by Amy Leonard
printed with her permission
Socialization has been on my mind lately, perhaps
because of Christine Azevedo's post and the articles on socialization.
For the most part, I think the articles on socialization are
correct. Graduates of the public school system do not enter adult
society better socialized than their homeschooled counterparts.
However, homeschooling can be isolating. Christine related that her
children are lonely. Today I was talking to another friend of mine who
feels the same about her children. We need to confront the issue of
loneliness instead of dismissing it.
As someone who was homeschooled as a child, I may have a heightened
awareness of the issue. My mother would go to great lengths to give me
opportunities to play with other children, both those in public school
and others who were homeschooled as well. In those days in San Antonio
being educated at home was not common. About once a week, my mother
drove me forty-five minutes one way to visit my friend Emily. I'm not
sure most of us have the same commitment today towards ensuring that our
children get opportunities to play with other children.
I do not view friends as commodities. I think family relationships,
especially siblings, remain the strongest and longest lasting in our
lives. My sister lives only five or six blocks away from me and is my
best friend. But my sister, my husband, and even talking to my other
siblings and parents long-distance does not fulfill all my needs for
companionship. My life as an adult has been the happiest when I have
had friends outside my family as well.
I think as homeschoolers sometimes we construct our own counter myth to
the myth of socialization. We rationalize to ourselves that children
don't need friends, but just need their siblings. This myth may be as
harmful as assuming that they need a lot of friends. Each individual is
different, and we need to try to meet each child's needs without
dismissing it as their mistaken perspective. If a child is lonely, it
requires introspection and efforts to help the situation. Conversely, I
myself have sometimes overestimated my
daughters' needs for outside friends. When I was growing up, the sister
closest to me in age was four years younger. I tend to project the need
I had for playmates as a child onto my daughters, who are in a very
different situation. But my daughters are only two years apart and they
rarely feel the need to have other friends over. I am usually the one
who suggests it. When I analyze the socialization of my daughters, I
remind myself of their close relationship instead of assuming that they
are antisocial.
I attended high school, mostly because my parents felt that high school
could offer me extracurricular opportunities that would be difficult for
them to provide at home. In Texas, attending school part-time is not an
option. Yet my feelings are mixed as to my high school experience. I
am not sure that the positive outweighed the negative, and at this point
in time I intend to homeschool my children for high school (my oldest is
only in third grade). ALL of the negative, I would say, came from the
socialization. I was not unpopular, but I felt that I had to suppress
my personality, especially my intelligence, to be liked. I became who I
am my freshman year of college as I left the shell I hid myself in
behind.
Homeschooling, like parenting, has provided me with some of the greatest
blessings in life but also some of the greatest challenges. My
mother-in-law, who cannot understand my motives for homeschooling, once
told me, "When I had my children, I was just so relieved to send them to
school, and know that that was one thing I didn't have to do with all
the other responsibilities I had. I know I could have done it, but it
was such a relief to have somebody else educate them." I empathize with
her. I wish I could in good conscience abdicate the responsibility of
educating my children. I wish I didn't have to analyze whether my
choices were isolating them. It is a heavy burden. But I pray that
with the Lord's help I
can raise them to achieve their potential. I know I will make a lot of
mistakes and that I have already made many. But my consciousness of
these issues in my children's lives is greater than those who surrender
their children to the schools. I just wonder if anyone else feels as I
do—uncertainly seeking answers.
February, 2009
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