Who homeschoos their children and why? What activities are they involved in for socialization?

The whole socialization thing is just a catch-phrase that everyone thinks of when they hear homeschooling. It’s SOOO not a problem, at least, it’s a problem with public school kids just as it is with any.

I take my boys to 4H, library activites, sometimes soccer, boy scouts, sports classes and science centers locally. There are allll kinds of things to do for socialization, you just need to keep putting them out there.

I LOVE homeschooling and if you want the details, please look at my latest responses for guidance.

My kids hate to read pages of text when the lesson could be done with 10 sentences. If that makes any sense.

My kids love learning by DOING. We get bugs and look at them under the microscope. We read trivia books and laugh and memorize. We watch documentaries and other videos, rather than spending hours reading boring pages.

Every kids learns a certain way. I spend anywhere from 2 to 5 hours a day with my kids’ education, and that is still less time than it takes kids to get on the bus, go to all their classes and come home. Plus, there is no waiting for the ‘child not being left behind’ catches up, no waiting in lines, walking the halls, messing around in study hall, worrying about what to wear or what the kid next to them will say or do.

I LOVE teaching my kids. It’s all positive. But as far as looking for negatives, it’s NOT socialization. I guess it would be that every year, about twice a year, I worry that I’m missing something….like I remember when it occured to me that my 6 year old still didn’t know how to tie his shoes. He had always worn sandals or barefoot…but in public school you must wear sneakers. So at six years old, we sat down and he learned. This threw me into a small panic. What else had I missed? He didn’t know how to open a milk carton. That’s about it. lol So we got a bunch of small milk cartons and I showed him. lol

My son is 10 and in 6th grade. My 6 year old is doing 4th and 5th grade math. It’s not necessarily that they are brilliant, although I’m sure they are ;0) It’s that they focus on their needs and their desires and their joys. They love math, because there is nothing for them to fear at home…tests…teachers with a weird style or format….moving too quickly or too slow.

I hope this helps. 🙂

I think Glurpy laid out exactly some of the reasons why we also homeschool. Why in the world would I want my kids “socialized” they way they are in public schools?

There is a running joke that is unfortunately right on the money, “Whenever we get worried about socialization, I have my husband take the kids into the bathroom and beat them up for their lunch money.”

When was the last time you held a job in which you were forced to stay in the same room with someone that threatened you? If that happens and the management doesn’t take action, you can always quit, or transfer. Not so with public school. If a child is threatened in public school, the administrators ignore it. In order to quit, the parents either have to move, pay for private school, or homeschool. No matter what, the parents have to pay extra.

When was the last time that you were not allowed to fight back when someone hit you? Or that you were punished for fighting back? In public school, if someone hits your child and the child fights back, even if there are witnesses, the child will be punished along with the bully.

The only other place in this country in which we are treated the way we are in public school is prison. Consider that for a minute.

I homeschool my daughter for medical reasons. She is in 3rd grade and wants to be a Palentologist when she grows up. Her Social skills are very good (she can hold her own in a room full of adults or kids).

We do Living History together, Volunteer work, and she takes Flute, Horseback Riding, Ballet, was in Girl Scouts (doesn’t want to continue), Ice Skating, Swimming, plus I run a homeschool group for PE and Co-op and Field Trips. We raise animals and she is in the process of raising Chickens for a 4H project, along with the small Flower and veggie garden we started.

The postives……she learns at her pace, no more lost meds or her coming home with lice or rushing to the hospital because she was bitten by a bee on the playground and the Teacher wouldn’t administer her Epi-pen or being called to administer her Inhaler for an Asthma attack. She’s happier, I’m happier, Daddy is happier and life is more enjoyable.

The negatives—– I gotta be quicker on the draw when answering her questions (there have been some doozies and they are getting harder) and make sure I know what I’m talking about.

I have five kids (3 school age) and I homeschool them all. I chose to do so because we were not happy with the public school system and private school is not in our budget. WE LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!!! It was one of the best choices we ever made. My children are very well adjusted and do great in social settings. They have plenty of friends and are into many activities (Tae Kwon Do, Cheerleading, etc..). I think the only negative in my opinion is that it is easy to get behind if you are not organized – which I wasn’t when we first started. There are so many positives. I get to spend time with my kids, if they are really interested in something we can spend more time on it, if they don’t “get” something we can work on it until they understand, and we have a more flexible schedule. We school year round taking small breaks throughout the year.

I homeschool my son because he has severe food allergies and on his first day of Kindergarten, even with me meeting with the staff several times before school started, he was given food. I can’t trust anyone else to take care of him right now and he is still to little to understand that he could actually die if he ate the wrong thing. So, I am new to homeschooling. As for socialization, I keep him in sports. He is a natural and we are expecting him to become a professional baseball player! (just kidding, but it would be fun!) He starts soccer next week and when sports aren’t going on, I let his cousins come spend the night over here pretty often. He plays with our neighbor’s kids when he gets them every other weekend. My son just turned 6 and he seems to be happy. I know he would love to go to school some day, but he will have to wait. Probably, my biggest concern is that I am doing a good job with him. So far, it looks like I am because I compare him to my nephew that is a year older than him and my son is actually doing a lot better than he is. I would have to say the most positive part for me is, first, knowing he is safe from foods, and next…I don’t mind saying, I get a little big in the head when he accomplishes something that I taught him! I am learning that you have to turn the phones off because now, as a stay at home mom, a lot of my friends and family just assume I can get up and go at any time, but my son is my priority and they are learning to back off during school hours. I tell myself every day, I can do this! and I try to stay upbeat and positive. Good luck in your decision.

I started homeschooling my first child when he was 8. The reasons were academic, but over the years the reasons evolved. I must say that the reason I chose to continue homeschooling him, and the reason I chose to homeschool my youngest, was socialization. As my oldest son approached his teen years and was decidedly lacking in all that nasty teen angst, I realized that homeschooling for us was not just about learning how to read and write and manipulate numbers, but how to be a good, happy, well-adjusted person.

I do find them to be extremely well adjusted socially. They are not clones of other kids, they don’t follow all the latest trends, have the same interests, etc. They are themselves, and I *love* that. When I was in school, I was terrified of doing, saying, or wearing the wrong thing. My kids don’t care at all. Is it nature or nurture? Probably a bit of both.

For peer socialization they both attend a youth/teen center. Over the summer they participated in day camps. Now that school is starting again, they will go to the youth center every day for 3 hours. They also do martial arts (my oldest is a brown belt in karate). And occassionally they play with kids in the neighborhood. My oldest plays X-Box live every night with some friends he left behind when we moved to another state.

The negatives.. hmm.. self-doubt is the biggest one for me. But then, don’t we all doubt sometimes, regardless of our choices?

I home school.

I’m a liberal, a feminist, and an atheist.

I home school for academic excellence and to preserve my children’s natural love of learning, but those are just two in a long list of reasons.

So far I have one kid. He’s outgoing, social and polite.

I do enjoy home schooling him. He’s very bright and curious, a great reader and interested in science and music.

The positives are as mentioned above, and the incredible flexibility and freedom.

We can use travel as a learning tool.

We can move on or spend more time on any given thing, depending on his needs.

We can combine the best aspects of any number of approaches, varying the structure of lessons and our schedule.

He can work when he’s focused and break for play when he’s not.

One negative (I suppose it could be taken as such) is that it requires much dedication on the part of the parent to provide a well rounded curriculum and create plenty of opportunites for socializing.

Another is ridicule and misunderstanding from those who imagine HS to be something it’s not, or that all home schoolers are like the one negative example they know about (or, even more ignorantly, cite from reality TV).

We homeschool all 3 of our kids. Ages 14, 11, 9.

My kids are extremely outgoing, friendly and happy kids. The nice thing is that because they don’t sit in a classroom full of the same age kids all the time but instead deal with people of all different ages, they can talk to and be comfortable with adults, teens and young kids alike.

They are involved in activities such as swimming, dance, gym, musicals, drama, film school, weight training, bowling, skating, gymnastics, field trips, archery, church programs, youth group, etc. Not to mention that there are always neighbourhood kids to play with as well.

Yes I love homeschooling my kids. I do have days that I wonder why on earth I decided to do it but for the most part, I love it. We pulled the kids from ps after my son was finished grade 4 and we’ll never go back if we can help it.

Positives – being able to delve into a subject as far as you want to without a teacher or bell telling you that you have to quit.

– being able to use your imagination. Not having a teacher tell you that the sky in your pictures has to be blue just because the real one is.

– family time

– traveling whenever you want to

– having pj’s on and drinking hot cocoa on those cold winter days when everyone else is headed for school. (my kids asked me to add this one *grin*)

– it becomes a lifestyle rather then a way to teach.

Negatives

– it’s not for everyone. As much as I believe in it, it’s not for everyone. ie: my next door neighbour has NO discipline in her house and her 6 yr old dd runs the house already. I pray she never tries to homeschool. It would be a disaster.

My son plans his own social life. He uses his phone and on line to make plans with friends. He then checks with me to make sure plans are OK and that I can drive him. He is involved in community sports and church.

He is more social now than he was in school for several reasons. He is older, has more interests, and has more time.

I like home schooling. I enjoy learning and feel a sense of accomplishment in teaching. I wish he were more interested in getting an education.

I would not be upset if he chose to go back to public school. I work in the school and it is a relatively good school. However, he learns more at home with the relaxed atmosphere and lack of distractions. His reading comprehension came from 6th grade level to 11th grade level in less than 2 years. His overall achievement level came up 2 grade levels in same time period. This is as good as Sylvan could have done and not nearly as expensive both financially and time-wise.

I’ll try to keep it short, but we home school our children for many reasons. One is that the really ‘great’ school district we live in is not capable of helping my disabled children learn academics OR socialization (they both have autism). Two is that they weren’t able to help my really gifted children. Three is that I wanted to my children to have an excellent education, and that can’t happen in an organization which is pitted to mediocrity.

Socialization is a myth. There is nothing normal about the ‘social’ life of the inmates of the school system, there is nothing normal about being locked in a classroom with 20 to 30 age mates for eight hours a day. Socialization is defined as ‘to make fit for a social environment’. In real adult life, people socialize with others of varying ages, abilities and nationalities, of varying beliefs and personalities. Schools work to make everyone the same, follow the same rules, have the same punishments, believe the same values. In fact, the socialization that children have ingrained in them after 13 years of public education rarely serves them well, usually it must be unlearned in the college years, or people fail to succeed in the adult lives that they choose.

Only because my children are homeschooled do they have the opportunity to meet adults in daily REAL life activities, shopping, paying bills, buying groceries, sending mail, running nonprofit groups, visits to museums and libraries. What we do beyond that to socialize is inconsequential to the socialization they will need to succeed as adults, but if it makes you feel better we are members of four homeschooling groups, have weekly playdates with them, classes, band, sports, church groups.

Our positives have been too numerous to list in full here, but include increased family bonding, more time with our children, freedom to learn, freedom to explore who they really are without social pressures, freedom to make mistakes and freedom to succeed. Negatives do not exist in our family, excepting maybe that I don’t have the free built in daycare that other parents depend on. That may vary from family to family.