What about socialization???

If you home school or have thought about it you are going to get asked this question, "What about social skills?" I'll be honest I was concerned about that when I started. When I thought of the home schooled families I thought of some weird family that didn't bath, didn't know how to talk to anyone, had way too long of braids, and other stereotypes that I am sure existed. (Yes my children sometimes are the stinky ones, but we're working on that one) I researched all about the big "social" question and was quite pleasantly surprised, here is some of what I have found.

From CBN News Dr. Thomas Smedly researched about social skills and maturity in children; home schooled children ranked in the 84th percentile and public school children ranked in the 23rd.

How will your child learn to handle bullies??

School creates a perfect environment for bullying and victimization. Children who are bullied don’t learn to handle bullies, they learn to tolerate being bullied. Those who can't tolerate it suffer terribly, sometimes hurting themselves or others.

As an adult I have had to deal with difficult people, but I have never been forced to endure daily taunting or physical assault, nor have I had to interact with those who would engage in such behavior.

Homeschooling and socialization allows parents to shield their children from negative encounters until they have developed the self-confidence and MATURITY to handle them.

How will your child learn to be around different types of people?

School students spend their days in a room with children who are their same age, socioeconomic status and, more often than not, race. These children quickly learn that older kids do not play with younger kids, girls don't play with boys, rich kids don't play with poor kids, and so on.

As an adult I don’t sit in a room full of other thirty year olds, taunting the person next to me because she has a big nose and wears glasses. I don't want my children on the giving or receiving end of that unsocial behavior.

There is so much more positive information about socialization and home school on the web. How you as a parent are teaching them how to interact with others and they get to go to real places and interact with all sorts of different types of people.

There are A LOT of home school groups to have some really fun activities together. Just this week we have had several home school activities, also we have had church activities, family get togethers, and playing with friends.

I wish I could say my children were 100% well behaved, but it is a learning process. They still ask inappropriate questions, the little ones still throw fits but I pray to give them all the guidance I came to become kind and good people.

Here are my monkeys at two different St. Patrick's Day Party. The kids had a blast playing with their friends and searching for the pot of gold.