Socialization and homeschooling

[Noel]

@nz

I’d be really careful on that. I know a lot of people who skipped grades as kids due to academic intelligence who are still struggling socially as adults because they missed out on socialization — they were “too smart” for people who were the same age as them and never learned to get along with their immediate peers, then they were “that smart kid who’s a year younger than everyone else” when they moved up a grade. Their entire childhood was interacting with older people who thought they were “so mature for their age”, which became a huge part of their identity. When they were in their early 20s, that was so much a part of who they thought they were, but people stop seeing “mature children” when you’re in college and just see another young adult. At that point, no one is being surprised at how eloquent you are. But “being mature for your age” is so wrapped up in who you are.

Define struggling socially. I don’t understand what this means. That they can’t talk with people?

This whole, “They are so mature for their age” is most definitely not my son. I am not worried about that at all.

@nz

It’s pretty clear to me as a 30 year old when I meet people around my age who are only children or were homeschooled. They missed out on socialization with a wide variety of other kids, when they were kids, and now they don’t know how to act around their peers as adults. I’m not saying “you must have more children or your son will forever suffer!!” (And that would be pointless because there’d be too much of an age gap, even if you weren’t trying to live a life right now that is low-cost and has a lot of freedom.)

People around your age (in their 30s ) who don’t know how to interact? Sad to say, that is much of your generation. Cell phones as a whole have destroyed many younger people’s ability to interact with each other; I don’t see homeschooling having much to do with it.

@nz

I am, however, suggesting that you consider his physically-present social interactions with other kids around his age. They don’t need to be “the same age”. Living in a lot of countries would have been a dream for me as a kid, but I think about the friends I had in childhood, and we could not have replaced running around barefoot in the woods or climbing trees with FaceTime calls. I know COVID has changed that, but it’s also gotten a bad rap for it.

I think you were very lucky to have had the opportunities that you had with your friends as a child. Things have changed for kids. The running around barefoot in the woods is not something that is possible here - he would step on meth needles. And we do try to allow as much social interaction as he desires, including with kids his age- he is the guide of that.

@nz

I realize I might be coming off as judgmental, and I don’t mean that. I am not a parent and I do not know you or your life plan. I am, however, a teacher, and I have seen a lot of types of kids and watched some of them grow up. School has little to do with academics. It’s a place for kids to interact with other kids and learn how to do so in the manner of the culture in which they live. The only way to replace that opportunity is to homeschool your child but make sure they are socializing with other kids in other ways — daily sports and clubs and extracurricular classes. Even then, if you think of “contact hours” for a language or sport practice and apply that to social skills practice, a homeschooled child is getting 1-2 hours a day while an in-person schooled child is getting 8. That quickly becomes a massive difference.
Maybe I’m just jealous that your son is getting opportunities that I think a lot of young children would die for, but please keep the above in mind. This past 1.5 year had shown that kids need to interact with one another in person. Learning from people older and younger is fantastic for expanding your world view, but kids need friends who are closer in age to really develop socially. My

I was also a teacher for almost a decade, and I just don’t buy it. There is an inculcation that is a large part of the underlying methodology of school that is creating good 9-5 workers. The “socialization” that you speak of at school,

@nz

It’s a place for kids to interact with other kids and learn how to do so in the manner of the culture in which they live

is what I fundamentally have problems with. My experience both as a teacher, and even moreso, watching my son at school here in Canada, is that school teaches largely negative social skills. How to bully, how to escape bullying, how to create cliques, and how to emotionally manipulate groups (the followers) to a very small groups (the leaders or even teachers) advantage. And that is just the students. The teachers are often even worse, and largely have drank the Kool aid thinking that they know better and are somehow teaching invaluable life skills- when the opposite is often the case; authoritarianism has no place in actual education.

On a side note, I appreciate the concern, and I didn’t take your post personally in any way. Like I said before, this is a bit of a push button topic for me, for many reasons.

And all this being said, we do try to get our son to spend as much time as he can with people in general, including kids his age. When we are travelling, we will stop at most locations for around a month ago or so, so we will see what we can find for him to do away from us, and with other people/kids, both for our sanity and for him.

Apologies for the epic post. Rant over.