Home school socialisation questions:

Wow - Thank you for taking the time to pose such a thought provoking comment.
Naturally, I mostly disagree with you (surprise surprise! :)

There are 2 points that you made with which I 100% wholeheartedly agree -

“those who know how to survive in the emotional and social wars are the ones that can add knowledge and become successful.”

and
your second post about there being schools that do indeed prepare their students properly for the real world.

ABSOLUTELY.

And I would like to add that in every school you can easily find teachers who devote themselves and MOST of their spare time in doing everything they can to help their students and prepare them for the real world. When you find those teachers - treasure them and take them out for supper!

In general, those teachers are severely handicapped by the system in which they have to work. Ask any one of them!

Although as you say there are newer concept schools out there that have paid a great deal of attention to the logic of preparing our children. Sadly they are still few and far between. If you have one near you - and it meets your child's and your needs, then support it! That is a far easier thing to do than to commit your family to home schooling.

Now, let’s move on to the other points:

“Hi there, one BIG thought - mothers protect their children! “

I wish that were universally true. It immediately brings to mind all the children who are assaulted and bullied. Did you know that 1 in 4 children is assaulted so severely in his or her childhood that the case is recorded by the police!!? Now, I will instantly grant you that some of those assaults are the parents and some are strangers, but some are their schoolmates. That doesn’t sound like efficient and universal protection to me.

On the subject of parents who assault their children - there are, sadly, some people who are totally unequipped to even have children, but do anyway. There is an element of that in every society. They would be equally ill-equipped to school their children (although technically they would have been doing so for the first 4 years anyway).

Happily sending your child to school for someone else to educate is far, far, easier than keeping them home and taking the responsibility yourself. While this is not a guarantee, obviously, it does, on the whole, mean that the homeschooler parents are willing to go the extra mile for their children and would be more than up to the job. Thankfully.


“In no way or manner can you get your child to realise that he has to fight for himself to attain what HE/SHE believes they want to make out of life. “

I am guessing you don’t have a teenager or even a two year old in your life!

The whole of the growing up process in one of separating yourself from your parents and family and finding your own values and abilities. Schooled or home schooled that process goes on, regardless of whether we approve of it or even enjoy it!

“In no way can you teach your child to cut off the rest of the noise and to concentrate and listen so he gets the results he deserves in the test.”

I wish you could see my eldest daughter who has just discovered all the wonders of novels, completely tune out her siblings clamouring, the music, the pets, the telephone, the gorgeous day outside and most of my suggestions that it is now time for doing something else. She deserves a medal for concentration!

ooo - don’t get me started on the subject of tests!
If you helped your child learn something - then you know whether or not they know it. They demonstrate their learning in their conversation and activities. Thereby, they reinforce their learnings and prove to themselves that they have useful information and abilities.

Now, of course, if you had just taught 30 calm and attentive :) kids something - you would have no idea of who had understood you and who was lost. Then you may want to test them to see where they were.

Of course, once you start in on that, it is no longer just a let’s-find-out-where-you- are-at exercise - it becomes a who-is-the-best-at-this-test-taking-skill exercise.

Once this is part of the system, then the teachers’ salaries and promotions are judged on their students scores and you get the unimaginable situation where teachers ask “certain” children to stay home on the day ot the test! Documented.

You even get teachers “teaching to the test” and some will go so far as to help their students cheat. Few and far between, I trust. Still, sad but very true.

Also on the subject of tests and social skills. One of the most valuable skills anyone can develop is that of co-operation. I have this skill, you have that knowledge - together let us create this great thing.
Last time I checked that was called cheating on the test!

“In no way can you teach your child to be the odd one out for what he believes when the rest has a different opinion and are adamant to change his views.”

Again I suspect that you don’t spend much time with a teen. They generally delight in having opposing views and in parading them up and down in front of anyone who will stand still.

Beside that, my children are very aware of being different in our small community. They are generally the only home schooled kids in many of their classes and in my observation, cope just fine with it, even when the other kids make fun of it.

I can only speak about my children here. Many of their preferences are different than their playmates and having had the leisure to genuinely think through their choices and discuss them with caring adults, they are more able to defend them and maintain their position than many other children. They almost always have a well thought out reason for their choices.

That is one of the most vital aspects of our homeschool.

“In no way can you teach your child how to argue without getting personal and physical if he does not know/experience the consequence of that.”

Wow - on the contrary - you have to live with the person you just hurt - you can’t just leave home in the afternoon or get yourself another sister.

Besides arguing skills are mostly learned by experiencing the parents’ arguing styles. Arguing is also a social skill that they learn from being with people.
In schools their age peers display a huge variety of arguing styles that include yelling, punching, hair pulling, bullying and condescension. They probably also get to see really good debating skills and caring correction.

My belief is that adults probably have better skills than children and that I would prefer that my child learn from adults or a variety of age groups then exclusively from their age peers.


“In no way can you teach them to be part of a school play and to have landed the role, whichever it is, because he had to decide for himself how much he would like to be involved and to what extend he is going to promote himself to get there - above the same efforts of how many like him.”

It sounds like you are assuming that home schooled children are not part of any outside activities. Quite the contrary - they are part of many.

They can avail themselves of college classes that schooled students can’t go to. They can do late night theatre productions because they can sleep in the next day. They can go to the museum when it is quiet and get the full attention of the guide. They can group together and script, choreograph and produce their own production - they have the time.

In fact, our smallish homeschool group was lucky enough to secure the help of a professional theatre production company and we have publicly produced and sold tickets to 2 very professional and enjoyable theatre productions over the last 3 years.


“I do not need to write a book - I have seen this many a time over - and it is not in the play group where you learn any of this - because that is always fun - it is in the majority of the day where you have to compete and learn and survive. All of the above is extremely important social and emotional skills which have to complement the knowledge and technical savvy they gain and in turn will be their saving grace when they have to face the BIG BAD world. Not all systems work perfectly, but those who know how to survive in the emotional and social wars are the ones that can add knowledge and become successful.”

I would say that that statement is born out of the old economy where the prevailing belief was one of lack and limited resources. This is still a true picture in the school situation.

In the real world, with our modern economy we have the privilege of technical savvy and have realised that this is a world of abundance, not limit. The most important skills are co-operation as opposed to competition, learning motivated by passion and not by rote, and flourishing not mere survival.

There are useful skills that can be learned in a play group, but there are far more useful skills that can be learned from genuinely interacting with the real world.

Spending time with people of all ages and beliefs, visiting seniors’ homes, volunteering, running a flea market stand, chatting on the internet, apprenticing with real working people, being part of a national scientific study, travelling the real world and learning to speak real languages with real people, butterfly hunting, photography expeditions, theatre productions :), being part of the museum exhibit creation team, submitting your writing to real world newspapers and magazines for publication, actually building a house! or catering a gourmet dinner party and so much more.

Social skills are learned best in a social setting. Not in age limited groups in a confined and unrealistic situation, where authority is the enemy. In real life our children will need to be able to converse appropriately with anyone, not just their “mates”, they will have to take orders from people of wildly different ages and abilities and unless they land in jail they will never again have to publicly ask to go to the bathroom.