Why do the same people persist in citing "lack of socialization" as a reason against home schooling, despite

Question

overwhelming evidence to the contrary? This subject has been addressed several times on this site.

Home school students have more than sufficient opportunity and more time than their public school counterparts to interact socially:

Study- "Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream"
A link to this and many other studies can be found at:

http://nche.hslda.org/research/default.asp


Universities and Employers name social skills as one of the most important reasons for recruiting homeschool students:

Study- "Home Schooling Grows Up"
http://nche.hslda.org/research/ray2003/Socialization.asp

This question was prompted by the answers to another question that is currently posted.

25 out of 51 answerers cited social skills as a reason to choose public school over homeschool.

Answer 1

It's sad, isn't it?

It boils down to 2 things really: either an inability to learn or a bias so engrained that they won't listen to anything.

The bias is built up by what is not true being spread around as truth. And there are all sorts of psychological and sociological reasons why that would happen.

Of course, this particular medium doesn't help much--they can say what they want and walk away. Things could be dealt with more if people were speaking face-to-face.

Answer 2

My theory would be that these are people that are not themselves homeschoolers. They do not know anything about homeschooling, don't know any homeschoolers, and haven't done any research about homeschooling. They do know enough to know that homeschoolers win a lot of academic competitions and do well on academic testing. They haven't yet heard that socialization isn't affected by homeschooling so that is the only lame objection they can come up with against homeschooling.

Edit: Mike C. I find it a little ironic that you are asking why this poster is posting another question on a homeschooling board when she is a homeschooler obviously asking a question re: homeschooling. You often post answers on the homeschooling board and I don't believe are a homeschooler or were a homeschooler in the past. Isn't that being a little hypocritical and judgmental of you?

In addition, there are many reasons why people pull their children out of school or homeschool and it is not to keep their children isolated. Only someone with some kind of paranoid condition would think that way. I know in my case I tried for 2 full years to keep my son in school, tutoring him, having him cry and have stomach aches, but eventually it was just too much stress and time for the both of us. If my ds hadn't been LD & gifted and/or the school system had provided any help, it would be wonderful for my children to be in school, but that didn't happen so home schooling sometimes can be the only solution. And other people have stories like mine....

Answer 3

I homeschooled and my mother forced hours of socialization on my siblings and I. Well it paid off. I'm a full time college student at a state University. I'm a pageant queen and party hostess. This Spring I'm joining Alpha Gamma Delta. I went to public school during high school and absolutely hated the fact i could never talk in class (my advanced high school classes were in lecture format). The only socialization was between classes and lunch. Basically what we talked about was gossip, sex, and alcohol. Is this really want your children subject to?

I'm a career mind young woman and i do not plan on homeschooling my children. In and Education class i had this fall my Proffessor said that the research shows that homeschooled children are no more like to have poor comunication skills as Public school children. He went on to say that its the parent, there are bad parents in public, private and homeschool setting. I tend to believe this theory.

Answer 4

A lot of people don't have much experience with home schooling so they just think of weird kids doing chores, and occasional homework with Mom or Dad.
I do have to say that like most prejudices there is a grain of truth in this one. If you have a family who is pretty socially inept to begin with, and their kids are not regularly exposed to other kids, they can turn out pretty bizarre.
I think of 2 kids I had in 5th grade class where I taught DARE and they had to take 5th grade twice because their parents didn't teach them much of anything at home. They were lower in IQ also, and very lacking in social skills.
You take a few kids like that, and when they are the only home schooled kids some people meet, BAM! You have people perpetuating the story of homeschooling equals social awkwardness.
Where my daughters to go school (a private Christian school) they allow home school kids to participate in their sports teams. This is a good idea in my opinion to get them some time with others, and some healthy competition.
At some point, kids do need to be with other kids. Don't cut them out of all team or other activities and they'll probably do great (not that you were planning on locking them away).

Answer 5

Unfortunately there are families that do not include social activities in homeschooling. Although these kids may have a lot of advantages otherwise, it has an opportunity to hurt the child later down the road.

All groups get bad reviews, based on a few, and not the whole.

Homeschoolers, due to less time in the setting, actually have more opportunity for social time via friends, co-ops, social outings, field trips, youth groups, and more.

Answer 6

One of my favorite homeschooling quotes is from a researcher in Canada who says (I paraphrase):

Where did we ever get the idea that the best place to socialize a 13 year-old was with 1000 other 13 year-olds?

The biggest argument AGAINST the socialization argument is that children are still learning social mores and values when they are in school. So they don't know what proper behavior is and now other kids are learning from them. That's like asking a 12 year old to teach the other students algebra when they haven't even studied it themselves.

The other thing I find interesting is that no one mentions the publicly schooled kids who are socially inept.

Answer 7

When hsing first started, the concern of the uninformed was that the hs'ed kids were not getting the proper education. When studies repeatedly confirmed that hs'ed kids had distinct academic advantages, then a different tactic had to be chosen, thus the 'socialization' issue began to come up. This will pass, too, and something else will come up.

No child has the perfect upbringing, and no schooling system is going to be perfect. Are there downsides to public, private, and home schools? Of course. We all need to choose what works best for us and not criticize others for whom our choice would be inappropriate.

Answer 8

I am home schooled and have been for ten years (since kindergarten.)
In a classroom at a public school there are kids of the same age and grade grouped together.
In the real world when you get a job you aren't working with people the same age as you.
You are with all different ages.
I know myself that I spend time with people from the ages 1-100.
Now question socialization.

Answer 9

First of all, we have the dumbest, most misleading name ever. It's like saying we're babyeaters, but we don't eat babies. We have the word home in our name, which makes people think we spend all day there.

Second, and more important, there are a million things people attribute to school that aren't there. They think it's the only way to meet people. The only way to learn. That you have to be made miserable and possibly borderline suicidal to learn to cope. That you have to be angry and bored and hate yourself for at least for years to become a happy, functioning adult. That it's hard or impossible to teach yourself. That if you don't go to school, you never even go outside. None of these are true, but they've decided that they are.

I've found homeschoolers are better with social skills than schoolers, generally speaking. They have school social skills, which consist primarily of creating a pecking order, establishing your place within it, and then lashing out at everyone else not in your caste. Homeschoolers just don't care that much. We can actually talk to people, and ask teachers questions, without trying to navigate this whole stupid maze of cliques and groups and artificial boundaries.

Answer 10

There is less accountability in homeschooling...there are no issues on funding, teacher accountability, curriculum guidelines etc...so the average joe doesnt know what the average homeschooled child experiences. I think the fear is that homeschooled children may not be getting that social time integrated with their studies. Cooperative Learning is pretty hard when you have one student, and very tricky with you have multiple students on significantly different cognitive levels.