To Home School or Not to Home School

Children who are home schooled throughout elementary, junior high, and high school have often times been recognized as having a lack of social skills and facing some challenges in social situations. The simplest, and I suppose non-politically correct, way of saying this: kids may be disadvantaged and perhaps even socially awkward if they are home schooled through their high school years.

My point is not to discourage home schooling but rather give some awareness to the downfalls of home schooling all the way through high school.

My mother home schooled me from kindergarten through fifth grade. I’ll say this right now, those were some of the best years of my life, and during that time period I was able to determine what I enjoy doing and begin shaping into a young adult. My brother and I were able to do many enjoyable and interactive things at our leisure that I knew children in traditional schools could only dream of. I regularly went to plays and museums, I designed and planted a vegetable garden, I built things, I painted, I read countless books, and I wrote my own books.

I explored life without the stern hand of an elementary school teacher trying to keep me focused on prepackaged curriculum that is designed as one size fits all. Life was wonderful and most often times carefree.

So, yes, home schooling is a great experience for the early years of life. Yet children need to interact with other children and realize what kind of behaviors are socially acceptable and what kinds are not. Do not think at all that I mean to discourage a young person’s desire to pursue their own goals just to be accepted by others or something of that nature. I only mean that as children grow up, if they have not been exposed to what life is like outside of the home schooling bubble, they are going to find challenges arising with others around them who have not shared these experiences.

Perhaps worst of all, these home schooled children will not understand why they are facing difficulties. I know a lot of families who home school their children. In order to gain interaction between their own children and others, they organize things such as “home schooling groups”. Here home schooled children get together, socialize, and do such activities as projects and field trips with each other. One would think this to be an efficient way of allowing home schooled children to experience interaction with others and supply them with sufficient social skills, yet take heed: this often times will hinder a child’s social skills. Let me explain why in the form of an analogy.