Do you feel that homeschooling inhibits the learning of social skills?

Question

Whenever I see kids that are homeschooled, they just seem so different and out of place from the rest of society. They don't dress or act like everyone else, and they just seem "sheltered", i guess. Perhaps this is the point...their parents don't want them to be exposed to the negative parts of public schools and society..but still, many kids turn out great from public schooling (myself included). Its seems like kids might need to learn how to interact with MANY other kids and teachers daily, and learn on their own what they do and don't want to participate in, and that homeschooling prohibits this from happening. What are your thoughts? Both from homeschoolees/ers and others.

In response to you: What's so bad about being different? Its not necessarily bad, but the truth is that people in life are often mean and cruel to those that are "different". They also might not be afforded the same opportunities as others, and might not be chosen for jobs based on their differences. Obviously, I don't think its good that the world is like this, but its true. Shouldn't you give your child the upper hand in every way, including teaching them to act and dress in a way that is socially acceptable?
I know some homeschooled kids are totally "normal" and that they are probably good people, I'm not saying they aren't I am talking about appearances, and the fact that our society judges based on appearances.

You homeschoolers are mistaken when you think that "dressing like public school kids" means boys wearing their pants sagging, and girls dressing slutty. Obviously no one wants thier kids to dress like that!!! I went to public school, and it was not "cool" to dress like that, it was cool to wear nice clothes and look preppy. Homeschool kids just look out of style and cluless when it comes to understanding how to dress to make a good impression and be fashioable. Most that I see wear denim jumpers and loafers...really frumpy looking mom-ish clothes. all I am saying is that this kind of dress gives a bad impression too, on potential employers, college recruiters, other kids, etc. causeing them to be shunned and left out.

I know that homeschooled kids are involved in activities and all that, and that they are normal in that they listen to the same music, watch tv, etc. I just think that all the ones that i have met LOOK different (how they dress) and are just a little nerdy, and that this might have a negative impact on their lives.

Answer 1

I would have to agree. It seems that homeschooled kids aren't exposed to different kinds of people, and don't learn how to deal with kids that are in any way different than them. I've also known 2 homeschooled girls that hated it. They feel that they missed out on all the fun high school activities.
If you over-protect your kids, they will become adults that are more vulnerable than they should be.

Answer 2

It is funny how outwardly aggressive those who are answering this question and are homeschool oriented are towards public education. Although public education has its problems there is no public education system that even comes close in the World. Consider the magnitude of public education. Just looking at the sheer number of students involved not to mention the huge infrastructure involved. Financing public education is a trick that is not being done very well. However, I find it disheartening that you would sit there and type critiques of public education when most of you have little or no experience in public schools. Those who were schooled in the public schools are creating some really stupid questions and statements about public schools. As a public school teacher and a PhD student in education I find it disheartening that people pass judgment against public schools without really knowing what they are talking about. You can not judge all public schools based on one or a few of them any more than you can judge a homeschooler based on previous knowledge of other homeschoolers. Anyways, my real question is why does it matter? Education tends to serve the same purpose regardless of where you get it from. Some places it do it well some do not. Some teachers do an outstanding job (actually most of the 3.4 millions teachers in America do very well). There are a few teachers who literally suck at their job.

So please do not judge public, private, online, correspondence, or homeschooling unless you have done the research and can make a good statement/develop a thesis regarding your argument and then lay it all out in a respectable and professional manner!

Answer 3

I went to public school fyi, but this is my 2 cents here. I don't think if it really matters if a child is home schooled or goes to public school. It's kind of like saying children w/ no siblings are a bit more off than kids with siblings. I believe it's the kind of environment you give them, the warmness/supportiveness of the caregiver, and their own personality. Sure there are extremes, sometimes low socio-economic kids get caught up in drugs, alcohol, etc. but I don't think public schooling would completely attribute to that. Then there are some parents who feel they must be protective, which can be over protective. Yes public school is a good place for social development, but parents home schooling can provide a rich social environment as well. It's not just public school vs home school that shapes a child to be who he or she is, there are many other factors. None of them contribute entirely to the way a kid turns out to be, all of the factors interact. Some people turn out to be the greatest when they are a bit off anyways :) Albert Einstein didn't say his first word till 3 and Bill Gates dropped out of college. Just some food for thought. Other people have some very interesting viewpoints as well!

Answer 4

Well, I was homeschooled and I'm about as normal as they come. BUT, I did go to public school for most of my life.

However, I think that in today's schools, public schools often prohibit children from learning. Public schools often put MORE emphasis on socializing then actual learning.

I don't mean all, but some. Some homeschooled children have problems socializing, but then again, some children in public schools are smart but are not learning and have poor grades because of peer pressure and the emphasis on socializing.

I think public schooling and homeschooling have their good and bad points. I think it depends on the child. Some are better off homeschooled while others are better off in public schools.

I don't think I lost any kind of socializing by being on homeschool. I still had friends, played sports at the local recreation center, etc.

Everyone is different.

Answer 5

I will respond to this one because, I had been home schooled for k5-12th grade. I now attend an engineering school for the past 3 years where I have managed to maintain a 3.4.

Some people are home schooled for personal matters such as learning disabilities, religious reasons, but most of us just don't like the traditional learning system. For me I decided to go to regular public school when I was in 9th grade because people convinced me that I was "missing out". Within the first two week I had enough I became easily bored sitting in class and would often go to sleep. Nothing was wrong with my work or how I interacted with the other students, I just couldn't justify all the time that was wasted.

I continued on in language and art classes, just so I could have the "experiences". I could walk into any groups of people and start talking, without having any "social" problems. In school now, I do not have any lingering social problems. And welcome a conversation with anyone.

You are stereotyping us, because we do not look or act the way that most people do you assume that it has had a negative effect on us. I do not have to act like everyone else, or dress like everyone else, to know how to interact with people. Thinking so is very naive, but then again I am studying Engineering and am enjoying myself (maybe there is something wrong with me).

Answer 6

Yes there are some, well ok lets be truthful here, LOTS of strange home schoolers. I am home schooled and have been for the past 4 years. I am in 10th grade now. I am in a family of 5, (crazy I know!). The oldest just turned 20 yesterday and was home schooled since 9th grade and then went on to the community college and is now transferring to Western Michigan University. The second oldest is 17 and is graduating this year '07. Then comes me at 10th grade. And then after me there are 2 younger sisters 11 and 8. We all love home schooling and were pulled from a catholic private school as I said 4 years ago.
Well when you tell someone you are home schooled which normally you tell someone new every week, whether your at the movies and its 1:00 and schools are not out yet or whether were shopping down at the GAP or American Eagle, their first impression is: "Well do you get to hang around other kids? Do have friends? How do you meet new friends?" People are like so bent on the social thing. Maybe they don't realize that there are home schooling events taking place in YOUR city. Truthfully it depends alot on your family. Because it’s not all on the home schooling. If the home schooler is weird then most likely the family is too. Well what I am trying to say is that to judge home schoolers is like to just a "whole nation" as one. Here in the U.S. we have rich people, poor people, fashionable people, old people, young people, liberal people and conservative people, and we have tons of different religions. So how would you classify this nation as one? You don't. The same is for home schooling. Home schooling is different from family to family. Whether you are home schooled for religious reasons, protection from drugs, money issues, the education, or maybe your parents don't care about your education and just teach you certain things.
So anyway what I am getting at is you CAN'T judge home schoolers as one. But hopefully you realize that we do go see movies, we do watch TV, we do listen to popular music, and we do get "out." We home schooling for a reason. Whether its gun shootings or a problem the parents not knowing what the school is teaching us, we are being home schooled for a "Better Future in LIFE"

*EDIT* I do understand what you are talking about the looking weird and dressing weird. I know many homeschooled teenagers that are the same age as me and they dress like amish kinda. And WHY that is, is because they set the society in there house. They don't care what MTV thinks or any other pop culture source says. Since my family has only been homeschooling for 4 years, we still remember what it is like to be in school and we still remember what it is like to be cool. But the only place I shop at is Aeropostale, GAP, American Eagle, and Buckle. Now my sisters shop at a little more reserved stores like JCPenny and Kohls, seeing how all of girls clothing is paper thin shirts and super-tight jeans.

Answer 7

"...
I Believe Your Parents Did The Best Job They Knew How To Do
..."

Taken from the song Affirmation from Savage Garden
http://www.berm.co.nz/cgi-bin/lyrics/lyric.cgi?a=Savage+Garden&al=Affirmation&s=Affirmation&f=S20&r=95

You cannot hurt parents more as in dubting the way they raise their children and like in the song I think every parents wants the best for their children.

Homeschooling is a decision that parents usually take because they are convinced this is the best way to raise and educate their children, therefore I can understand the number and intesity of answers to this question.

Just by your headline "Do you feel that homeschooling inhibits the learning of social skills?" some people might feel more criticism in it than actually a question, because it is one of the most common questions you might get when you decide to teach your children at home. I do not have children, therefore I might not be an expert or on the other side might be someone with a neutral standpoint.

First of all, you can never speak about something that generally happens, just yesterday an 18 year old German went to a school in Germany and wanted to do a massacre to the students of that school. He only injured students, thankfully no one was killed, but that 18 yrs old boy had a sister and brother, went to school and no one who knew him would have had expected him to do such a thing. The only thing strange about him was that he was lacking in social skills and lived in his own world more and more.
So first of all, you can have sisters & brothers, go to school and participate in group activities and in the same time not learn the social skills you need.

The other way around, there will be plenty of examples of homeschooled children who do not lack in social skills at all.

So we only can speak of some kind of a "trend", but not of something that happens in general. From a trend I made the same experience like you, there seem to be a significantly higher number of homeschooled children who dress and act different. But I think that does not relate to the homeschooling itself (at least the children I know still have plebty of social contacts with maybe even a wider range of children, because they usually meet other homeschooled children from all cultures and social background). But I think some (maybe more than usual) parents are overprotecting and nursing the children longer than usual. I do not think that homeschooling is causing the effect described by you, but I do think that more of the parents who raise their children in that way would consider homeschooling.

Answer 8

I went to public school, and academically, I came out fine. I was teased until 9th grade because we were poor and I couldn't wear the same clothes as everyone else. I moved in with my aunt in the middle of 10th grade, updated my wardrobe, and the teasing stopped. I was also bullied for a large part of my 7th grade year because I was white. That is not my assumption, the girls told me this was why they were attacking me.

It is my understanding, knowing many, many public and private schooled children that it is much worse now than it was then. Do I want to expose my children to that? NO.

My kids ARE in contact with many other kids every single day. In fact, we just got back from Florida, where we met a homeschooling family that we had corresponded with for a couple of years. We also met their entire support group of hundreds of children. My children have at least 5 pen pals each. Not only that, but we are part of several groups that meet at least twice a week. My children see at least 20-40 kids in any given day.

My children don't wear Tommy, or Gap, or whatever, but they do dress in current trends. They act like any other kids their own age. Many times, they act BETTER than most kids their own age, because they have respect for others and are well mannered. My children are not "sheltered". I have taken control of their educations, but they are independent. They have no problem going up to another kid and joining in a game.

Answer 9

I personally think my son has MORE opportunities for interacting with others because he's homeschooled and not stuck in a classroom all day, where teachers tell him not to talk during class. Maybe the reason homeschoolers seem so different is because they are more mature and don't act like typical 15 or 16 year olds , who are only interested in the lasted celebrity or fashions. Ok, not all public school kids are like that, but, in the same way, you can't lump all homeschool kids together and say they're "different".

BTW - at least one of the Rhodes Scholars announced this week was homeschooled as a teen. Since she had to interview for the scholarship, I'd have to guess she wasn't too "different" for them.

Answer 10

You state in your question that homeschooled kids seem "different and out of place from the rest of society" and you state that your basis for that claim is that these kids don't act or dress like everyone else. So my question to you is..what's wrong with that? I homeschool my son. He has lots of friends, and knows how to interact with any type of person we come across. Personally I do not follow the "we all need to be like sheep and all do the same and act the same and dress the same and think the same" mentality. Individuality is a wonderful gift. Personally I think it's society that has the problem. Public schools teach kids that if they don't dress/act/think like everyone else there's something wrong with them. That is simply not true. I would much rather my son march to the beat of his own drum than to be a mindless sheep who follows the crowd because that's what "Everyone" else is doing.

Answer 11

No I know it doesn't, or more accurately it doesn't have to.
There are many great ways to socialize children outside of school. My sons are involved in homeschool soccer, active in two youth ministry groups where they are the only homeschoolers, attend local homeschool skates, have played recreational league soccer amoung other activites. They are comfortable around people of all ages and interact with them well.
Do they stand out from most of thier friends? You bet they do.
They think before they act. They treat others with respect, stand up for what they believe in, love deeply, live joyfully, disagree peacefully, give abundantly, and hold themselves to a higher standard than most children I know.
Do they dress diferently? Yes ma'am they proudly do. Thier pants do not sag showing thier underware for the world to see. Since we are a single income family they have learned the value of a dollar and the fact that clothes from Wal-Mart that cover them just as well and are just as comfortable as those designer clothes many wear. They realize this savings can then be spent on other things they need and want.
Every homeschool family is unique, forming an opinion on all based upon experiences with so few may lead to erroneous conclusions.