Mariela

There are many support groups for home schooled kids….local parents can meet to socialise with the children and some even take lessons together….if one parent knows about art for eg. then that parent will teach not only his own child but others too. They make friends this way….also, they organise their own sports days and trips out together. Home schooled kids are generally more confident and socially able than those whove attended schools…where peer pressure rules.

Kristina

you will not get the liberal brainwashing in public schools

like one of our counties required the kids to see
An Inconvenient Truth - Nobel prize winning Al ‘father of the internet’ Gore’s movie

then the kids had to write papers about global warming -using only the movie for the knowledge base

that’s like writing a paper about smoking written by R J Reynolds and Company -

you only see one side, if that’s even correctly presented

Keenan

Hi, I home school my 3 kids.
First of all it is just a myth that there is no social life for them
They go to sporting events at least 3 times per week. There are social outings and field trips just for home school groups that we are apart of. Also there are home school proms, and dances that a LARGE number of kids attend we are talking 100’s of people. My children interact with other kids everyday.
Home school children on average get into college at a younger age. I have a friend and all 3 of her kids have been in college by the time they were 16.
I want to make sure my children are learning, and getting that one on one attention that the classroom at a school can not provide. If anything extra i needed I will put them in some where like Kumon for a couple weeks to make sure the material is sticking, that is one on one there as well!!
Thanks!

Kaley

Ask yourself how will your child act around others???

Marianna

i **** homeschooling

Ashlee

Your question is like asking, “What are the negative effects of parenting?”

The answer is: it all depends on how it’s done.

Do you think that the people who lived before everybody went to school were lacking in basic social and development skills? I personally feel that before kids were lumped into same-aged groups, their social skills were better than they are today. Look how immature the teens of today are compared to the teens of the early 1900s and earlier. Why are they like that? Because their primary social models are each other. We don’t learn grown-up behaviours by being around those who are immature, just like we don’t learn multiplication by being around those who only know addition.

Homeschooling doesn’t mean being at home all the time and not having social interaction. And being surrounded by 30-some kids every day doesn’t mean having good social interaction. Homeschooling children have an opportunity, if their parents take it, to have a wider social field. We attend various get-together with multiple ages and more adults than a child in school would be around on a regular basis. The homeschooled teens take a natural guiding role with those who are younger, the younger get experience with other ‘kids’ who are older than them and see them as people to listen to and emulate. Not to mention that it’s never exactly the same people at these activities, which means the kids are constantly meeting new people. Of course, there’s also the aspect that, especially in the elementary years, the kids are with their parents a lot and have their parents as social guides and models.

Are there homeschooled kids who have poor social skills? Of course there are. Are there public schooled kids who have poor social skills? Of course there are. To assume that homeschooled kids are going to naturally lack in social skills is just that, an assumption.

Ahmad

The negative effects in our family is not with the student but with the parent. I get tired. I work at the public school and homeschool our son. He keeps me busy with activities and ‘great ideas’.
It is worth it. I try to take time out for me to renew my energy. It also helps me to remember that he is growing up fast and I need to do what I can, while I can.
That keeps me going.
Our situation socially may not answer your question because he was in public school for most of his school life. We do, however, know many home schooled kids and they seem to me just like public school kids. They are just kids. None of them are alike. In my experience, we know more anti-social public school kids than homeschool kids. I have never seen a group of homeschool kids get together where one person is sitting by themselves and not included in the group. I see this everyday at school.
I just thought of a negative effect for him. He cannot ‘get by’. This has been hard for him to learn after many years in public school. There are no excuses with homeschooling. We, his parents, know if he has done the work, if he knows the material, and if he has used his time wisely. We are relaxed, but have expectations.

Jamie

Some of the negative side effects of homeschooling is that the child will not develop people skills due to a lack of interaction with children his or her own age. They will never experience lying, mistrust, evil, nor anger which will make them soft and naive afraid of the outside world. They will also never leave the nest. They don’t know what it’s like to be without a parent for more than 30 minutes, they will hang around forever and never fly on their own. These are just some of the negative side effects of homeschooling.

Sara

The last respondent obviously couldn’t be bothered to read the previous answers! We home-educate in the UK. We regularly meet up with other families and my kids have loads of interaction with other children. They get to fight and argue the same as kids in school! Of course they don’t encounter bullying but then, I hardly did in school either, nor did my eldest, schooled, child. I find it very odd that people think that bullying is a positive thing! We also teach independence - it is very important that children can function in the outside world. Mine are doing that all the time, rather than being shut up in the artificial world of school. It is well documented that home-schooled kids are more likely to be academically ahead of their schooled counterparts and also more able to problem-solve and think laterally. Negatives? Nah!

PS We are also good at spelling

Donovan

There are ups and downs to both systems.

Xenophobes will be Xenophobes whether they are homeschooling or brick schooling.

Basic social development is firmed up before age 6. The child is type A or type B, passive, agressive, belligerant, a cry baby, a pouter by the start of first grade.

There is no social interacting lessons. When an adult has problems they go to the boss and try to get the person fired, transferred or they send out resumes and find a new job.

You can’t do that in brick school. You cannot transfer to another school nor get a kid easily kicked out of school and when you do you face the might come back with a gun and shoot people over it.

This is the most common reason for school shootings. Angry young men who are social outcasts from the cliques who often get suspended who come back with a weapon and a grudge.

That something you won’t really find in home school.

We have a college shooting just a while ago from a social outcast. We had a high school shooting in Michigan recentaly, another in Ohio and most recently I think it was a New Jersey or Pennsylvaiann kid who was arrested for possessing 30 pellet guns and two real guns and his mother was arrested for buying him the real gun, which is father couldn’t do because he’s a former felon with an armed robbery charge.

This is your SCHOOL socialization element.

I was under the impression kids when to school for an education, not to text each other and socialize.

Carmine

Less socializing, But theyadvance better

-Laila

Lesley

Many children in regular schools have social problems. I’m a case in point. Home schooling doesn’t mean the child can’t have friends and socialize.

Regular schools can be a bad influence on a child when they are subject to peer pressure and other negative influences that tend to take away from the top priority of education.

I dream I can have a job in the future that wold allow me to home school my children when I have some.

Treyvon

There NOT less socializing!! The kids are not poorly adjusted! The other day I had an encounter at the grocery store with a kid from a local high school. His vocabulary consisted of words like “yeh, w’up. Gr’p th’ d’g fo’ s” If you couldn’t understand what I wrote, well, I couldn’t understand what he said. I have nine kids whom we homeschool. My eldest can speak and write better than most adults. She is articulate and can express herself without saying “I dunno”. Our culture is saturated with teens who can’t speak or write well (they’re too busy trying to emulate Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg) and you’re worried about our homeschoolers socializing!!???! Get real! I don’t want my kids to “socialize” like that! They have plenty of friends, of all ages, and know how to interact with EVERYONE. When was the last time you saw a teenager make time for an elderly person? My kids do. They also know how to play fairly with other children and are kind to all. They can also spell, which is more than I can say for those of you who wrote to express negative opinions of homeschooling. Even with a spell-checker built in, you can’t do it! Yeesh! You need to realize, if you want to be great, at anything, stop doing what the masses do and stand out!

Ronin

>>”They will never experience lying, mistrust, evil, nor anger which will make them soft and naive afraid of the outside world. They will also never leave the nest. They don’t know what it’s like to be without a parent for more than 30 minutes, they will hang around forever and never fly on their own.”

ROFLOL Okay, this one just made me laugh right out loud. This guy actually thinks we lock our kids in the house and never let them outside. Whoo my kids got a laugh out of it too. Even my 9yr old. *grin*

My 14 yr old actually spent this entire past summer working at camp. We were no where near him, he was up there by himself working for other people. Something tells me it was more then 30 minutes. LOL

My 11yr old is already babysitting the next door neighbour kids on her own. Yes we are right next door if she needs help but she’s never needed it.

My 9yr old is involved in more activities then most ps kids because she has the TIME and motivation that a lot of ps kids don’t have.

Again I will list a few of the things my kids have been involved in:

band
gym class
swim lessons
dance
musicals
extras in movies
film school
fencing lessons
golf lessons
Too many field trips to mention.

No, my kids don’t lack basic social development skills.

I mean seriously people - you all act like every student in the public school system is perfect. Are there no shy people in schools? Are there no kids who are withdrawn or like to be alone? What do you consider a “lack of social skills”? Would you consider all the school shooters to lack social skills? If so, should we re-consider the social skills kids are (or aren’t) learning in schools?

Heather

I am homeschooled right now so I can tell you both sides of the story! The good side is I don’t have to get up as early as everyone else, plus I get to work A LOT fast then they do and will have a lot more time off in the summer!! plus I don’t have to see those kids that are total jerks and everything. I can go anywhere i want at anytime of the day which I wouldn’t be able to do if I was in school!
the bad side is I don’t get to see my friends everyday of the week! but we do email each other and get together!! plus I do go to a lot of home sports games where I get to see everyone and I go into the school for violin!
I don’t think I will lack basic social skills cause I have been to school all my life except for this year because I just started homeschooling (I’m in 9th grade)
but someone who has never been to school at all might lack social skills! that is why getting involved in sports or other activities is good for someone who is homeschooled or considering it!

Ahmad

I myself am home schooled, weather or not the child has social skills really depends on the child. I for one am very shy so even if I was in a public school I would probably have only a few friends. I still have friends and have a social life. Compared to my friends that go to a public school I have a better grasp of the concepts that have been taught to me than they do.
Public schools have a tendency to just go with the medium learning speed, holding those back who could achieve much more, while children who learn slower are getting left behind and get bad grades or just barely get by.
If your child wants to go to college then there is a better chance they will stay if they have been home schooled because the professor is not going to be there telling you to get your work done. You have to be self motivated to do your work and that is where many students have trouble.
Not to mention time management is another major conflict students from public schools have because in public schools you don’t really have to have time management skills yet as long as the work gets done while in college and home school you must have time management skills to keep yourself organized and sane.

Saniyah

I homeschool 3 children. My 2 younger children are in soccer 3 times a week and karate 2 times a week. They also have guitar lessons, piano lessons, pottery class, shakespeare class park days and with other homeschoolers all on a weekly basis, as well as friends int he neighborhood. They have sleepovers on weekends birthday partys etc. My older daughter who is 15 attends college 3 days a week as well as drama class karate class piano class voice lessons and park days. There is also youth group at church and choir. On Friday nights she attends footballs games with her friends and movies and mall on Saturdays.
Plenty of socialization. If they were in school 6 to 7 hours a day they would not have the time to socialize. At school they are not allowed to talk in class and during recess they are not allowed to run.

Shamar

if you mean like not lake no they don’t why do people have such a stereo type of home schools we have out tings park days teachers just like public without the crap home school-er aren’t weirdos there the future smarter and social development skills are higher. We don’t sit in a closet we have lives friends social things kids playing with each other they don’t care where you go to school when you’ve lived in a neighbor hood like mine kids treat each other with respect they don’t single out the home schools and PINKPIGLET you go girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Amber

First off my 8 year old who has never stepped foot into a classroom knows the difference between a place you swim and something you don’t have. She also knows that all sentences start with a capital letter. Not bad for a kid who has never stepped foot into a school.

She does however lack in hearing the stories of her friends making out/having sex/doing drugs. She doesn’t understand what an Emo is, and thinks that people who cut themselves are pretty stupid.

She socializes quite well with others - homeschooled and public schooled alike.

She gets one on one tutoring and knows how to work independantly and in teams. She knows how to open a book - and (egads) enjoys doing so! Oh and she has a dictionary, and knows how to use it. Unlike the middle school students my friend teaches - she knows the difference between a glossary and an index. So what is she lacking? Being a sheep in a flock. . .

Emily

some kids become less social becuase of negative experiences in public school.

this question is impossible to answer, since each homeschool situation is different.
my homeschooled child is quite social and extremely advanced academically.

skibm80, you’re making lame generalizations that you cannot prove.

Tony

I homeschooled my son. Just because he is homeschooled did not mean, in any way, that he did not socialize. As a matter of fact he socialized with his friends after they came home from public school. He went to art classes and was a member of the Boys Club.He went to and had sleepovers. Homeschool,like public school, is what you make of it. My son, who is 19 is a well mannered young man in college. He is also a black belt candidate in Taekwondo. I wish that I had home schooled his sisters.