This, unfortunately, will be the phrase you hear most often, once you tell someone you are (or considering) home education. I’ll be honest, I thought it too.
The best answer I have heard so far was something along the lines of “well, yes, its a real worry isn’t it? not natural! all those kids, mixing with thirty-plus kids all born in exactly the same year, setting them up to believe they should only be friends with people exactly the same age. And the bullying, cliques etc – oh yes, I’m very worried about the social side of state school.. very worried…..”
It is a concern though, will your child be lonely. I think mine is, but he was when in school too, only then he was lonely and surrounded by kids. In my son’s case, he is on the autistic spectrum and finds interacting with other children really hard. So much so that it was getting in the way of any learning. On top of that, his learning difficulties set him apart. He was at a mainstream school. If we could have got him a place at a school for children with moderate learning difficulties (unlikely as the big move is towards inclusion) he is likely to have found things much worse, with the other children, as he depends on routine and expected behavior, which would be unlikely from the other kids with special needs. It is a mistake to imagine there will be a natural empathy.
Many children on the autistic spectrum end up being home educated, as the ‘social side’ is a trauma to them, and throwing them in with other kids is comparable with throwing a person with a snake phobia into a pit of snakes. No, they don’t toughen up, they melt down.
Many kids have a great time at school, and it’s successful, but some, even if they don’t have special needs, will still face issues with bullying etc. It can be very traumatic. And this is the socialisation we want? I don’t think so. It strikes me as odd that parents think that it will be school and the school system that will form their child’s personality, that will make their child into a well rounded adult, with good social skills. In reality, the children spend far more time not being at school, and so the out of school environment, i.e. home life, will have a far greater influence. – I should hope so too!
But what social skills do children learn at school? It is a unique environment – and only sets them up for coping with.. well.. school. You only have to consider village life a few centuries ago, kids would have mixed with people of all ages, would have grown up looking out for the youngsters, learning from their elders.
It is not actually difficult to aid your child to have a social life, whilst home educating. There are home ed groups all over, locally we have the choice of swimming, natural history, photography, crafts as well as just get together groups. And these groups will have mixed ages. We don’t take much of this up, due to my son’s issues, but it’s there if a subject of interest pops up. He really enjoyed the making bird boxes day, at one group. For the rest of ‘socialisation’ we depend on normal every day interactions. We visit his great grandmother, his cousins, his grandparents. He has occasional sleepovers and time away from us. He has come to folk festivals and socialises with friends and family (of all ages) And as part of daily independent life; he interacts with the librarian (book track, a system where he has to talk about books he has read) the bank staff (he runs his own account) and various shop keepers. I encourage him to manage the sort of interactions he will have to make for the rest of his life – reporting at the health centre reception, making a hair appointment, passing the time of day with neighbours, and so on.
The ‘social skills’ a person learns at school are only really good for that particular environment, and only a small proportion of the average person’s life..
so what about the social side? It’s great, now that school is out of the way, we have so many opportunities.
and finally, I saved this from May 2006, chief inspector of Ofsted, Maurice Smith said
We need to reinforce the message that school is a ‘place of work’ preparing youngsters for the world of work, where a work ethic is required – not a house of fun to meet youngsters’ social needs
What you have said is so true, my daughter has Aspergers, school was sheer agony for her not an opportunity for socialising, there just doesn’t seem to be a place for these children in mainstream education and home ed has been a lifesaver. As for socialisation, she doesn’t care for it, but doesn’t realise it’s what she does everyday in the most natural of settings which is way better than the artificiality of school – do the people who ask these questions think we lock our children away all day? We couldn’t stop socialisation from happening even if we wanted to, lol!
Really like your blog btw, been reading for a couple of weeks now, you seemed to have sussed out a lovely way to live.
My youngest was home-educated during what would have been her high school years and has developed into a very sociable young lady with good social skills. Because we did things together far more than we would have done had she been at school, she learned from my examples and also learned how to behave in a variety of situations that wouldn’t have arisen had she been in school (simple things like making friendly conversation with somebody at a lock gate while doing a quick project on the canal system, for example).
Mainstream school simply isn’t for everybody and, in my opinion. ‘inclusion’ should be a choice.
glad it worked out so well for you and your daughter Sharon
Lisa, thanks for your nice comments. We seem to be finding our way into a lifestyle that works out for all of us in the family.
Very interesting post.
Our children were home educated for quite a few years – and it was the ‘what about the social side’ question that seemed the most bizarre and uninformed comment.
They spent more time socialising with groups of other home ed kids than sitting in the ‘classroom’. They were always out doing activities – if it wasn’t maths with one set of kids, it would be visiting castles (or similar) with another. Then there is the whole interacting with adults thing – home ed kids tend to end up interacting with more adults (in an adult environment) on a day-to-day basis – most of the ones I have met seem to be able to hold a grown up conversation with you. I am sure that this is due to not being treated like ‘children’ in a standard ‘national curriculum’ classroom.
That said, our children are in the village school now – it only has 70 kids in total, in three classes…and it is working out OK – but I can tell you that when they joined they were among the most socialable, popular and confident kids in the class. I am convinced that the years of home ed gave them a great head start.
Don’t worry about what others say. I homeschooled my two in the eighties in New Zealand and had the same comment many times. We had a group of homeschoolers who met (we called ourselves Prunes as the NZ Govt said that education had to be regular and reliable) and the children made many close friends. Best wishes with the scooling. I found it a great adventure.
I agree. My children are far more sociable and able to hold an ‘adult’ conversation than most of their friends that go/went to school. We have had none of the fads or peer pressure that others experience as my boys tend to choose to do things because they are interested in them not just because everyone else does.
Now my eldest is in college we have had a few ‘issues’ but that is more to do with his aspergers than anything else. Now he is older he has more maturity to deal with his problems and feelings. When he hits a problem we sit down and discuss what the most appropriate action would be and he seems to be able to do this now where he could not when he was younger and at school. We have had a few remarks that he would have been better in the school system all these years because, they say, children on the autistic spectrum need more socialising, but we know differently don’t we!
You have to follow you heart in these matters, not listen to the so called professionals.
Someone once said to me that the best kept secret in home education was that we DIDN’T want our children socialised at school!