Another socially inept kid in the making…
People usually never believe me when I tell them that my childrens’ social skills have improved since being homeschooled. “How is this possible?” they wonder, “Children going from a classroom full of kids to a house with five kids? Impossible!” Well, I see how this logic works on the surface, but one must remember that things are not always as they seem.
I read a very interesting article explaining how homeschooled children are actually better off socially, entitled “Teens, Homeschooling, and the Lonely Crowd “ by Eve Tushnet. She contends that the contemporary schooling environment itself is deeply isolating. There are shelves upon shelves of books for parents who have seemingly been “wounded by unpopularity or cruel classmates. Magazines run long articles about the ‘alpha girls’ who dominate elementary-school classrooms. We take it for granted that middle school will be awful, high school a world of cliques and petty cruelties.”
I have yet to read a magazine article on homeschooled children wounded by their popular classmates who got out of control with the “clique thing” ; or got high in the bathroom for the first time due to peer pressure. My kids know I police the house 24/7 and would not dare to think about doing such things!
Another similar article entitled “Homeschooling and the Myth of Socialization “ by Manfred B. Zysk is helpful in explaining this concept and can be found by clicking on the above link.
