On a board dedicated to homeschoolers, a mom was worried that her kids were missing something. Here is my response.

If you don’t know already, I have actually recently worked on the property of a public school (a split shift, not working for the school but for the YMCA providing before and after school care). And I have provided after school care for PS kids for years. I’m adding this so that you know I’m not just guessing at some of these experiences, for a staunch homeschooler, I do have a decent amount of current experience with the school system.

So………

You are buying into a culturally scripted and developed standard of socialization. For you to be concerned your children are “missing out on” these social events, you must, to some degree, believe that the socialization provided by the structure of building school settings is the standard by which we should evaluate the quality of children’s social life.

Over the years, I’ve been asked dozens of times about “socialization”. I used to quickly answer with a list of “stuff we do” that includes other kids.

“Oh, well we do church, a drama program, Little League, …….” Until one day I realized that I was trying to make my children’s social calendar a match to that of a ps’ed kid. I was operating with the assumption that the socialization that most kids do have in our culture is the best.

I encourage you to challenge this assumption. It’s an arbitrary standard, not an organic one. The socialization process and events that emerge from school settings are overwhelmingly the most common for kids; but are they the best? What evidence do we have, really, that most kids need, thrive on and desire that kind of socialization? During this evaluation, don’t assume that a child enjoying it means it’s a good thing. All humans can and do enjoy things that are not, in the long term, in our best interests.

What I’ve noticed in school settings (directly) and through critical evaluation with my after school clients:

1) Recess is often a challenging time for kids socially.

2) Recess is an event that ends very quickly in elementary school.

3) Kids are often undersupervised in school settings. This creates many problems:

a) Kids tend to teach each other more age-expected behavior. A group of 8 year olds undersupervised can only trade 8 year old behavior.

b) Bullying and teasing standards are low. Yes, ps’ed kids go through bullying awareness programs. But because of the nature of socialization in groups in school settings, much bullying flies under the radar. This bullying is still largely unrecognized at best and dismissed under damaging paradigms such as “kids will be kids” and “they’ve got to learn how to deal with it sometime” and “let them work it out themselves” and “don’t let them know it bothers you and it will stop”. These culturally accepted remedies and responses are so jaded that they are rarely examined for validity. In truth, they allow for a tremendous amount of everyday bullying that is not even recognized. This from normal, average kids that are not at risk. The bullied continue to get teased and the bullies never learn that what they are doing is unacceptable.

4) The social hierarchy is present in nearly every group of undersupervised kids. The popular by cool dynamic is present. The older kids are granted automatic reverence and preference. Popularity over character is chosen often. Again, this happens with average kids daily and is usually assumed so normal that it’s rare for it to register on people’s radar for the damage it creates.

Children need interaction with people, age peers included. But they bring themselves and their maturity to those settings. They therefore need the guidance and presense of adults to coach, guide and assist them. We tend to allow kids to fend for themselves socially far too early and with inadequate preparation.

Sure, schools have parades, celebrations, recess for the littles, parties, carnivals, etc. But at what cost?

I would give up any 10 of those celebrations to have not experienced some of the issues I documented above.

I’d give up both proms (Jr. and Sr.) to have had more adults teach us how to not bully and how to react to bullying (beyond the passive approach of “don’t let them bother you. That one = let them abuse you more).

My school social experience was not awful, btw. It was average. That is what is pathetic.

Develop your own crowd, rituals and standards by which you judge quality socialization. Your kids will benefit.