Socialization is a dirty word in homeschooling circles. Yes, homeschool kids are socialized. In fact, they are probably better socialized and ready for the real world than those kids stuck in brick-and-mortar institutional school. Let me ask you a question? As an adult, how often are you in setting with people your exact age in years for hours on end five days a week, nine months a year? Is this really the optimal setting to prepare our kids for the world beyond school?
When I first started our homeschool journey with BVT all those years ago, a very smart person pointed out to me that it isn’t teachers helping to raise our kids in an institutional school setting. It is basically kids raising other kids. We wonder about socializing our children and some insist a public-school setting is best for that. Who really are the kids socializing with? The teachers? The principal?
It is important that children know the world if full of many kinds of people. From people with different beliefs to people of different skin tone. The world is full of people of all ages. We can learn so much from meeting a variety of people not just the people that look like us and talk like us. Meeting people different from us, including those older and younger, help us better understand others and be able to relate to them. Being able to speak and carry on a conversation with someone a bit different than oneself is a great skill that comes naturally to homeschoolers.
One of our most important jobs as a parent and grandparent is to show our kids how to interact in a healthy way with different people from different walks of life. Our kids learn from us and watch us all the time. They have propensity to do what we do, not what we say. As homeschoolers we have the rare opportunity to include our kids in our daily social interactions with others. Encourage them to join the great conversation with adults and children alike.