That is an excellent point! If you're going to homeschool, probably a good idea to train your kids in various forms of fitness/self-defense/badassery... just in case!
The world needs lots of corporate cogs who fall in line with the team. Personally I wasn't home-schooled but I can see the upside of being raised in an environment where you're not taught to be subservient to the authority of a school system, nor forced into a system where you're taught physical self defense is to be punished.
Sounds like the home-schooled may have a leg up for some tasks that require ignoring the training to fall in line with the team or authority. Their niche in life may simply be different.
Most of the homeschooling families that I have experienced do not seek to completely shelter their children from all the bad things in the world. Taking the bullying example, the goal is not to protect their kids from ever experiencing bullying. Instead they are trying to provide a structured environment for their children to develop while gradually exposing them to more challenging people/situations as they become prepared to handle them.
When teaching a child to swim, you don't typically throw them into the deep end of the pool, but instead start out in a shallow structured situation until they have learned the basics.
I pulled my sons out of public school and homeschooled them when they were in 3rd and 6th grades. My oldest son was an extremely poor fit for public school. I have sometimes said that I homeschooled to prevent "the next Columbine". (He was having fantasies of plowing through the school in a tank and his career-military father had keys to a military motor pool at the time.) For that and other reasons, I've had lots of opportunity to think about such things.
Do realize that homeschooling has its cons as well. It can certainly provide a better academic education than a regular school if you use more efficient teaching methods than schools do, but you'll need to also expose your child to real people his or her age. If you do this through summer camp or after school activities, most of the children will have gone to regular schools and will, therefore, exhibit similar behavior to children at regular schools.
Regardless of whether your child attends a traditional school or is homeschooled, try to raise your child in a way that promotes confidence and a high self-esteem. Confidence is one of the best preventative measures at countering bullying, and it's very helpful in life. And make sure your child has avenues to make good friends. As this article shows, if that's not happening at school, encourage them to go somewhere where they'll find people with similar interests, be it a gym or club or whatever.
Focusing on the bullying aspects of the article for a moment, homeschooling goes a long way towards making that a non-issue.
Both our homeschooled boys played hockey for a local school and both our homeschooled girls are in Air Cadets, so they get plenty of socialising, and we've never had to deal with bullying.
I understand that homeschooling's not for everyone, but if you can then you should give it serious thought. Homeschooling's been around for decades, and with the advent of the Internet, there are now plenty of resources available - pretty much regardless of what country you're in.
I didn't say a homeschooled kid would be fragile. I just think that not being homeschooled might prepare them a bit better for highschool life. But perhaps I'm totally wrong. I'm just reacting to the idea that sending your kids to school is sending them to be bullied.
I definitely do not think being bullied is a good way to learn about life.
We started homeschooling by happenstance when it turned out that kindergarten was going to conflict with our son's beloved jiu-jitsu class. The class was a bit of a drive and we weren't going to be able to get there in time for his favorite part: the 30 minutes of horsing around on the mats before class started.
We thought, "Well, it's only kindergarten". It worked out well enough (knock on wood) that we just kept going.
Compared to my own harried "THE BUS IS COMING!!!" sleep-deprived school days, it has been a wonderful change.
If I could go back in time, I'd put my mom in an ankle lock until she agreed to do the same for me.
Especially since I learned that in my home state homeschoolers can participate in high-school sports. In high school I had to wake up at 4AM for 5AM hockey practice. If I could have returned home afterwards and slept, rather than going straight to school, I would have thanked the Gods.
Lol. Thanks for the compliment and making me laugh.
That would probably be a good reason not to homeschool ! Though you could certainly mentor your friends’ kids! I believe we can all take part in educating the next generation whether we are parents or not !
Check for homeschooling groups in your area. Meet and talk to parents, you’ll find out all about it including resource centers for when your child needs to learn topics where you are weak.
We’ve been homeschooling for 7 years. Our child’s social experience has increased both quantitatively and qualitatively. From few/constantly bullied physically and sexually, to many/nice thoughtful friends who will jump in and defend her instead of filming her, should things go down. She’s also a leader, does service for her community, and (proud papa moment here) at her 4th debate competition (3 per year in this league) won 9th place speaker and 3rd place team. Her team swept the series of 4 rounds. The only way their team could do that…wait for it…lots of practice aka socialization.
The “socialization” boogeyman is one of the most overplayed red herrings about homeschooling IMO.
Of course. What I meant was that homeschooling in order to try and avoid bullying might just as well backfire. Didn't mean that it was somehow justified but bullying among kids isn't easy to combat.
Exactly this. This is one reason we homeschool. Public school in the US was so incredibly oppressive (cops patrolling the halls and writing lewd conduct tickets for kids cussin'???), I was frankly shocked that most kids and parents put up with it.
Good, but combine this with enforcement of homeschool and no school standards so you can protect all children and not just the ones with decent parents.
Also a former home-schooled child, and I say go ahead and do it. Like any other kind of schooling, homeschooling does have some downsides, so be aware of them and do your best to mitigate those things (i.e. be very intentional about finding other avenues for your kids to socialize like clubs, sports, etc.)
“Eventually, something horrific is going to happen in one of these situations,” said Jen Garrison Stuber, advocacy chair the Washington Homeschool Organization. “A kid’s going to get killed, a kid’s going to get seriously injured or molested, because the safeguards that you have at a private school aren’t happening.”
Uhh, not that I'm a big homeschool advocate, but kids get molested and (now) killed all the time at public and private schools.
I would add that, if you have time to home school, you have time to help your kids build accomplishments that build confidence that carries through other people's crap.
A kid who achieves at sports / art / theater / computers / whatever has reason to _know_ they aren't little. Kids need help to organize themselves to achieve because the links between planning, persisting, studying fundamentals, spotting and handling emotional challenges and the emotional rewards are diffuse. It's hard to build the positive associations that build habits, and that's where parents can help. (Yes, it's hard to find the line between encouraging and demanding.)
Home schooling might be a necessary response to the schooling available. But social deprivation is a downside of any home schooling program, kids must learn to deal with other people. Better to meet frictions by building the kids up, rather than avoiding the frictions in the first place.
I can think of a guy who became a local bomber in my city who was homeschooled. He would put bombs into people's mailboxes or leave packages by their front door, my uncle's family knew them when they went to homecoming stuff together. He was eventually caught and arrested but idk homeschooling isn't for everyone.
I worry sometimes how these kids will struggle when they are faced with the real world.
Personally I loved going to a charter school and I was really excited we got to have extra large classes sometimes because you can't always fit all your friends in your grade in one class but for specific art classes we often tried too. My charter high school was really great, my college experience was definitely not... It was too small for one thing looking back now.
Also won't ostracizing a bully make them more destructive? I know a lot of them become suicidal after a while and more destructive (based on experience understanding those I know better) they did get better though, they just didn't know how to process what they were going through.
reply