Why is the phrase 'social skills' the first protest of public school defenders? What social skills do you learn at school that you don't learn elsewhere? It's not like homeschooled kids never interact with another human until they go to college.
Is learning to fight, swear, gossip, talk bad about authority, question your parents' morality, etc. important enough to you to force your kids into a failing school system?
If you have other reasons to public school, that's fine, but why criticize homeschooling with the social skills question?
What social skills?
Some "interesting" responses you've received so far.
I agree with Jeffrey P that it's the easiest to use. So much uninformed rationalizing can go on and people can remain absolutely convinced that they are absolutely right.
To those who say it's the parents who need to teach their kids not to swear, gossip, etc., parents can do their part, but since parents spend few waking hours during a school week with their children, it's what they get the rest of the time that can make the biggest difference, unfortunately. Kids are biologically wired to learn what's around them, to grow up to be like that. They naturally want to fit in and be like others and to expect most children under the age of 12 to truly reason things out and do things because they are the right things to do is ridiculous--it shows ignorance of child development.
I can only laugh at the comment of social skills being "compare your thinking with your classmates". Wow. Most adults are lacking social skills because they don't spend their lives in a classroom! How about all the presidents who did not go to school--were they dictators who were unable to consider the point of view of others? Oh and homeschooling doesn't offer you "seeing other people of your own age"--first of all, who says? My kids see kids their own age all the time. Secondly, who says that that's even important to a person's development? People go on and on about things they assume to be true because everybody says they're true, but there's absolutely no reason to believe that a child's long-term well-being and development are dependent upon seeing other people EXACTLY their age all the time.
It simply doesn't make sense--we spent thousands of years without a mass classroom setup. People didn't spend their lives locked in their houses and not interacting with others because they didn't go to school for 35 hours a week.
As for whosays' comment: yes, I am a teacher. I have spent 8-hour days in a school to know what they are really like. It is the reason I began thinking of homeschooling in the first place. My dh is also a teacher. He was having the same thoughts I was. Most parents have little time with their kids these days. I hear about it all the time from my dh who supposedly works in one of the best demographics in terms of schools in the city. The problem lies in the ones who don't have parents doing their job and being a huge influence on everybody else. It's basic psychology/sociology.
And whosays, there is no problem with parents teaching their kids. Surely you didn't hire someone to potty train your child? Or teach him to walk? Or talk? Or tie his shoes? Or count to 5? Why can't you teach him to count to 100? To write numbers? To read words? Why can't you talk to him about books that he reads? It's a shame that you have such a poor view of yourself as being capable of teaching your child. Credentials are about state accountability, not about capability. Many private schools do not require their teachers to have education degrees. Did you know that? And yet private schools tend to have better results than public schools. If teaching credentials were the only way to be able to teach your child anything, then private schools should have the worst-educated kids around. YOU should get a clue before harrassing somebody who actually does know what he's talking about.
"Even if [every public school is a failing system], it gives [kids] an opportunity to overcome adversity." O-M-G. Do you realize what you are saying? You know, people who are abused also have an opportunity to overcome adversity--should we purposefully abuse people? Look at the guy in Happyness--look what an opportunity he had by being homeless. Let's make everybody homeless so they can develop those character traits to become great people! Just because we can FIND some good in a bad situation does not mean that we should subject ANYBODY, much less children, to bad situations in order to--hopefully--develop some good.
ADDED:
Whosays, *I* made no assumptions. *YOU* were the one who said that unless a parent has credentials, they aren't qualified to teach their child anything.
Reply:Stick with homeschooling. HS kids are more well-rounded than public school kids. Just the other day a 14 year old HS girl met me for the first time and we had the nicest conversation. I have never met a HS kid that couldn't carry on a conversation and interact with anyone of any age. I HAVE met PS kids who couldn't carry on a conversation if their lives depended on it. You are doing the right thing.
Reply:I don't think it's a matter of not interacting with another human being, but rather not interacting with people their own age. I think that's the big concern with homeschooling, however if they have friends and are involved in activities such as sports then I'm sure they're getting plenty of interaction. Be sure though to not focus on the negatives of public schooling (learning to fight, swear, gossip, talk bad about authority, question your parents' morality) to defend your stance because there are many good things about it as well.
Reply:The reason this is the most common argument against home-school is that it is the easiest. To the uninformed, they assume home-school kids are hermits, that they don't play sports, interact with kids their own age etc. If you are a home-schooler you know this is not true. They anti-homeschooling contingent also tends to exaggerate the importance of peer interaction, and minimize the importance of parents.
If the anti-home-schooler were honest, they would have much less support. As you know the main reason homeschooling is opposed is that it exposes the weakness of traditional public education. (That is not to say that one cannot get a good education by the traditional methods or that homeschooling is always superior.) The real issue is one of power and economics as are most publicly debated issues.
Reply:i have nothing against homeschooling. in fact i sometimes wish i was homeschooled. But i also wonder... If I was homeschooled and my only teacher was my mother, would'nt I only learn what she wanted to teach me? If that was the case, I'd be pretty screwed up right now. I know twice as much as my mom, but she still has one up on me... experience. experience is caused by life... trying and failing, making mistakes, doing things i shouldn't and learning FIRSTHAND why I shouldn't. It is something everyone will have to face one way or another. Luckily I had everyday of my life to learn that little by little, instead of all at once when I'm finally on my own in the really real world with nobody to turn to. but then again, i am PS so maybe I can't see the other side, but i do know many HS adults who really regreted it. NO MATTER WHAT YOU TEACH YOUR KIDS THEY WILL STILL BE SHAPED FROM REAL LIFE. THE LAST DAY OF HOMESCHOOL IS NOT THE END OF THE LINE. you cant program a child. IT LEARNS. it doesn't take commands like a computer. Shelter is only safe for a while until a real storm comes. Would you like your kids to be exactly like you, knowing only what you know, only thinking what you think, not making the mistakes you did, but making all the ones you didn't because they only know what you told them was real or true? If I called my mother right now she would say how happy she was that I learned what i did in PS. But i have to give her all the credit for teaching me how to learn what i did. sometimes you have to learn from people other than the ones who care about you most. they are unbiased as a whole because you have many options to choose from. My Mommy told me the world is flat and ther's nothing you can do about it! I am only 23 though, and still haven't lived long enough to say that what i know is what really is. Keep your kid homeschooled. they won't be able to handle the change.
Reply:"But seriously, children in schools learn their social skills from other children. Are we raising people to act like children or to act like adults? EVERYONE wants kids to learn to behave, but they spend all day learning from each other and parents have evenings and weekends to try to correct that"
Amen to that original poster.
Homeschoolers have plenty of opportunity to express themselves with others. Our kids are around other children, but usually under supervision.
They have intellegent conversations/debates/discussions with others they encounter.
As a matter of fact, most of the homeschooling children I know are very outgoing and expressive. At the same time, they aren't afraid to stand up for their Christian beliefs. Children do NOT have to be placed into public school systems in order for them to be "socialized". The family unit is the most important unit there is.
Sending our children to public school isn't for this family. I've heard of MANY inappropriate behaviors that are going on in the public school from children going there. With my kids here at home, I do have a say so over what they are being subjected to and I'm able to know first hand what's happening.
I don't think homeschooling is for everyone, but if God has lead someone to do so, then it will be blessed if they're doing it for the right reasons.
Reply:Your fishing for something
-that's why its called fishing, not catching
my take (has been and still is) why go through all this extra effort of home schooling to get almost as good an education at 5 times the effort? By the same logic you would have home dentistry, home OB/GYN, make your own TV shows, make your own church
What does going through 'home schooling' teach your kids? Maybe 'you are too good for the rest of the world' or ' the rest of world is not good enough for you' or 'when you don't like some institution, you can quit and e a hr emit' ? If its not one of these, then what does 'home schooling' say about you?
I think your kids (if they are excelling at homeschooling) would also excell at public school. You and your family would have been (and should have been) an excellent asset to your public schools' community. To be a little Biblical, you are burying 'your talents/gifts' in your 'backyard' not multiplying them by sharing them in the Creator's World
Unless you are doing something at home that requires you to hide your kids at home, you should not be scared to send them to school
severe medical conditions excluded
Reply:I'm homeschooled and my social skills are fine.
Reply:social skills is not gossiping, swearing, talking bad about authority. it's about learning to express your opinion among people, debate, compare your thinking with your classmates, seeing other people of your own age and how they interact with each other. homeschoolong does not offer you that. you have education but only your opinion.
Reply:Since you're taking extreme generalizations, I'll do the same.
Home schooled kids typically never talk to anyone but their immediate family. That's the problem.
Going to a regular school, whether public or private, allows interaction with many different types of people and gives them the life experiences most people have.
Interacting with kids their own age is important. It shapes their life experiences because they learn how to make friends easier, have the opportunity to overcome shyness, go through puberty and dealing with the opposite sex when any mistakes can be chalked up to age with the opportunity to get better. Dealing with bullies, people they don't like, etc. All are good experiences to learn b/c they'll likely run into these people either in college, or out in the real world. They can also learn by seeing how other kids react to these situations, and decide which ones work for them. You also get the common experiences such as cheering for your school's team, school dances, etc. Later on, chatting by the watercooler, the kid won't feel so left out.
They also deal with more adults. If there's a bad teacher, a good teacher, manipulating a teacher, etc. These skills translate later on to professors in college or supervisors at a job.
Finally, they learn a different point of view besides their parents. Whether it's educational subjects or simply life subjects, this can be helpful. Should they get married, there's less of a chance for friction btw the spouse and the in-laws b/c of too much dependence by the person who was home schooled to his parents.
Not every public school is a failing system. Even if it is, it gives them an opportunity to overcome adversity. At the very least, it gives them a real world view of how life isn't always so rosy. Being overly sheltered is a real problem with kids today. Yes, whether they go to traditional school or not, it's a problem. However, simply counting the time the kid can be sheltered by a parent puts the home schooler at risk for this more than a kid who gets away from his parents for a bit.
My sister was home schooled for some time. I've met a decent number of home schooled kids. The lack of social skills and the ability to interact smoothly with others is definitely a common problem that an objective observer can see. If you're in the US, social interaction (and office politics, if you will) are a huge factor in life, especially in the rat race. In many cases, it can even trump actual knowledge. If someone is lacking some basic social skills, it can really hurt them at their job and life in general.
Reply:Well I'll I can do is talk from my experience, so here it goes. I was only home-schooled until I was eight years old ( I'm fifteen now).
%26amp; I truly wish with all my heart that I still could be, unfortunately though my parents divorced %26amp; then I was put into a boarding school, %26amp; now I'm currently in a private highschool. But if I were to choose the one that I thought educated me the most, it would most definitely be when I was home-schooled. Mainly beause it enhanced my curiosity, about everything, while the other two curbed it.
Reply:It's based off the assumption that homeschooled kids sit in the "school room" with mom in the front eight hours a day, every day, and then have four to six hours of homework. In other words, that they recreate school at home. You have a locker in your bedroom, you can't go outside without some equivalent of a hall pass and you never see anyone less than twenty years older than you.
What people usually think homeschooling is IS bad. However, plenty of kids go through the public school system and turn out fine. Part of being a teenager is swearing, fighting, trashing authority and questioning your parents' morals. It's called testing the waters and growing up. The vast majority of us get in to one fistfight, get scared sh*tless and never fight again. We get smashed on cheap rum one night, get scared, and don't do it again. We're all teenagers in the end. Homeschooling or not, you will curse because you're fifteen. You'll question your parents' morality because you're growing up.
You can't change the facts of life.
Reply:I'll take issue with you on your statement that teachers have lower IQs because it just ain't so. The fact is, rocket scientists make lousy teachers. They may be good at scientific research, but they don't know the first thing about how to help others learn how to do it. Or even more difficult to help others learn how to learn. If you ever went to university, you probably had a couple of profs who were experts in their field, but you didn't learn diddly-squat from them. The teaching in those classes was done in tutorials led by graduate students. And even then, most of the learning was done by the student, who had to figure out how to digest the information s/he was being fed, and do it mostly by him or herself. A few good teachers could revolutionize university classes.
Reply:Are you a teacher? Do you spend an eight hour day inside a school to know what one is really like? Until you do do not criticize it. Whose job do you think it is to teach kids not to fight, swear, gossip, respect authority, and anything else you might have listed in your question? When did parents stop being responsible for raising their children, and it became the job of the schools? You know nothing.
As for social skills, I can tell a huge difference in my childs social development since he's been in school. He speaks in longer, more thought out sentences. He attempts things he wouldn't have dreamed about prior. Being an only child and grandchild he was only around adults most of the time. I didn't realize what he was lacking socially until he started school.
Now, as far as public schooling itself is concerned. Teachers are there to teach children, and to reinforce right and wrong when needed. I'm speaking of lower grades here. Do you expect parents to do nothing while a teacher raises a parent's child? It makes it really hard when teacher's have to take time out of what they are doing to take care of a problem that's a result of parents that have no business being parents to begin with. The administration has many things to do to keep a school running. Its a shame that discipline promlems are the way they are. This takes time away from their day, and is again the result of the parents not doing their jobs.
The BIGGEST problem with home schooling, however, is the parent teaching his/her child. Are you a teacher? Do you have the proper training to give your child the education he/she needs for when college time comes? Unless you are then you are not in the least bit qualified to be teaching your child anything. If that were the case than we'd be switching professions whenever we felt like it regardless of training. Be it a public or a private school, a child needs to be educated by a person that has the credentials to do it. NOT by some parent on a soapbox that thinks he's making a point, but really hasn't a clue in the world about what he's talking about.
Reply:The problem is that many people learn their social skills ONLY from schools, and that is a bad thing.
Reply:Wow what a lot of wasted time and energy over something that can't be changed.
We are never going to change the opinions of these ignorant people and the ignorant people will never be able to do a thing about us homeschooling,so why don't we all agree to disagree and be done with it.
I see the same argument over and over.They say we can't teach but our children's grades say otherwise.They then try the socializing line, and we come back with all the social activities our kids do with children of their own ages and also older, younger and adults. They are still not satisfied, and they never will be, and they don't need to be. We do NOT need their approval to home school and we never will, so let them preach their opinions if they want to but remember if theres no-one listening to it then it means nothing. Do not let it bother you, thats why they keep going, don't add fuel to the fire and it won't burn anymore.
Reply:I do NOT know...it does drive me crazy though, because it's such a general assumption of people who don't even know many homeschoolers.
To rebut some argument
We are our children's first teacher. If I'm qualified to give birth, teach them to walk, talk, eat, potty, how am i less qualified to teach anything else that I could read in a book? I have spent eight hours a day in a school, for thirteen years, plus five years in college to get my BS and another two in college to start an education program. I quit because what they taught was crap (esp the class where we were taught how to keep parents out of the classroom, it's amazing what a club it is...they def changed when they found out I was a parent). It is a parents job to teach EVERY thing, in the end, we are the ones who have to justify what our children know...the schools are totally exempt. The parents stopped taking responsibility when schools started saying that we were not qualified to teach them anything. Complain about how they won't teach their kids manners, but your whole attitude says that parents don't know anything and can't teach anything. There is a very big paradox there.
As far as social skills...there is a big developmental difference from three to six. any child would start speaking in longer sentences, etc etc. You should have learned that in your teacher education classes. Most homeschoolers are much more involved in insuring that kids are active in the world.
As far as teaching my children, not only do I know every topic they need to know from learning it, I probably knew most of it better than the teachers my kids had in school. Esp in elementary when they don't have to know subjects, just the 'science' of teaching, how to teach whatever curriculum the school provides. Prime example was my fourth grader asking questions about algebra. The teacher had no idea how to do any algebra, she hadn't had to since college. Instead of figuring it out, or telling my son that he could go to the library or even to the math gifted teacher, she told him algebra was 'too hard' for kids and that he would have to wait for high school to learn it. What the heck is that teaching him? You can bet the first thing he wanted to learn was algebra when he started homeschooling. We got a book and he learned all preconcepts and the entire book in less than two months.
You have made a very gross assumption on how educated or well-trained homeschooling parents are, and it's very much OFF topic from the question, which was about social skills.
I figure that people are so caught up in social skills, that they won't differentiate between GOOD social skills and BAD social skills. The kids we saw at the science museum had social skills, awful ones! They pushed and shoved each other out of the way at the water fountain, screamed and threw stuff at each other, climbed all over equipment that had specific signs (I guess they hadn't learned to read yet) While walking it was quite important to trip and shove each other to the ground, and the more your opponent bled the better you were. Wow. Those are the skills that will help them function in the real world (sarcasm for those lacking in social skills). My 6 and 7 yo daughters were able to get in line, and wait patiently. They were able to tell who they could stand up to when people were cutting, and were ironically gracious to the big bullies who probably would have hurt them for not letting them cut. My five yo was able to do the same at some of the set-ups...and even my autistic children were doing better at social skills than these hooligans aged 2nd grade through probably sixth.
People are invested in maintaining the falsity that public schools are important for social skills. They have to be because if they weren't they couldn't justify it just for the academics. although I have know plenty of people that I agree should NOT homeschool.
Reply:My wife and I are home schooling our two girls. They are currently in grades 9 and 10.
My kids teach music appreciation and beginning recorder for their music teacher to other kids. They are leaders in their 4H club. They are active in the Life Teen group at our church. Something tells me that they have social skills.
We are members of several home school groups. One of these groups has more than 50 families, so we are not isolated. The kids that I have met are joys to be around. Most are very active in their communities. I think that you will find most home schooled kids to be more socially adept in various age levels as opposed to just their own peer/age group. The fact that their parents are actively involved in their schooling and life is what accomplishes this.
I do not have to worry about my kids doing drugs, or getting involved in gangs. This comes from active parent involvement and knowing who your kids are associating with. Home schooling facilitates this.
I am sure there are some home schooled kids that are isolated, but you will find that in society in general.
Reply:I think it's allowing kids to interact with diversity (in many forms) before they are too old to "adjust" accordingly. Can't teach an old dog new tricks, as they say.
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