A few things I’ve been asked recently, if my children are not in school:
How will they learn to be with people they don’t like?
How will they learn to negotiate?
How will they learn to deal with bullies?
I guess this falls into the idea of ‘socialisation’, which is never far away when people ask about home education.
I also had socialisation concerns about home educating until a couple of years ago. Without ever having thought about it a great deal, I had a vague, abstract notion that home educated children would be on their own all day, being lonely, and socially awkward.
Let’s just say it, ‘weird’!
One of my fears used to be that my children would be different, or wouldn’t fit in. Probably what I meant by weird in this context. But ironically, was that fear in fact generated from my school days in the first place?
I remember the pressure to conform, and avoid humiliation, was paramount.
I feel now that being unique (and maybe a bit wierd) is a desirable thing to be in life, in a career, and in making friends. Lots of situations call for people who stand out, have the courage to be different, are comfortable within themselves, and are brave enough to go against the mainstream. Isn’t this in fact what most people want for their kids?
But many of us will remember it was a hard thing to be at school.
But back to the negotiating, and the dealing with bullies and difficult people thing. I wonder where we, myself included, got the idea that years in a room with the same thirty children the same age, was the only way for children to become ‘socialised’? And what about what children do the rest of the week? No socialisation there? If we take time to think about it, there are many ways to provide children with social learning, other than school. So many same age children together all day in a fairly unvaried, mostly indoor environment can create the hierarchies and peer pressure we all remember from our school days.
Perhaps the idea that children need to ‘learn to deal with bullies’ is flawed. No one should have to put up with abuse or bullying, should they? Schools have anti-bullying stances and policies, which are, however, often ineffective in the face of the psychological tactics of the bully. It’s pretty much sink or swim, often without either the development, or the life experience a child needs to cope. A school child cannot escape their tormentors, day in, day out, year after year. Any parent who has had to deal with their child being bullied knows that it is luck of the draw as to who gets bullied, and that despite school policies, there can be pretty much no answer to it.
It is a harrowing, scarring experience, often with no end until the child leaves school. At the extreme end of this issue, school children have taken their own lives due to bullying. And is all this what we think of as ‘learning to deal with bullies’?
Home educated kids attend different groups, classes, and trips, with children of all ages, along with many adults. They have playdates, social meet ups, and online friendship groups. Plus of course their general interactions out in the real world. Because of the variety of groups and activities, and the opportunity to follow a child’s natural learning styles and interests, the situations are less claustrophobic, and emotions are less intense, than at school. However, home educated children still encounter difficult characters and situations.
Home ed groups and activities are not as intense as a school day. Parents are often nearby to help support young children to work through social issues. It doesn’t seem fair to leave developmentally unequipped children to just sort things out for themselves. This might work sometimes, but maybe in the long run it just causes people to develop rigid lifelong ideas about who they do and don’t want to interact with! Home ed stuff also runs for less time, and there’s usually more space so someone can alternatively just choose to keep their distance. And more healthily, and like in the real world, they are free to ultimately leave a toxic situation.
Perhaps this kind of support, along with the less socially pressurised environments, will lead to home educated children becoming adults who are more resilient and rational in situations with difficult people.
When it comes to learning, are many of us able to learn well when surrounded by thirty other people in a room, coughing, fidgeting, talking? Do we all thrive socially, and in terms of our wellbeing, when continually surrounded by a lot of people? Some of us do, and some don’t. For some of us, introverts for example, it can be pretty detrimental.
Despite the above I’m not actually trying to completely dismiss the school social experience.
Many children have rich social lives at school, gain many social skills, and make lifelong friends. And it is felt to be the only viable option for the majority of parents in our country. Its just that the balance of thought on home educated socialisation is overwhelmingly negative.
By considering all the social opportunities home educated children do have, and that as a provider of social experience, school life certainly has its flaws, maybe this can be evened up a little.
And considering that even if being home educated does make children, when compared to the mainstream, a little different or unusual, without the peer pressure of the school environment they are often able to embrace this and blossom within it.
Knowing who they are in this way, will be a positive thing for the life ahead of them.
A couple of unschooling blogs who put it all so much better than me: I’m Unschooled Yes I Can Write and Girls Unschooled.
The Little English Unschool 