Anecdotally, most current or former homeschooled kids I meet seem pretty socially awkward. I wonder if It’s because the miss-out on the opportunity to learn how to socialize properly as children. But maybe I’m being too critical, idk.
Anecdotally, most current or former homeschooled kids I meet seem pretty socially awkward. I wonder if It’s because the miss-out on the opportunity to learn how to socialize properly as children. But maybe I’m being too critical, idk.
Former homeschooled kid here. Everything I’m about to say is personal experience but I’ve known many other homeschooled people throughout my life.
With homeschooling you get out what you put in. If the parents take the time to really dial in to the child’s learning needs and set up adequate socialization through after school activities or meetups with other homeschoolers I truly believe it is one of if not the best option for raising a child.
That being said, most of the people choosing to homeschool are not doing it to give their kids the best. Many are narcissistic conservatives who deny modern science and homeschool not to teach the child but to indoctrinate. They don’t consider mental health important. They don’t consider friends important. They consider the kid learning the Bible and toughening up important. The parents are often social outcasts themselves because of their more strict beliefs.
Homeschooling is not a problem and doesn’t result in anything directly, it’s the people choosing to homeschool not being equipped to do it properly. In my experience the kind of parent who would choose homeschooling is likely to produce a social awkward kid even if they don’t homeschool.
TL:DR - Homeschooling good. Most everyone who chooses homeschooling bad. Hug your kids.
This… I remember one of our neighbors finally letting their homeschooled kid go to public school and play with us. We had to teach him how to run. I remember my young mind being baffled by this. He was incredibly naïve and overly trusting so he got bullied mercilessly and beat up at recess. His mother did him no favors by being really nasty with us when we went over to take him fishing, exploring, etc. We moved away and i wonder what happened to him… he was a gentle soul.
Aw that’s so rough on the poor guy, it likely did him a world of good moving forward that he had friends like you to open his eyes, even if it was a short time.
I had the reverse happen where I was teaching the public school kids that you could climb trees. I’m sure it wasn’t mindblowing for them, but they had just never thought about it before. We were like 13 at the time.
I had a wonderful experience too, my parents really put their heart and soul into me and my siblings and we had a local homeschooling group larger than one of the nearby schools that did minimum weekly outings and the like.
I’m an electrical engineer now, my sisters are lawyers, bankers, and concert pianists, my brothers are studying for medical doctorate and running a forge, and many of my friends are in similar places.
Just to add my voice to yours, it’s absolutely all about what you put into it. I have deep lifelong friendships from my homeschooling days, the heavy intent our parents had on the social aspect was imperative. I joined after school activities by the local high-schools later on and met some great public school friends.
The natural flow of learning time-wise vs the rigidity of public school is a studied and proven to be far more conducive to education, as well, and I wish public schools would learn this.
Mine and my siblings’ and friends’ experience was amazing compared to most if not all of my public school friends, and it was all thanks to our parents pouring their lives into giving us all of the knowledge and environments we needed. It can definitely not go this way, if the parent isn’t actively providing those environments, but it is and always will be an issue of the tool being used incorrectly.
Just need to correct one small thing.
My experience was absolutely terrible and I would have been better off in a public school. My parents were proof of why homeschooling is the wrong choice 99% of the time
I have friends in the old country who do homeschooling. They’re the kind who do it for good reasons. The amount of controls, checks and justifications the parents have to go through constantly is huge. Constantly prove the teaching methods, program, environment, everything. So there are ways to permit homeschooling that seem better it seems.
Yeah the ones I know only see Facebook news (pushed by Russian bots and right wing propoganda) about how public schools are evil and bad and you should definitely send your child to private religious school (who definitely won’t rape them) or home school them to install horrible values to ensure they grow up to vote regressive .
Its bad man.