Do you think homeschoolers have no social skills?

Answer 1

That is something my girlfriend and I argue about alot,because I want my child to be home schooled and she is afraid that they will have no social skills. The thing is a few people I know have kids who were homeschooled and they are fine...the solution. Involve the children in extra Curricular activities such as AYSO soccer or little league. They can hang out and meet people that way and make friends that way. I just feel like kids get a much better education at home then they would at a public school...but that could be debated.

Answer 2

I've been a public school teacher, had a child in public school, and now I homeschool. When I taught, the students who enrolled from homeschool did seem socially......different. But, looking back on it now, that wasn't really a bad thing. They "caught up" with their peers socially in no time, and were academically fine. Regardless of the outcome, however, that "social awkwardness" made an impression on people. (Many--especially public school teachers--are already skeptical of homeschooling and are looking for any reason to confirm their skepticism.) The problem with that logic is that a classroom is an artificial environment that will not be duplicated in adulthood. (A college classroom setting as well as various workplaces are completely different.) So, essentially, the argument for acting like all of the other kids, ahem...I mean being "properly socialized" is really only for the 12 to 13 years of their lives (at most) that they will be in that artificial environment. If a homeschooled child has no experience in the classroom, he may act a bit shy or different until he learns the ropes. I've noticed that homeschooled kids tend to have very advanced social skills outside of school which truly is the the real world.

Answer 3

I have seven kids who are homeschooling. I can looked at them without biased and say that five are very good at interacting with people of all different ages, races, and backgrounds.

I have two children with autism, and so I really do take offense when people use 'social skills' as an argument against homeschooling. You have no idea what a true lack of social skills looks like. And public school certainly was not able to teach them how to interact with regular children and adults. It wasn't until we started homeschooling and I would put the energy into *teaching* how normal people interact that they began social interaction.

I know no homeschoolers who lack in social skills. What I see is the same difference in people that exists in public schools (having grown up in PS and having my children in PS for five years) is being blamed on homeschooling rather than on personality. If someone is shy in PS, then they are just shy. IF someone is shy homeschooling, than it's bad parenting/homeschooling.

Answer 4

Homeschoolers I have known have had better social skills than many children in public schools. Because they spend time relating to children of all ages as well as adults on a regular basis, they know how to interact with a wide variety of people. Public schoolers spend most of their time warehoused w/their peer group. Many don't know how to have a polite, respectful converstation with adults or what to do with children who are younger than they are.

I know of very few homeschoolers who don't partcipate in some kind of church group, sports or music program, homeschool coop, scout group, or similar activity which involves socializing w/other children. The myth of the unsocialized homeschooler is completely ridiculous. There's a huge difference between "socialization" and "stuck in a room with 25 same aged kids for 8 hrs a day". Quality socialization goes a long way over quantity.

Answer 5

Most homeschoolers have great social skills. I'm so tired of this misconception! Homeschoolers are just a different type of bag of mixed nuts. In that bag you will find some that can fit in anywhere, and some that are loners. You will find a few extreme extraverts, a few introverts, but most somewhere in the middle. (just like kids that go to school) No one (homeschooled or otherwise) should be forced into a box. We are all unique.

Answer 6

It seems there's a big misconception that homeschooled equals living under a rock. This very far from the truth. There are many groups specifically for homeschooled children and their parents. Being homeschooled provides greater opportunities for a child to understands concepts in a real-world fashion and in a personalized way, instead of where the classroom is at developmentally.
However, it isn't for everyone. Home-schooling also requires more dedication than just set schooling policies (PTA). Parents must be able to track their children's progress and plan for the week ahead, as well as take things in stride according to the child. It's not for the "lazy".

Answer 7

I think, just like public schooled or private schooled kids, that some homeschooled kids have less developed social skills. However, the vast majority of those I've met have wonderful social skills.

Answer 8

How in the heck can *anyone* have no social skills?

I mean, that's like asking, if someone has no eating skills. Or no thinking skills. Of course they have skills.

Now, whether or not those skills are acceptible to certain people of the public school crowd who have very narrow definition on how to be social, I dunno. That's their place to decide what kinds of social skills are important.

I would argue that homeschoolers have different social skills. They tend to be authentic, so they are social according to their own inner truth, rather than trying to abide by sub-cultural pressure (because, honestly, there is NO universal social right. Every social truth is based on the sub-culture who is defining it). Also, homeschoolers base their social decisions on a variety of input, not just what their peers tell them to do. So, sometimes, the growth to adulthood take a different path to develop than what kids who learn first how to get along in school before they learn how to get along in life. Homeschool kids skip the school part, for the most part, and get right on to learning how to get along in life. To some, that may look like having "no skills", but when you see the whole timeline from childhood to adulthood, you can see that it's just a different path because they are focussing on different things than what it takes to survive in a world where the dominating social demands come from other kids.

Yes, homeschoolers have social skills. But they often don't develop in the same way that they do in all-day classroom life. Is that a bad thing? Depends. How narrow is your definition of who is tolerable? How narrow is your expectations on how children, and people in general, should behave?

In my experience, there is a HUGE range of behaviors when homeschooled children are little. Lots of behaviors that would be unacceptable in school. Lots of variety. Lots of things that would be scoffed at by old ladies in the grocery store.

Then, as I look at kids slightly older, that range gets a tad bit smaller. And slightly older, a tad bit smaller still. By the time I get to observing the teens and homeschooeld adults, there is practically no difference between their behavior and any other adult. You would never be able to pick them out of a crowd.

Until you start talking to them, and you think, "wow, their parents must have really raised them well! and they must have gone to a great school!" When in fact, they were just one of the many "unsocialized" homeschool kids when they were little.

It all evens out in the end.

Answer 9

NO! I'm home schooled and I do understand where ur coming from. You see, if you are home schooled and ur parents don't socialize you, then upi will have no social skills. But if your parents socialize you like my parents do, the you'll be a social butterfly. Like I am. I know basically everbody. I have tons of friends. Friends that are homeschooled, go to private school, and public school. In fact, my 2 friends that go to public school are gonna be over my house any minute now. SO TAKE THAT!

Answer 10

We most certainly have social skills...on a higher level. People who go to regular school (this is speaking GENERALLY) are brought up around people their age their whole young life. They get used to it and treat everybody that way, as if they were their own age. They may have "social skills", but they don't have genuine respect for people they should, such as elders, teachers, etc. Don't get hostile, I'm not saying they're all that way...

Homeschoolers, though not brought up around lots of people, develop respects for different people of different ages (everyone to some degree)...and GENERALLY are more mature because they know how to act around all age groups...except maybe their peers because that's the hardest group to please.

So does everyone spend their lives around other teenagers/young adults? No. But they are saturated with it at school every day, so that shapes their personalities differently than homeschoolers. In the very end, we usually turn out the same (teaching our kids to respect everyone!), but I believe homeschoolers learn how to earlier & with better results.

So we may not seem to have "social skills" (whatever the world's dumb definition of that might be!) that much, but those won't get us far in life, will they? (btw, social skills is different from communication skills)