Civilized Is Not The Same As Socialized

Thanks to Holly at June Cleaver Nirvana for sharing this article on homeschool & socialization.

First, I hate that question..."What about socialization?" There's more ways than one to skin a cat, folks, & plunking your kiddlet in a room with 20 kids of the same age all day is not the only way to raise a smart, "socialized" child. In fact, I feel it's detrimental to do so.

Almost every single day of the week, we are out in our community interacting with friends, other adults, the produce man at WalMart (we had to hunt down tomatillas!), the librarian, the airplane pilot, you name it.

Learning to function in the real world, instead of a synthetic world of a classroom, is where Reese is watching Mommy and Daddy and other adults and children model how we interact & treat each other.

Some of my favorite excerpts from the article:

*The idea of learning acceptable social skills in a school is as absurd to me as learning nutrition from a grocery store. As Homeschoolers, the world is our classroom. We interact with people of all ages, sexes and backgrounds. We talk to and learn from everyone who strikes our interest.

*Another social skill we strive to teach our children is that all people are created equal. I can't imagine doing that in an environment where physically disadvantaged children are segregated into a "special" classroom.

I'll let you read the article yourself, but the last paragraph is my favorite example of homeschool children not missing out on anything...instead, a world of opportunities are open to us because we have the ability to stop, look, & listen to things that interest us instead of following a preset agenda that may or may not be of any interest to my child.