they interacted with adults? Maybe you did, and it still appeared inept; however, my experience has been (both personal and what I've noticed of other home schoolers) is that they're quite able to hold intelligent dinner-table (or cigar room, or whatever) conversations with just about anyone who isn't drunk or as uninteresting as a stack of old Farmer's Almanacs.
Yes, I 'missed out' on a number of things growing up - primarily getting laid and having regular girlfriends. I didn't have many friends, but there wasn't a time growing up when I didn't have at least one close friend who I'd regularly spend time with (I wasn't a 'group' person but there were home schoolers who were).
Things in the broader social scene fixed themselves later on - the last few years of high school and college - largely because (in my opinion) the people around me started picking up the expectations adults were placing on them - namely, to be adults themselves. Many - I dare say, most - don't pick up and acknowledge those expectations, and end up being pretty pathetic adults.
I'm not saying a person can't be a talented, thoughtful individual after going through public school; I do think that a degree of interaction with those they will be interacting with throughout their lives is absolutely necessary in order to help them to acclimate to the culture (I attended several private high schools). Yes, I was quite a misfit. So what?
I believe the biggest difference home school students benefit from is parents who actively enroll themselves in their child's upbringing: turning a baby into a child, into a young adult, and then eventually sending them off as a grown man or woman. There are a lot of nuanced values which home schooling parents tend to have which simply aren't evident to those who blithely send their children off to public school, unaware of what their children are missing out on.
Currently, my son is 3.5 years old. He's as verbal as a child twice his age and converses with adults. He
is somewhat frustrated at times around those his age (
not his peers, because in many respects he's ahead of them developmentally, and in others a bit behind). The important thing is that he is having a civil attitude towards others ingrained: he's polite, thoughtful, and considerate. It's almost comical to watch him talk about something (anything) with an adult, because it's never a 1-way conversation. He'll ask the adult what they think, and then base his next response off of that.
This isn't anything special - I've seen it in many home schooled kids - though I'll admit that he's fortunate to have two parents who are both reasonably intelligent. I'm just trying to make note of what a child is like when he or she spends most of his time amongst the company of adults - it's something that can be seen fairly well in families (home schooled or not) that spend a lot of time together, particularly in the eldest (and/or only child).
And, if you'd ever seen home schooled kids get together and socialize, you'd see kids as young as 10 or so mingling with the parents and teens playing with the young children. That hardly seems undeveloped to me.
One downside of home schooling: we're all (mostly) so damn opinionated and long winded!
He's a nice kid and very bright, but he has no social skills for kids his age and it shows. Just my observations...
Well, that describes me pretty well. I preferred talking and discussing things with my professors, not fellow students. That was part of the reason I finished up my degree at an "nontraditional" school: I couldn't stand being around so many people who were, for all intents and purposes, "kids".
