4 ms·

My general experience is that homeschool children have self esteem and confidence issues precisely because they've been around 'hand picked' people... forever.

My general experience is that homeschool children have self esteem and confidence issues precisely because they've been around 'hand picked' people... forever. They've never experienced assholes, or people who think their personality is grating, or whatever. Thick skin needs to be built up, to a degree. I'm not saying bullying is good, but being exposed to the unwashed masses definitely can be.

scoofy 11mo ago
I mean… the issue is you have incredibly well educated kids that have an awkward time dealing with assholes. Given the state of our education system, that seems like an obviously worthwhile trade off. Especially for parents in underperforming school districts and even entire regions.
oxag3n 11mo ago
I watched my kids becoming a median of their classmates. After changing to a private school it was noticeable after a month - different lexicon, mimics, attitude. It's not thick skin they are developing around assholes, it's them incorporating that behavior to some degree. There was nothing I could do to change that - talks, good example, nothing worked, only surrounding change.
- hintklb 11mo ago
  Underrated comment because I have seen exactly the same thing. Us as parents don't have as much nurture on our kids as we would like to think.
- atoav 11mo ago
  And I grew up among median kids till I was 19 and never did adjust to the median (neither did my group of friends foinf to the same school). My younger brother however did. There are kids who will have the tendency to adjust to others and there are kids who don't. This has to do with the self-confidence they bring with them before they enter their first day of school, friends they have/had outside school and it is not necessarily a thing a parent can always control in a predictable manner. For all we know in your case it could even be that your kid learned they have to follow the others in private school and then applied that lesson in the next one. What I am saying here is that having learned the lesson "you need to adjust to your peers" is the problem, not that the peers are the "wrong" ones.
rmbyrro 11mo ago
I think this is analogous to diseases and vaccines. You don't immunize a child by exposing it to the pathogen, but to a modified version of it that poses no threat to their health, but still allows their immune system to recognize and produce anti bodies. The same applies to teaching "street smarts" to kids. You don't do it by throwing them in a hostile environment where they'll be prey to hostile people without having any defenses built up first.
gosub100 11mo ago
It's false to think that you can only learn to handle assholes if you experience them at a young tender age.

scoofy 11mo ago

I mean… the issue is you have incredibly well educated kids that have an awkward time dealing with assholes. Given the state of our education system, that seems like an obviously worthwhile trade off. Especially for parents in underperforming school districts and even entire regions.

oxag3n 11mo ago

I watched my kids becoming a median of their classmates. After changing to a private school it was noticeable after a month - different lexicon, mimics, attitude. It's not thick skin they are developing around assholes, it's them incorporating that behavior to some degree. There was nothing I could do to change that - talks, good example, nothing worked, only surrounding change.

hintklb 11mo ago
Underrated comment because I have seen exactly the same thing. Us as parents don't have as much nurture on our kids as we would like to think.
atoav 11mo ago
And I grew up among median kids till I was 19 and never did adjust to the median (neither did my group of friends foinf to the same school). My younger brother however did. There are kids who will have the tendency to adjust to others and there are kids who don't. This has to do with the self-confidence they bring with them before they enter their first day of school, friends they have/had outside school and it is not necessarily a thing a parent can always control in a predictable manner. For all we know in your case it could even be that your kid learned they have to follow the others in private school and then applied that lesson in the next one. What I am saying here is that having learned the lesson "you need to adjust to your peers" is the problem, not that the peers are the "wrong" ones.

rmbyrro 11mo ago

I think this is analogous to diseases and vaccines. You don't immunize a child by exposing it to the pathogen, but to a modified version of it that poses no threat to their health, but still allows their immune system to recognize and produce anti bodies. The same applies to teaching "street smarts" to kids. You don't do it by throwing them in a hostile environment where they'll be prey to hostile people without having any defenses built up first.

gosub100 11mo ago

It's false to think that you can only learn to handle assholes if you experience them at a young tender age.