Neighborhood Kids Badmouthing Homeschooling

[phoebemommy]

My 4 year old just let me in on the fact that his neighborhood friends, some of whom are in elementary school, have been badmouthing homeschooling to him. I know they don't know what they're talking about, and maybe a little of it is coming from their parents. But I'm not sure how to help my son deal with this. We're on a quiet cul-du-sac where all the kids play in the street by themselves, independent of adults (we keep an eye from inside the house), and I consider this a big positive. I only intervene when there's a big problem, and I don't know that it's my place to say anything to these kids. I also don't know what was said, exactly, since a 4 year old's version isn't always clear. We had a similar problem with one of the same kids, a bossy little girl who put ideas about church in his head (and we're Buddhist). I figured out how to explain convincingly about different religions, but when I try to talk to him about the homeschool thing, I find myself talking too much and getting kind of heated, because pure pressure just makes me seethe...

I just found a homeschooling group in my area, so we're definitely going to join up with them. But I was wondering if anyone else has successfully navigated this situation, and how.

[PGTlatte]

Our DS1 is friends with a neighbor child who is a year older than him. His mother (K) greatly disapproves of homeschooling; when another (former) neighbor decided to homeschool her first and third grade DDs, our DS1 was not quite kindergarten age; K knew our DS1 had been home for preschool and likely would be home for kindergarten, and gave me an earful about how wrong she thought this other neighbor was for homeschooling, and made a huge pitch for DS1 to go to kindergarten; then for the next year, when DS1 didn't go to kindergarten, every single time she saw me she tried to convince me that homeschooling was a mistake. Anyway.....

Over that year, DS1 would come in from playing with her son and mention things that had been said to him suggesting that he wasn't learning anything and didn't know anything because he doesn't go to real school. I would tell our son that since his friend didn't homeschool, he really didn't know anything about it, so he was just making silly guesses about it; and that he was learning just as much as the kids in school and could tell his friend that.

This child even said some things to our DS when I was right there. One time when our DS would only have just finished kindergarten, this child made some very sloppy letters in some loose grit in the gutter, demanded DS tell him what the letters were (they were unreadable anyway), and then said "you don't know because you don't go to school". I made it very clear to this kid that even I couldn't read the letters; and that DS works hard and learns every day, and that he is learning just as much as he would in school. After that the comments from the friend stopped. He doesn't bring it up anymore.

In our case I pretty much know it was all coming from the mother. I'm glad I had the opportunity to speak directly to the child about it.

[RiverSky]

My children have never had this issue, because I made such efforts to be extremely involved in the homeschool community. Right away, we knew more children who homeschooled than went to brick-and-mortar schools. I think that the more you spend time around homeschoolers, the more your child will be able to handle those sorts of comments.

[accidental_hs'er]

I hung out there long enough to handle some of the kid comments first hand - whether or not their parents were around. I'm always nice but matter of fact. Some kids go to public schools. Some private, catholic, French, etc. and we all still learn. My kids learn at home.

It helped in my neck of the woods because we are one of a few people around here who went to university. We live around a lot of lovely, hard working families who used to be employed in manufacturing. People who got jobs right our of highschool and many are struggling now. So they look at us and think we must have some idea of what we're about because we have higher expectations of our kids doing post-secondary school than many families around us - but we don't send our kids to school, lol.

Its been a few years and the mentality has flipped. The kids that tried to tell ds about how awesome school was are now asking to be homeschooled.

[Ruthiegirl]

Give it some time. The newness of the school year will wear off and it won't be long before the neighborhood kids are asking you to homeschool them.


Your son is only 4, so 'school' or 'homeschool' are just words without much meaning, so fill him up with images of fabulous homeschooling. Spending an afternoon with play-doh? "Wow, isn't this wonderful homeschooling?" Spending a day at a children's museum? "What a wonderful homeschooling day!" Give him lots of real life experience that shows him how terrific homeschooling is and it will help balance any negativity he hears from the neighborhood.


And really, the negativity slows down as kids get a little older. They see more of the world, more of their friends -- they will soon get the notion that everyone's family is different -- schooling choices, religion, political views, such things are different for everyone.

[phoebemommy]

Thanks for all your thoughts...

It makes sense that the novelty of school will wear off as time goes by. It's really hard for me to judge, at his age, how normal it is, the degree to which he worries about other kids' opinions. It seems extreme to me, but then I'm probably extreme in how much I don't care what others think of me. It's also concerning to me that these kids who were his friends before they started school have really changed. There's a lot of tattling, manipulation, and pecking order type stuff that goes on now, and I can see my son getting burned by it a lot.

I think I'm also concerned that, when I try to talk to him about school, I have trouble being neutral about it. I don't want to be telling him it sucks, but he's such a strong willed personality that when he presses the subject I sometimes find myself framing school as a bad thing, which I don't think is the right solution. I'm trying to just stay away from the topic, but he's relentless when he wants to talk about something. I also keep reminding him that he can go to high school if he wants to, that's our deal. And I do talk about the different kinds of school, which is kind of how this came up... we go to Dharma school, which is like a Buddhist Sunday school, and he likes to say that's the school he goes to, which is fine, but he was trying to explain that to somebody's dad at the pool today and it just became an awkward, confusing situation. So I suggested he tell people he's a homeschooler when they ask, and that's when he told me what the kids have been saying.

I'm definitely going to point out to him all the cool homeschool stuff we do, more than I already do. We've been doing a lot of art projects, lately, working in the garden, sporty stuff, etc.

[MrsJewelsRae]

My ds encountered this from his good friend/cousin at church, we don't have neighbourhood friends as we live in the county so his only friends are from church and family. His one friend would be quite snooty about hs, it was so annoying, it didn't help the friend is 2 yrs older than ds and spoke with "authority". He was so mean about it though, saying things like "what do you know? Baby! You don't even go to school." Stuff like that. Of course, my ds was reading at the same grade level and doing math at the same level as well, so it did help my son to feel better about himself knowing this. He has never asked to go to school, has never had any interest so far. Finally, just a few weeks ago the tables have turned a bit, ds' friend said "Man you're lucky you homeschool, I wish I could be homeschooled. The only problem is, I wouldn't have any friends". My ds immediately corrected him on it, it was pretty funny. He rolled his eyes and was like "Oh please! That is what everyone says, 'if you homeschool you don't have any friends! I have lots of friends, I'm playing with you right now aren't I!? Besides, I have friends that you don't know because I'm homeschooled!" We've really been focusing on spending some more time with other hs families, I am so lucky that we have some great friends that are homeschoolers and we share faith as well. One of my friends is several years older than I (already graduated 3 kids, 3 to go) and she was the first one in our church to start hs'ing years ago, she really paved the way for the rest of us and I am SO thankful! She got a lot of criticism from w/i the church but she has proved herself capable and her kids are great examples of well-rounded successful homeschoolers, so the naysayers have really backed off!

[karemore]

I would invite these kids over one day and do something really fun. I'm thinking a messy fun science experiment....once the kids see how much fun you and your son are having at home, they may start to ask their moms to homeschool them.

[ikesmom]

If you really enjoy homeschooling and make it fun for your ds then eventually it won't matter. If you involve your ds in activities and provide him with plenty of play time the other kids will be jealous.