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That "Lord of the Flies" effect, assuming we're not talking about it in a hyperbolic sense, is children learning how to be adults and making mistakes. How do ch

That "Lord of the Flies" effect, assuming we're not talking about it in a hyperbolic sense, is children learning how to be adults and making mistakes. How do children gain experience socializing? By socializing. Not waiting until they are legal adults to spread their social wings... that just breeds unhappy, socially awkward adults. Toddlers have atrocious fine and gross motor skills but we don't tell them to just sit still and do nothing until they're older: We let them play, explore, and yep... hurt themselves. We let them do things the hard way, so they can think to do it an easier way in the future. And I think the same philosophy can be applied to socializing. I do understand there are school districts that serve large bodies of "latchkey kids." I was fortunate enough to avoid that in my public education, but I have less fortunate friends who came out fine-- several of whom had a much better experience in school that I did, weirdly enough. And although I didn't exactly enjoy my time in school, I would never trade it for homeschooling. I had the foundation necessary to pursue my interests. And during my time in public schools, I've met several people in school I'm still friends with almost 20 years later.

wyager 10y ago
I think you misunderstood the GP. Only interacting with people within ~a year of your own age while growing up (public school class) is not effective socialization. The social group of homeschooled kids is often +/- 5 years, which means they get experience dealing with younger children and they get maturity cues from older children. It's a much more realistic social environment.
- spamizbad 10y ago
  > Only interacting with people within ~a year of your own age while growing up (public school class) is not effective socialization. This is not a view shared by developmental psychologists. Playing with children their own age is fertile ground to learn how to share, how to take turns, etc. As far s the child is concerned, they are on even footing in the social hierarchy with their peers and must resolve conflicts with their peers without falling back on defaults. Moving into adolescence things become more complicated and nuanced-- coping with peer pressure, dating, developing a sense of self etc. But that's all very critical.
  - whoopdedo 10y ago
    > they are on even footing in the social hierarchy with their peers Do groups of closely-aged children (or people in general) act as peers, or do they cue on other factors to form a hierarchy from? This is what the LotF effect is. In the absence of an established social hierarchy children will create their own based on arbitrary things such as body size, clothing, manner of speaking, etc. In schools we see this manifested as bullying. Having a child interact outside their peer group gives them a template of maturity that they can emulate within other children their same age. The established hierarchy of age may make it less likely that they will resort to arbitrary hierarchies and could be measured by a decrease in bullying between children of the same age. (There may be age related bullying as older children abuse their seniority.) They will still have to learn the things you mention, but instead of stumbling across the rules on their own, or having them dictated by the fiat of an authority figure, they learn by the example of those who came before. Then as those children mature they are encouraged to work with younger children and act as role models. When seeing they can correct the mistakes of the children following them, it provides positive reinforcement of the good behavior.
  - abecedarius 10y ago
    Besides the points others have made, my prior would be for people to be better adapted to growing up with mixed-age peers, because they did in essentially all of human history. Maybe the developmental psychologists you mention have robustly found otherwise, and that'd surprise me.
  - michaelkeenan 10y ago
    > This is not a view shared by developmental psychologists. I was curious about this, so I searched for developmental psychology on the difference between mixed-age and same-age socialization. But what I found (from a very brief search) didn't match what you said. An example study is this - Children’s Social Behavior in Relation to Participation in Mixed-Age or Same-Age Classrooms: "Findings suggested a significant positive effect on children’s prosocial behavior as a result of participation in a mixed-age classroom context. In addition, fewer children appeared to experience social isolation in mixed-age classrooms than in same-age classrooms. Aggressive behaviors were significantly less likely to be noted by teachers in mixed-age than in same-age classrooms." - http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v1n1/mcclellan.html http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v1n1/mcclellan.html But that's just one study. Is it an area of ongoing debate in development psychology? What sources would you recommend for the other side?
ryandrake 10y ago
There's good socialization and bad socialization. Prisons also serve as a place for their inmates to socialize, but I'm not rushing to sign my daughter up so she can "play and explore" there.
marssaxman 10y ago
I learned how to socialize with adults by socializing with adults. I didn't have to wait til I was an adult to "spread my social wings" because there were always adults around to interact with. I feel fortunate to have skipped past the toxic, aggressive, immature socialization most young people have to put up with when they are segregated into the artificially age-stratified environment of a typical school system.

wyager 10y ago

I think you misunderstood the GP. Only interacting with people within ~a year of your own age while growing up (public school class) is not effective socialization. The social group of homeschooled kids is often +/- 5 years, which means they get experience dealing with younger children and they get maturity cues from older children. It's a much more realistic social environment.

spamizbad 10y ago
> Only interacting with people within ~a year of your own age while growing up (public school class) is not effective socialization. This is not a view shared by developmental psychologists. Playing with children their own age is fertile ground to learn how to share, how to take turns, etc. As far s the child is concerned, they are on even footing in the social hierarchy with their peers and must resolve conflicts with their peers without falling back on defaults. Moving into adolescence things become more complicated and nuanced-- coping with peer pressure, dating, developing a sense of self etc. But that's all very critical.
- whoopdedo 10y ago
  > they are on even footing in the social hierarchy with their peers Do groups of closely-aged children (or people in general) act as peers, or do they cue on other factors to form a hierarchy from? This is what the LotF effect is. In the absence of an established social hierarchy children will create their own based on arbitrary things such as body size, clothing, manner of speaking, etc. In schools we see this manifested as bullying. Having a child interact outside their peer group gives them a template of maturity that they can emulate within other children their same age. The established hierarchy of age may make it less likely that they will resort to arbitrary hierarchies and could be measured by a decrease in bullying between children of the same age. (There may be age related bullying as older children abuse their seniority.) They will still have to learn the things you mention, but instead of stumbling across the rules on their own, or having them dictated by the fiat of an authority figure, they learn by the example of those who came before. Then as those children mature they are encouraged to work with younger children and act as role models. When seeing they can correct the mistakes of the children following them, it provides positive reinforcement of the good behavior.
- abecedarius 10y ago
  Besides the points others have made, my prior would be for people to be better adapted to growing up with mixed-age peers, because they did in essentially all of human history. Maybe the developmental psychologists you mention have robustly found otherwise, and that'd surprise me.
- michaelkeenan 10y ago
  > This is not a view shared by developmental psychologists. I was curious about this, so I searched for developmental psychology on the difference between mixed-age and same-age socialization. But what I found (from a very brief search) didn't match what you said. An example study is this - Children’s Social Behavior in Relation to Participation in Mixed-Age or Same-Age Classrooms: "Findings suggested a significant positive effect on children’s prosocial behavior as a result of participation in a mixed-age classroom context. In addition, fewer children appeared to experience social isolation in mixed-age classrooms than in same-age classrooms. Aggressive behaviors were significantly less likely to be noted by teachers in mixed-age than in same-age classrooms." - http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v1n1/mcclellan.html http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v1n1/mcclellan.html But that's just one study. Is it an area of ongoing debate in development psychology? What sources would you recommend for the other side?

ryandrake 10y ago

There's good socialization and bad socialization. Prisons also serve as a place for their inmates to socialize, but I'm not rushing to sign my daughter up so she can "play and explore" there.

marssaxman 10y ago

I learned how to socialize with adults by socializing with adults. I didn't have to wait til I was an adult to "spread my social wings" because there were always adults around to interact with. I feel fortunate to have skipped past the toxic, aggressive, immature socialization most young people have to put up with when they are segregated into the artificially age-stratified environment of a typical school system.