"Peers" as defined in public schooling means "people within plus or minus 12 months of your age, and with virtually the same experiences and knowledge". That's hardly "diverse", and moreover is hardly reflective of the kind of people you interact with in real life as an adult. Homeschooled kids regularly interact with adults and children much older and much younger than themselves, gain a far greater range of experience, and are far more effective adults.
I have a hard time imagining what you mean by "pushing them farther than parents think they should be pushed". Homeschooled students far exceed public schooled students in academics. I guess you are referring to the condom-on-banana stuff and the lectures on white privilege, right? In what other areas are public schools actually considered to be "pushing the boundaries"?
You can cherry pick in both directions. Are you telling me that a kid at a socially homogeneous local school of kids all within the same age bracket will be exposed to more social situations that a homeschooled one who regularly deals with shopkeepers, tradesmen, and people of all ages and all walks of life?
In many public schools you have the exact same thing depending on where you are.
There are also a lot of adults who show the lack of meeting a diverse set of homeschool families as well. They don't usually see that in themselves either.
In my experience, socialization at school is "broader" in that you meet kids from a wider range of the population, but that breadth is destroyed by the fact that they are all exactly the same age as you are.
Homeschooling brings you into contact with a self-selected subset of the population, but across much wider range of ages.
Are you telling me that a homeschooled kid will get exposed to more social situations than one in a public school where every race, ethnicity, and social strata are represented?
In my personal experience, we homeschoolers are as varied as "normal" kids. There were those incapable of dealing socially with anyone outside their immediate families. And there were those of us comfortable and capable of dealing with people of all ages.
Me personally, my social interaction outside sports was so varied I became much more adept at interacting with older and younger people rather than my own peer group. As a child, especially in middle and high school, I was often frustrated by the "rules" of peer groups. Dealing with people younger or older let me treat them as people - and vice versa.
This has been going on for quite some time now, maybe a couple of decades.
Homeschool kids have diverged into at least a couple of camps. I live in a relatively affluent, liberal town, that hosts a major public university. My kids are in an activity that's also quite popular among homeschool families, so I've met a few of those kids. They're great kids, and tend to be ahead of their public school peers academically, while being on a par socially.
Then I was just talking to a relative who lives in another state, and his observation was quite different: The homeschool kids in his locale are practically uncivilized.
It's a two-way street. Public school yields its own social issues as well: the separation-by-age dynamic, odd social bubbles, bullying, etc. I've had a professor remark that he easily recognizes homeschoolers - they're the students who know how to converse with adults!
We homeschooled for years. Now our kids are in public school. Both homeschooling and public/private schooling have plenty of good outcomes.
But there are some positive peer-induced socializations. Both my boys had some quite annoying habits of speech and mannerisms that are gone now. I think part of the reason is that their peers are less understanding and forgiving of such behavior than their parents. Similarly, they are more receptive to peer criticism, as it packs more of a threat. Other kids will ostracize you; parents, not so much.
I'm concerned about schooled kids not socializing outside of their direct age group :) There's been plenty written about how unhealthy and damaging it can be to only be in a peer group of people your own age.
Honestly, the socialization is a myth. Homeschoolers socialize with all ages, that's healthy and educational from a huge amount of perspectives. e.g: kids can be become leaders by supporting younger or less able kids.
Unless the homeschooling parents went out of their way to isolate their child, it seems like the amount of interaction with people of various ethnicities, social strata, etc. is going to depend more on the community than whether a child is homeschooled. There are plenty of public schools with very little diversity.
I've actually seen the opposite, that homeschoolers (especially in large urban areas), have a ton of friends. A lot of people think of homeschooling as kid sitting in a kitchen with their parents learning math on a chalkboard. In fact, modern-day homeschoolers tend to be much more out and about in their community. They connect with others in classes led by parents or experts, in big park days where they play on the playground - or explore nature, or in co-ops where parents share skills. In places like Portland and NYC, there are large centers where homeschoolers go to take classes together. Unlike school, they don't have 30 minutes of recess to interact and are in classrooms with mixed ages, they have long periods to play and learn with kids of different ages. Being exposed to older peers is actually quite healthy for growth and development because kids learn by modeling. For example, if an older child knows how to read, it inspires them to learn. I'm doing a study on this right now and finding that homeschoolers are much more satisfied with their social life than parents with kids in public school (and this was true both before the pandemic and now with kids back in school). A large part of this is because they can curate their own social experiences. And homeschooling, unlike school has much less bullying, clicks, etcetera. And the groups are much more diverse and inclusive. Since many of the people who choose to homeschool were having unpleasant social experience in school, they tend to be quite a welcoming community. I really think a lot of this can be attributed to homeschoolers getting to curate their own social experiences as opposed to having this socially engineered for them.
Counterpoint: Perhaps peer socialization, particularly in the form found in typical schools, isn't all that valuable.
I'd argue that what serves one best in life is learning to function at an adult level with other adults. Most homeschoolers I've known spent substantial amounts of time in adult company every day. Mixed-age peer groups (as seen in homeschool co-ops) can also create a natural dynamic and expectation for the student to both be a mentor and be mentored (relationship skills one should know how to cultivate as an adult).
Conforming as an 11 year old to the culture and social behaviors created by other 11 year olds in a space where a few overstretched adults struggle mightily (if with good intentions) to create a positive environment is...not an optimal use of that child's time.
Not that most homeschoolers aren't also hanging out with same-aged peers too. Much time is saved by not having the administrative overhead of a school. Lots of homeschoolers hang out with their friends all the time like any other kids do. Having buddies over and gaming until 3am is just as fun either way.
Fully acknowledging that I'm deep in anecdotal territory here and that these are sample sizes where all outcomes will be well-represented.
...and plenty of kids in public schools have significant trouble making friends too! So it's tough to evaluate this stuff based on just anecdotes; I'm not aware of any large-scale studies on home-schoolers that have good controls, and it'd be very hard to do that given how much of a self-selecting group that is.
I agree re: different childhood, although that's not unique to homeschooling by any means. I also spent a few years in a "gifted kids" program, and even that by itself has the exact same effect given how unique the social environment of such programs are.
For that matter, I did go to public school for high-school, and again anyone at that school had a similar experience for a totally different reason: the school happened to have an unusually diverse student body, with a very high percentage of recent immigrants, and this lead to an unusually diverse social structure in the school. For example, every year no-one had any clue who the prom king and queens were because the social structure didn't have a school-wide hierarchy. More like multiple smaller groups based roughly on shared backgrounds and interests, with quite a bit of overlap. My brother on the other hand went to a different school which had a social hierarchy straight out of a American movie.
My only worry about that is that, while your kid may be interacting with a wider age group than at school, they may not be interacting with a wide demographic group. You won't be interacting with kids from tougher backgrounds, who don't have parents who are as involved as a homeschooled kid's parents would be. While I can imagine that might seem like a good thing, I think it is important for a kid to get a glimpse outside their own 'bubble', to have a better understanding of your broader community. When you are done with school, you ARE going to have to interact with people who weren't raised by very involved, homeschooling parents.
The problem, though, is that there's no "forced" interaction with others outside your own interests/background.
When I was in school, I was a white kid from a white neighborhood in a school that was 50% black. Had I been homeschooled, even if I had interactions outside of home, I would not have been exposed to the diversity of cultures.
Sports or clubs (Scouts, etc) are a better way to hang around with peer kids than school classes, IMO.
I transitioned from homeschool to public school at one point during my childhood and I think I was actually much more socialized in homeschool where I was in sports, Scouts, intentional play dates, etc. that my parents were doing to avoid the socialization problem. Whereas once you’re put in public school it’s simply assumed you will be somehow “socialized” (in reality socialization in school often takes the form of bullying, especially if you’re clearly different from peers in some way like intelligence, or you can end up just not having friends)
I tutored home schooled kids for years (and many other kids and college students as well). I'm sure some of it is selection bias of those who reach out to a tutor in the first place, but I strongly disagree that homeschooled kids are socially stunted (agreeing with parent's comment). Rather, they seem to be quite capable of interacting at a far more mature level than their public school peers.
I think you misunderstood the GP. Only interacting with people within ~a year of your own age while growing up (public school class) is not effective socialization. The social group of homeschooled kids is often +/- 5 years, which means they get experience dealing with younger children and they get maturity cues from older children. It's a much more realistic social environment.
I have a hard time imagining what you mean by "pushing them farther than parents think they should be pushed". Homeschooled students far exceed public schooled students in academics. I guess you are referring to the condom-on-banana stuff and the lectures on white privilege, right? In what other areas are public schools actually considered to be "pushing the boundaries"?
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