Kelly Crawford

Read Part 2: Socialization

True story:

One day, I had all my children with me in a fabric store. As I was checking out, the cashier engaged my daughter in a conversation. After quite a lengthy discussion with her, she finally discovered that we homeschooled. She then looked at me and asked, “How will your children ever learn to talk to people if y’all are at home all the time?”

It’s only fitting that we discuss the misconception of “sheltering children too much” as a natural follow-up to the socialization question. There are several problems with the accusation that homeschoolers shelter their children too much.

The first one is, that when someone accuses us of “sheltering” , what they’re really assuming is that homeschooling parents try to keep their children under cover, hidden and oblivious from sin and worldliness. Not only is that kind of life virtually impossible, that is not at all the angle that most of us take.

The other problem is that too many parents, Christians included, have been deceived into thinking that protecting their children is bad…that sheltering–the accurate form–is harmful, when in fact, it’s our sole responsibility, going hand-in-hand with “training them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”. Satan roams to and fro upon the earth seeking whom he may devour. Tragically, children are an easy target when they are left to themselves. (“A child left to himself brings shame to his mother”. -Proverbs)

Most homeschooling parents raise their children with the philosophy that being immersed in a sinful culture, where wickedness is exalted and righteousness is abased, calls for a careful walk alongside them, providing for them a “biblical lens” through which they may view the world. We believe that children are not mature, not readily discerning, and need the careful guidance of their parents as they filter and process all the stimuli they receive.

(By the way, homeschoolers not only actually leave the house, but probably have more contact with “the real world” than do those children who are confined to a building all day with the same people. The freedom of homeschooling provides such opportunity for activities, outings, and interaction with the public, that our problem is usually how to curb our interaction, rather than trying to create it.)

My children are not sheltered at all from knowing about sin (sex, drugs, adultery–they know about it all, unfortunately.); they do however, remain under their parents’ protection (which is God’s protection) while they are learning to distinguish truth from lies. Instead of becoming buddies with the guy or girl at school that is sexually promiscuous, hearing from them all about how fun it is, and having their parent’s authority about right and wrong undermined (“they said having sex before marriage was bad, but my friend seems to be fine”), we are able to point to examples of those whose lives are being destroyed by immorality…we can point to those happy-go-lucky teenagers who are now miserable adults with broken families…showing them the ultimate end of those who choose godlessness.

“Most homeschooling parents raise their children with the philosophy that being immersed in a sinful culture, where wickedness is exalted and righteousness is abased, calls for a careful walk alongside them, providing for them a “biblical lens” through which they may view the world.“

This was my personal experience in the public school system. I knew all about right and wrong, being raised in a Christian home from birth. But when I entered high school, and almost every kid there was involved in a sinful life of some sort, it became normal, and my parents became weird. I was flung out there to discern between all the confusing messages, with no wise counsel to guide me. (I’m sure some kids do, but I didn’t go home and tell my parents all the filth that was going on and ask them to explain it.)

When the Bible admonishes us to “walk not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful”…how much more should we be making sure our children are not doing that?

When the Bible urges us to “guard your heart with all diligence”…what does that mean? Can we guard our children’s hearts when they are away from us most of the day, under influences that we don’t even know about?

If a boy were to want to become a fireman, he would not be taken to a burning house and told, “go in and figure out how to put it out–that’s the best way to learn about fires.”

No, he would train alongside experienced firemen; he would read, learn and study the nature of fires. After a while, he would be given protective gear and taught how to use it. After that, he would be allowed to practice, in a controlled situation, with the experienced firemen, on a smaller scale.

Slowly, gradually, and carefully, he would be trained and little by little, allowed more opportunity to combat a real fire. One day, he would be fully ready to wage his own battle against that billowing enemy. But he would only survive if he had been properly and carefully trained along the way.

So it is with this spiritual battle. We MUST walk alongside our children until they are ready to wage war alone.

Read Part 1

What about socialization?

I don’t know when the beaten-to-death subject of socialization is going to die, but until it does, I guess we’ll keep talking about it! It has become such a popular response to homeschoolers, that most people spout it off without even understanding their own accusation. “But how will your children know how to act in the real world?”

SOCIALIZATION (according to my Webster’s Dictionary): the act of bringing under public ownership and control.

I don’t think most people are referring to the above definition of socialization when they bring it up…although the public school institution does just what the above infers.

The word “sociable” may be a little closer: it means “fond of the company of others and apt to seek or welcome it.”

It think the main reason for the assumption that hs children can’t be socialized, is that the questioner pictures a child/children who never leave the house or have any contact with other humans. Which is so absurd, I can’t believe we even have to clarify.

If socializing my children is my main concern (and it is not, by the way), then the last place I would send them is into a building where they will spend the majority of their day with children all the same age, and very little interaction with wiser adults. The socialization they get in that setting is no where close to “real life”. And for many children, it can be extremely damaging and permanently impairing to their emotional well-beings.

I am amazed at how many teenagers I encounter who, when I speak to them, (Hi, how are you?) just look at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language. Is that socialization?

Preparation for real life? Sitting in a desk, in a room all day, with 25 other people my age, and a teacher trying to get us to learn something when I am much more interested in my “socialization”…not very realistic.

Back to our unsocialized homeschooler…we actually leave the house at regular intervals. We have many, many friends, we go to social gatherings, we welcome families into our home, and in a nutshell, we see our children becoming much more widely associated with people of many different ages and walks of life. They are comfortable and helpful with small children, and they enjoy conversing with the elderly…it’s a beautiful thing.

We want our children to find their self-worth in who they are in Christ, and not be measured, in their sensitive years, by what other children their own age deem them to be. (A few children are resilient to the cruelty and meanness of others, but most are not. Parents deceive themselves by thinking that exposure to ridicule at a young age will make them better, or tougher people.)

They have plenty of opportunities to learn to share (believe me!) just within our own family. My desire for my children is not only to learn to communicate well with people, but to be courteous, respectful, and welcoming to every person they meet…a feat difficult to accomplish among a peer segregated group all day.

We do not have to create “opportunities” for our children to socialize. Our lives are much more centered around a real-life model, so that the opportunities are present all the time. There is not need to join clubs, or groups in order to “expose” them…they are plenty exposed, sometimes more than I think is good!

I had an interesting encounter with a relative one day…she said, “Kelly, you’re children are so sweet and well-behaved–they’re precious.” An hour later she was arguing with me about how my children are going to suffer socially because they are not in school. (????)

And if my opinions and observations aren’t enough, I challenge you to look into the research that has been done. It is no longer a theory, but there is proof that homeschooled children fare better socially than their peer-segregated counterparts. (Bearing in mind that there are always exceptions on both ends of the scale.)

Just an interesting note…I was talking with a homeschooling friend whose two oldest sons were applying for entrance into college to pursue an engineering degree. (By the way, they both received full academic scholarships.) The college rep said to the mom, “we don’t tell people this, but we much prefer homeschoolers. They are just better all-around students!”

Disagree with homeschooling if you must, but please find a validated subject to base your opinions on!

Up next Tuesday, the myth buster of sheltering!

“I want to start the conversation out by saying, one of the biggest obstacles people face about homeschooling, is that they try to transfer their picture of “school” directly to the home and imagine it should be the same thing.”

The way we “did school” growing up is not the only way to educate a person. (Years ago, many of the great intellects of the day were “homeschooled” even though that’s not what it was called.) I would go even farther to say that the institutionalized schooling method (the way we did school) is less than satisfactory, with many handicaps and limitations due to its very nature.

We are prone to think that it is the best way (or the only way), when in fact, professional educators heartily admit that trying to educate a whole classroom full of children with all different levels of skills and all different types of learning styles is near impossible. They contend that “the best form of education is private tutoring”–guess what homeschooling is?

And that’s only the academic side…a small part of real education.