HOMESCHOOL.net

Social Development

A common concern voiced about home-educated children is they lack the social interaction with peers that a school environment provides. Many home-education families address these concerns by joining numerous organizations, including home-education cooperatives, independent study programs and specialized enrichment groups for physical education, art, music, and debate. Most are also active in community groups. Home-educated children generally socialize with other children the same way that school children do: outside of school, via personal visits and through sports teams, clubs, and religious groups.

Most home education proponents have argued that their alternative actually enhances the student's social development. They argue that the school years are the only time in a person's life that he or she will be artificially segregated into chronologically-determined groups. These advocates assert that home-educated children have a more normal interaction with persons across the age spectrum. This, in turn, results in more influence on the child from adults, and less from other children, leading to more mature young citizens.

Social concerns

Opponents of home education offer criticisms concerning socialization, pointing out that not all home-education families participate sufficiently in community activities. Some of the concerns offered include:

• Interaction with different social groups is essential to learning to live in society; a common criticism is that home-schoolers' "interaction" is solely with other home-schooled children from like-minded families.

• Schools are a unique environment that provide students with necessary social networking skills that help them succeed in the workplace and in the politics of business. Real life includes school as well.

• Home-educated children tend to live in an insulated world where they aren't exposed to a variety of ideas, which can impede personal growth and independence later in life.

• If children are insulated from unpleasant social situations, then they will be left unprepared when they are inevitably left to make their own way in the world. Children should be allowed to live and learn from their mistakes rather than sheltered from reality.

Some people oppose home education because they fear that children will be exposed to an extremely narrow set of view-points and will lack the broad range of experiences gained through interaction in a larger group setting.