What about socialization?

A common question asked by those who are skeptical of or are in opposition to homeschooling, is how students are socialized. If a student learns in isolation, critics argue, it is impossible for the child to be properly socialized. Here’s a closer look at the socialization myth, and how homeschooled students actually have a greater opportunity for socialization than do their school-educated peers.

Socialization is understood to be the process of acclimating a person, beginning in childhood, to the commonly accepted behaviors of society, including interacting with others. Or, within the context of a

traditional school environment, socialization is using an age-segregated culture to teach a child how to interact with others. A traditional school setting is ideal for teaching a student how to get along with others who are the exact same age; also, it is ideal for teaching a student how to sit passively for several hours a day, moving through activities created and structured by others. Homeschooled students, it is erroneously believed, never learn how to socialize, because they lack repeated exposure to this limited learning environment.

It can be argued that socialization in a traditional school setting is lacking. In practically no other setting in a person’s life will they find themselves in a large group of people of the same basic age and maturity level. Granted, learning to get along with many other individuals of any age can be a broadening experience, but it is limiting if the demographics of the group are so narrowly defined. An arguably better situation for learning socialization is that of being exposed to individuals of all ages and maturity levels, and learning how to interact with anyone and everyone.

Homeschooling very easily fosters this type of environment for a student. Homeschooling, contrary to what critics may say, does not occur in isolation or in a vacuum. In any learning environment, home or traditional, there will be outliers; homeschooling certainly has its outliers of individuals who homeschool their children in isolation. But the vast majority of homeschooled students are exposed to a wide variety of people on a regular basis. Every trip to the grocery store, or church, or athletic groups (i.e., soccer teams, Little League), or fine arts groups (i.e., choir, band, orchestra, art), or homeschooling organizations, or nursing homes, or hospitals, or museums, or sporting events, or field trips…all of these, and more, provide rich opportunities for socialization for homeschooled students. And because they typically have more time in their day for outings, homeschooled students have more opportunities for participating in these mixed settings for socialization.

Also, if an individual graduates from school and goes on to work in a position where they passively engage in tasks dictated to them by someone else, then, again, a traditional school environment is optimal. Yet fewer and fewer jobs structured in this fashion seem to exist. Rather, individuals who are free thinkers, get along with all types of people, and can adjust to all types of situations are in increasing demand in today’s workforce. Homeschoolers will have been fielding these types of situations for years by the time they reach adulthood, and are ready to engage in “the real world.” Fact: They’ve been engaging in the real world for years—actually, even more than their traditionally schooled peers.