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Originally Posted by septmommy  She listed the ever popular lack of socialization. She said as a young child there were plenty of play groups and things, but once she turned 8 or 9 it was very hard to find friends to socialize with.
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I had the same trouble in school.
I had lots of friends in the early grades, no friends in grades 4-5, a couple of friends 6-8, and then no real friends until I was 17, when I found a great group of other "misfits" to hang out with (most of whom I hadn't met in school.) I was shy and at a loss for how to fit in (a late developer in some ways.) I will always wonder what would have happened if I hadn't gone to school but had other opportunities to meet people -- perhaps I would have still had friends at times and not at other times, but without that special kind of loneliness and damage to my self-esteem that came from being continually rejected and ignored when I had crowds of people all around me all the time. Or, lacking perspective, maybe I would have blamed my limited social life on the homeschooling.
But I
have found that without the imposed limitations of school and youth in our culture, I naturally feel most comfortable with a few good friends (who I've somehow managed to meet outside of an institutional setting!) to call on once every few months or so, and a wider circle of acquaintances due to my activities that, to tell the truth, I could do with or without equally well. For me, being solitary much of the time wasn't actually the problem at all -- it was that it was implied, via societal expectations, that something in me was lacking, and I took that to heart for too long.
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| She said she felt it presented a child with too little perspective as most of what they experienced was from only their parents point of view. She learned a lot about the outside world when she went to school. |
This I can relate to. Living with my parents was definitely not conducive to broadening my horizons. But unfortunately neither was school. They were both restrictive and homogenous. It does make me acutely aware of the problems with children not having freedom and opportunities to explore the world on their own. So I agree that homeschooling can be restrictive. It doesn't follow that
living without school is restrictive. I think I can do a
lot better than school for my kids, but I do have to be conscious about making that happen.
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| And her biggest concern was that a parents own limitations would unfortunately limit the child. She said she loved math, but her mom was just no good at it and didn't enjoy it. Because of this she wasn't able to really dive into something she loved and wasn't able to excel at it. |
Well, here's another perspective: As a fellow math-lover, I have BIG issues with how I was exposed to math at school. Yes, at least I was exposed to it -- but I believe without school I would have found it eventually anyway and in a more organic and logical (i.e. better) way. My mom thinks she's bad at math -- in reality, she was taught she was bad at math by bad teachers.
I do see her point, of course. Realistically speaking, school may be the best option that many kids have available to them. But that doesn't mean that it's even close to an ideal learning environment.
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| I just can't imagine shipping my kid off somewhere that they will not be respected for the individual they are. I will listen to her advice and try to take steps to remedy the problems she perceived. |
Exactly.
Lillian
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