Homeschooling and Socilization

I'm sure you've heard the old argument about how homeschoolers aren't properly socialized.  Believe it or not, I usually hear that comment from someone at least once each school year!  I laugh.  Most homeschoolers laugh at this.  This is a picture from my son's youth group's pool party.  They look pretty social don't they?

We had 19 kids in the pool ranging in age from 12 to 18.  Everyone got along.  Everyone had fun.  It makes me happy to see this.  There were no upper classmen picking on lower classmen.  No bully harrassing a shy kid.  Nope.  Just good clean fun. 

I think that some people think homeschoolers just stay inside all day and study.  That is definately not the case!  My kids have lots of activities with non homeschoolers as well as other homeschoolers.  And I can tell you from many years of experience with little league baseball that my kid has WAY more social skills than most of the others!  I sometimes think people confuse social skills with talking.  Kids in regular school may get a chance to talk to more people each day, but how much is really proper socialization?  (For the record, I'm not saying that kids in regular schools cannot be properly socialized.  I just don't think it's really the school that's controlling that.  I think its more the parents.)

Here's an example of what I think is proper social skills.  I watched this exchange this weekend during the youth party....

The doorbell rang and my son, being the host of the party went to answer it.  It was a girl he'd never met before.  She said hello and introduced herself.  He introduced himself and welcomed her and invited her in.  Pretty good socialization if you ask me!


If you homeschool, do you ever hear the old socialization comment?  I usually just laugh it off, but I do like to do a post like this every once in awhile just so I can vent. :)


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