Socialization 

This is the most common and the most misunderstood. See what true socialization is. How it relates to children and how those who are homeschooled have more social opportunities than their traditional school counterparts. 

 

The answer to the socialization question is often determined by how parents see socialization in general. If your idea of socialization is to have your kids compete day in and day out with thirty other children, where they have to see who is in the cool or not cool group, or they are constantly measured to see if their development is "on par" with what a single teacher thinks, then schools socialization is probably ok. 

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If however, you realize that for the first five years of your child's life, you as a parent have begun the process of preparing your child to become successful member of society, why would you then, after five years turn that process over to total strangers and hope they can finish the process you started? You know your child, their development, how to best introduce new social interactions into their lives and you do it every day in a way that is loving and appropriate. 

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Primary socialization for a child is very important because it sets the groundwork for all future socialization and at age five you are just beginning the process. In a traditional school environment children have to compete for the attention they naturally crave in one of two ways. They either act out which forces the teacher to pay attention to them, or they dutifully obey, speak up before anyone else and receive aculaides and attention from the teacher. Both of these are ways children learn social skills through attitudes, values, and actions but in school it is done in a competitive, the teacher is the boss type of environment. Are these appropriate? Are they the culture we want as parents and are they good or bad social behaviors we want in our children?

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In Simplified Homeschoolings first course, Getting Off The Treadmill Natalie goes into depth about what is good socialization and whose role is it to see that is is happening in an age appropriate and emotionally appropriate way and time. 

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The statistics bare out time and time again that socialization among children who are homeschooled are far better than those who are not. They have deeper more meaningful friendships and statistics on homeschooling point out that average homeschooled students are involved in 5.2 activities outside the home, with 98 percent engaged in two or more activities. This is greater than their traditional school counterpart. 

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Research also reveals homeschoolers have higher levels of community involvement and leadership skills. ​Some of the important findings and research facts on homeschooling are that these children are more tolerant and participate in a wide variety of both social and educational activities outside the home, from sports to additional tutoring lessons and volunteer work.

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Every child is different as is every parent. Often the level of social interaction will be determined by how social the parent is. Homeschooling may stretch the parent as well as the child which, when the child sees the parent growing, they too take encouragement and grow too. 

 

Your child is great and in a homeschooling environment they can thrive in all ways, especially socially with you leading the way. 

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(HSLDA) https://hslda.org/