Article: why is homeschooling bad for social development
December 22, 2020 | Uncategorized
If you look through most of human history or you look at many cultures today, you find that teens spend most of their time learning to become adults. But in some cases, where parents have demonstrated gross negligence, ineptitude, criminality, or abuse, they can lose custody of their children. However, homeschooling does not give them a chance to compete with other kids. After all, those parents, more than anyone else, stand to gain or lose depending on how well their children grow up. Those who didn't grow up in homeschool may not realize there are other, perhaps better, ways to socialize young people. According to Jesse Scaccia, “Homeschooling of these children is tricky, because a lot of special knowledge is needed. Harvard Psychologist Robert Epstein explains that socialization is "a process by which we learn to be part of a community." One might respond that homeschool laws enable those abuses. Besides, if you worry that homeschooling won’t give the child a social life, think again. Epstein has a point, and it serves as powerful leverage against naysayers. Whether they mean well or not, they aren't raising their children well at all. The process of children meeting others their own age and negotiating their way in and out of friendships and disagreements are all part of the social development of children. Proponents of homeschooling may not agree with the reasons stated above and they have a right to their opinions. Well, we're looking for good writers who want to spread the word. Allegedly, homeschoolers in the 70s and 80's were able to keep the government at a distance by designating their homeschool as a "private school." Homeschools can do all that cross-cultural interaction too, especially when parents utilize homeschool networks, share personal resources and activities between neighbors and homeschool families, utilize community resources like the local theater, music lessons and orchestra, recreation leagues, historic landmarks, art clubs, athletic centers, playgrounds, hiking trails, parks, museums, churches, and libraries. Notice, Epstein is not recommending social isolation. The state does have the legal right to demand that all young people be educated, yet this in no way contradicts the parents' right to direct their child's education, including the process of their socialization. His argument is invalid in two ways (1)first just because a child isn't locked inside a building from 8-3 with a bunch of other kids doesn't mean the child isn't able to socialize. It is may be hard for parents to draw the line between educator and parent in the child’s mind. In some cases, parents may choose to send their children to a socially well-adjusted public school or private school. In a traditional school, students are exposed to children coming from diverse cultural backgrounds. These numbers however are recent. While a parent maybe able to create lesson plans to help his or her children master algebra and history, it is a lot trickier to impart social skills. For instance, Molly is a new girl in my daughter's homeschool drama group. A similar pattern emerges for the social, emotional, and psychological development of the homeschooled. Many parents homeschool to give their children a Biblical approach to learning not found in public schools. With cult groups and religious extremists, for example, homeschooling can be used to conceal abuse, truancy, parental neglect, child-labor violations, and a host of other problems. We did a lot of digging into homeschool studies, and we couldn't find any evidence to support the idea that homeschooling is bad for children's social development. We hope you enjoy AptParenting. These cookies do not store any personal information. In many cases, local schools are doing a fine job at this already. When we factor that question across the legal reality that parents already have the right to raise their children as they see fit, the question becomes, "What right does the state or school system have to infringe on the parent's right to steer their child's education including their socialization?". Read on to find more about why homeschooling may not be good. Homeschools can still address these social needs, but they don't have the school halls to help them do it. Those values may be religious, academic, civic, vocational, familial, environmental, and so on. Before the onset of the modern homeschool movement (late 1970's early 1980's) most states had lots of restrictions pressing families into public or private school, even though homeschooling—in some sense—was still technically legal in every state. Children who are home-schooled may feel lonely, friendless and isolated, especially so if they don’t have siblings. Somewhere in between the worst isolation on one end or the worst peer pressure on the other end, there seems to be a happy medium. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. There is no utopian option. Time to dream and grow and find out what it is they love to do. One of the most critical impacts of homeschooling on children is limited social interaction. It is not, however, entirely a myth. Homeschooling parents know kids need blocks of quiet time alone. In a similar study (Lee, 1994), homeschooling parents rated their children higher Perhaps "homeschooling" is code language for heavy-handed parents who don't trust their kids. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. For these reasons, homeschooling remains a viable social option for educating young people. Homeschooling can be a great advantage in the early child development. Among these homeschool families, a fair share of educational pioneers foresaw the promising opportunities of homeschooling, and utilized it to great effect—without any negative ties (paranoia, fundamentalism, cultism, etc.). Homeschoolers are often the brightest most eager communicators in new settings, with elders, peers and youngers alike. He continues: So the question is, what community do we want our young people to learn to be part of? Judicially speaking, there is a breaking point where parents can be deemed unfit to raise their children and that includes raising them in faulty forms of homeschool. In some cases, these rights entitle them, the state, and child protective services to take action against malicious parents. We understand that there is a positive side to homeschooling. The state, in other words, may not have a monopoly in education, either of schools or of methods. There are people who opt to educate their children at home because they want them to absorb the morals and values of their family, and follow their religious beliefs. The concept of "socialization" is not simply a matter of "fitting in" with school peers. Some prefer it so as to keep their child away from bad company. No parent should lightly decide such weighty matters as a child's education. Can we set the "anti-social" accusation aside now? Students have to learn social dynamics. Homeschooling, just like conventional schooling, can be done poorly or done well. It has been said that homeschooling tends to isolate students so badly that they are largely unable to have normal, healthy, social relations. The clear majority of peer-reviewed studies show that homeschoolers often have better parent-child relationships and friendships than conventionally schooled children. Schools give children, the opportunity to participate in debates, sports and other competitions. Being schooled at home, they are isolated from the exposure traditional education gives. A common argument against homeschooling is that children will be socially isolated from their age level peers and will be socially delayed as a result (Davis, 2005). The two functions of social development are socialization and individuation. Yet Epstein could be read too strictly here. Once upon a time, homeschooling was so rare and so strange that pretty much the only homeschoolers were, themselves, rare and strange. And of course, there are countless opportunities for active homeschoolers to engage in regular meaningful social interactions with peers, as well as with elders and youngers, across different cultures and affinity groups. In these early years, homeschooling wasn't popular, wasn't cool, and was pretty hard to do—without breaking the law. Meanwhile private school attendance is declining. Homeschooling was well suited to full-time athletes, traveling artists (i.e., child actors, or performers), itinerant career families, missionaries, learning disabled or gifted students. Yet each setting offers its own strengths and weaknesses. States can require that children receive some manner of education as demonstrated by attendance records, and in some cases, sending student updates to the state board of education. Most of this research finds that being homeschooled does not harm children’s development of social skills, as measured in these studies. However, every coin has two sides and even homeschooling has its share of demerits. My kids have grown up in the city so there has been ample kids to hang out with that are homeschooled but I know that some kids get lonely and parents need to be a bit more proactive in making opportunities to develop friendships. In other cases, the local schools are doing just fine, but the parents in question happen to be highly invested, education-savvy, and capable of doing a better job with their children than they believe professional educators could do. Making the switch to homeschooling comes with lots of benefits. This may affect the future lives and careers of children. Robert Epstein explains that socialization is `` a process by which we learn to tossed! Options carry their own parents are the higher authority in their children.... 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