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Few things in this world are optimal... But homeschooling seems very suboptimal for socialization purposes, just meeting your family all the time seems like an

Few things in this world are optimal... But homeschooling seems very suboptimal for socialization purposes, just meeting your family all the time seems like an extremely bad idea. Or what did you have in mind?

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Most homeschooled children don't just meet with their own family all the time. Say you have the typical dad-works-and-mom-stays-home setup. Mom's got to go to the grocery store? Kids go, too, and practice their arithmetic in real-world environments. They also interact with at least the cashier, and probably a number of other adults. It's a nice day? They go to the park, and look at wildlife and plants. Along the way, they interact with a number of other people at the park. And so it goes. They interact with non-family-members all over the place. But if that's not enough for socialization, well... when we got concerned about socialization, we grabbed the kids, dragged them into the bathroom, and beat them up for their lunch money. You know, so that they got socialized the way that public school kids did.
- lliamander 7y ago
  > But if that's not enough for socialization, well... when we got concerned about socialization, we grabbed the kids, dragged them into the bathroom, and beat them up for their lunch money. You know, so that they got socialized the way that public school kids did. We just put ours in a drab room with an uncomfortable chair and a video of an adult droning on for several hours.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  That still sounds like 95% of their interactions will be with family members?
lliamander 7y ago
From what I've seen, homeschooling is typically done in a communal fashion. Home is just the base of operations, but schooling and socialization happens all over the place. Things like community sports, church, scouts, homeschooling associations, etc. all provide a way for children to interact with other children and adults in a variety of contexts. I went through public/government schools the whole way through, and my experience was fairly positive overall. However, having now met many adults who were homeschooled, and participating in the homeschool scene as a parent, I'm fairly convinced that homeschooling results in more mature, more prepared individuals. Obviously, some kids will be overly cloistered and may be hurt socially by that, but that doesn't seem to be the norm. Besides, plenty of kids come out of government schools pretty messed up as it is.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

Most homeschooled children don't just meet with their own family all the time. Say you have the typical dad-works-and-mom-stays-home setup. Mom's got to go to the grocery store? Kids go, too, and practice their arithmetic in real-world environments. They also interact with at least the cashier, and probably a number of other adults. It's a nice day? They go to the park, and look at wildlife and plants. Along the way, they interact with a number of other people at the park. And so it goes. They interact with non-family-members all over the place. But if that's not enough for socialization, well... when we got concerned about socialization, we grabbed the kids, dragged them into the bathroom, and beat them up for their lunch money. You know, so that they got socialized the way that public school kids did.

lliamander 7y ago
> But if that's not enough for socialization, well... when we got concerned about socialization, we grabbed the kids, dragged them into the bathroom, and beat them up for their lunch money. You know, so that they got socialized the way that public school kids did. We just put ours in a drab room with an uncomfortable chair and a video of an adult droning on for several hours.
Grustaf 7y ago
That still sounds like 95% of their interactions will be with family members?

lliamander 7y ago

From what I've seen, homeschooling is typically done in a communal fashion. Home is just the base of operations, but schooling and socialization happens all over the place. Things like community sports, church, scouts, homeschooling associations, etc. all provide a way for children to interact with other children and adults in a variety of contexts. I went through public/government schools the whole way through, and my experience was fairly positive overall. However, having now met many adults who were homeschooled, and participating in the homeschool scene as a parent, I'm fairly convinced that homeschooling results in more mature, more prepared individuals. Obviously, some kids will be overly cloistered and may be hurt socially by that, but that doesn't seem to be the norm. Besides, plenty of kids come out of government schools pretty messed up as it is.