Socialization: A Primary Reason to Home School

Anyone who has even considered home schooling has heard the infamous question, "But what about socialization?" The implication is that a child who is home schooled will not be properly socialized and will therefore turn out to be a social misfit.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret known to most everyone who home schools: socialization is one of the best reasons to home school. Not only is it "okay" to home school from a socialization standpoint, home schooling is one of the best ways to maximize positive socialization for your child.

To understand how this can be, let's first take a look at the definition of socialization. According to dictionary.com, socialization is defined as, "a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position."

Let's look at the above definition and consider how socialization is carried out both in the home school and public school setting.

Acquiring a Personal Identity through Home Schooling

Although we are all born with a specific personality, our personal identity is largely formed by the values, actions and attitudes of people around us. If we're told we're dumb, that will likely become part of our identity. If we're told we're loved, we're likely to believe we're lovable.

Home schooling parents are not perfect, but most any parent who cares enough about his child to home school will go out of his way to help his child form a positive personal identity.

Although other factors influence the development of a child's identity, for the home schooled child, the parents are the primary agents used to shape the personal identity of the child. Home schooling parents have a vested interest in helping their children develop a positive personal identity.

Acquiring a Personal Identity through Public Schools

Public or even private school playgrounds are a great place for a child's positive self identity to be ripped to shreds.

I'm not sure why it is, but every classroom has bullies and those who are bullied. Even those who are not particularly bullied no doubt have many experiences that pierce their tender hearts and cause them to feel less sure of themselves.

In the public school setting, other children, who are often cruel, are the ones to shape the personal identity of the child.

Many children in public schools have a vested interest in dismantling the positive personal identity of other children as they desperately attempt to climb the social ladder themselves.

Learning Norms, Values and Social Skills through Home Schooling

Most parents who care enough to home school their children care about the values their children adopt and care about the social skills their children develop. This means they will teach the child to be kind and polite, to share and reach out to others and so on.

Although it is highly possible for a home schooled child to be rude and abusive, it is unlikely that such inappropriate social behavior will be tolerated by the home schooling parent. The home schooling parent has the time and influence over the child to help him learn important social skills and to overcome behavior that is socially unacceptable.

Learning Norms, Values and Social Skills through Public Schools

Public school teachers face the challenge of attempting to get a roomful of children to behave appropriately. They do their best, I'm sure, to ensure the children are not rude and no doubt try to influence them in a positive way. But one teacher is no match for 25 - 30 children. Additionally, teachers are very limited in consequences they can dole out when children behave inappropriately.

In addition to teachers being limited in what they can do to teach the children positive social skills, there is much time the children are unsupervised in any real form. During unsupervised times, and to some degree even in supervised times, the norms, values, and social skills are taught to children through their immature peers.

If gross, inappropriate or even downright dangerous social behavior is considered cool or funny especially by popular kids, other kids follow suit and adopt similar values and social skills in an attempt to fit in.

The social skills the children develop in the public school setting may therefore include cheating, smart mouthing, taunting other children, and as they grow older, early sexual activity and possibly other damaging social behavior such as drug and alcohol abuse.

Of course, there are some kids in public school with impeccable manners and superb social skills, but in most cases, that is in spite of, not because of the fact they are in public school.

Public Schools and Home Schools Produce Social Misfits

If a home schooled child is shy and perhaps socially inept in some way, knowing smiles may be exchanged, and whether spoken or not, the implication will be there, "The child is a social misfit because he is home schooled." Of course, those same people would have little explanation for the misfits in public school.

I often think of a girl named Mary Ann who attended my public high school. In a school of 3,000 students, I never once saw a single person talk to Mary Ann. I remember seeing Mary Ann looking at me once, and my conscience told me to go talk to her. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it for a couple of reasons. First, I was quite the introvert myself and didn't really have the courage to go out of my way and initiate a conversation with her. Second, I knew that if I was seen talking to Mary Ann, whatever social life I had would die. Quite frankly, I felt I couldn't risk losing the few friends I had, and I knew that would be the natural outcome of befriending the number one social misfit in school, Mary Ann.

Did public school help Mary Ann to socialize? Considering the fact that I never saw a single person talk to her in the four years we attended the same school, any socialization Mary Ann received was negative.

Perhaps you remember a "Mary Ann" from your school days, or perhaps you were even a "Mary Ann" yourself. Public schools are full of people who are like Mary Ann to one degree or another.

So if you happen to come across a home schooled child who is shy, remember Mary Ann, and the thousands of social misfits in public schools throughout our nation and consider the fact that even the most socially inept child who is home schooled will have at least one person who talks to him every day. In that setting, the odds are great that his social skills will flourish, given proper time and nurture in a home school setting.