Many parents, like myself, have fond memories of public school. It is where we made our first friends. We remember the bus rides, trading food from our lunch boxes, recess, field trips, home games, and dances. Many parents don’t want their kids to miss out on these memories.
For those interested in homeschooling, the socialization question usually ranks somewhere at the top of their list of concerns.
Objection 3:
I don’t want my child growing up without good social experiences.
A lot of dads I talk to say similar things about homeschooling and socialization. They’ve run into their fair share of socially awkward homeschooled misfits. In these instances their suspicions about homeschooling are confirmed: something about the homeschooling experience is bound to turn their children into socially uncoordinated weirdos.
This objection should ring hollow to us, however. When I went to public school, I met quite a few social misfits. We were surrounded by all the peer socialization we could handle, and but that environment did not, in itself, guarantee each child would be socially empt.
Having been immersed in the homeschooling world for a while now, the socially awkward stereotype is by no means ubiquitous or even the norm in my community. Merely doing formal education in the home is not the biggest player in a child’s social skills. Many factors are at play: the child’s personality, the parents’ personalities, and how parents intentionally involve their children in the community.
Something all homeschool newbies come to understand is that “homeschooling” is probably an unfortunate misnomer. “Homeschooling” communicates the idea education is happening exclusively in the home, but for many homeschool families this is not the case.
Many families join weekly co-ops where kids gather for special classes and activities. Often, because schooling often takes considerably less time at home (compared to a public school classroom), many families finish with official “school work” early in the day, leaving the rest of the day to socialize with friends, get involved in community sports, 4-H, or Scouts, go to parks, or volunteer their time in the community.
Many homeschool families do not feel isolated, but rather they feel very integrated into the lives of others.
Homeschooling and Social Experiences: What Does the Research Say?
Of course, if one wanted to, one could look at what the studies say. This is exactly what Dr. Susan McDowell did in her book, But What About Socialization? She examined 24 studies about the socialization of homeschoolers, concluding that none of the research indicates that homeschooled kids are socially deficient. She concludes, “All the research shows children are doing well.”
Some studies on the socialization of homeschoolers focus on children’s “self-concept,” which is a key indicator for self-esteem and an ability to successfully interact with others. Using the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, one study compared 224 homeschooled children with 1,183 conventionally schooled children. The study found that 50% of homeschoolers score above the 90th percentile, and only 10.3% score below the national average.1
In another study, Dr. Larry Shyers looked at the social development test scores of 8-10-year-olds: half of them homeschooled, the other half attending either public or private schools. Not only did he find that the homeschooled children do not lag behind in social development, he found that homeschoolers have consistently fewer behavior problems. The results demonstrated that proper social development “depends more on adult contact and less on contact with other children as previously thought,” writes Dr. Shyers. Instead of modeling their behavior after their peers, homeschoolers tend to model their behavior after their parents.2
All the research aside, what convinces many parents that homeschoolers aren’t just a bunch of isolated wallflowers is actually spending time with other homeschool families. The more homeschoolers I got to know, the more I found myself enjoying the culture—a world where parents and children enjoyed a sort of relationship I didn’t see many other places.
For parents like myself who are the proud products of public education, before we are willing to consider homeschooling, we must first understand that homeschooling is not anti-social but offers children a much different kind of socialization. Homeschooling affords whole families the freedom to be social in real world settings and to be exposed to a greater diversity of people, places, and situations.
Our Experience
We’ve been very intentional about making sure our children have adequate opportunity for socialization. We’ve been involved in a number of different things: a weekly academic co-op, church on Sundays, weekly family-nights at church, homeschool basketball league, community swim team, tae kwon do, and field trips and play-dates with friends. Our kids are far from socially isolated.
Despite this exposure to a great deal of various social situations, we’ve seen interesting results. Our oldest son is very social. He loves to be with people (especially his friends) and will strike up a conversation with anyone, young or old. Our second-born, well, he typically enjoys being with his friends, but he can ignore people better than anyone I know. He’s not the most outgoing of kids. Our youngest (the twins), even at their young age, they seem to be taking after their oldest brother. All this to say, the personalities of our children are all very different, making it obvious that they won’t all be social butterflies or wallflowers.
If you’re thinking about homeschooling, has this been a fear of yours?
If you’re a homeschooler, how have you ensured that your child has gotten plenty of social experiences?
My Other Objections to Homeschooling
Objection #1: Does homeschooling really give children a quality education? Does it prepare them for college? For the world?
Objection #2: Is my wife really qualified as an educator? Can she really teach our child every subject?
Objection #3: If my wife stays home to homeschool, we’ll lose our second source of income.
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Thank you SO much for writing this. I’m in my first year of homeschooling my kindergartener and I’ve had it with the “socialization” question. I guess everyone knows “weird” home schooled kids, but I sure know a lot of “weird” traditionally schooled kids, too. I’m working on a post about my experiences with this, so I’ll be linking to your homeschooling posts, too. 🙂 Thanks again!
Where, in the real world, do adults sit for hours on end, every day, with a room full of people their exact same age? Seems to me that homeschooling actually prepares kid’s for real life better.
I know. Exactly.