Social Life Favored by Homeschooling

This is a portion of an interview from May 2007. I was interviewed by a college student for her paper comparing homeschooling benefits to traditional schooling benefits.

Interview Question #1:

How has homeschooling affected your children’s social life? Would you say that they don’t have as many friends as they would have in a school situation?

My Answer:

They might not have as many acquaintances, but I am confident that the quality of their friendships is superior. They have never had any trouble making friends and have never expressed a desire for more associations than they have. We have moved quite a bit, and they diligently keep in contact with their friends in various places as well as making friends at church and home school activities everywhere we live. School is not the only way to meet people. Actually, school separates young people into age groups and is not natural. Our children actually have a wider range in their social life. They have many opportunities to relate to all age groups: babies, toddlers, young children, young adults, parents & adults, as well as older people. They are not separated out from the mix of people, but enjoy sharing activities and being with all kinds and ages of people. In school, young people almost exclusively have their friends from their own age group & grade. This just doesn’t promote good social skills. It rather promotes peer pressure (which usually has negative effects) and a lack of understanding of people from other age groups. A definite advantage of their “social life” is that they began relating to the adult world at an early age, desiring to be mature. They generally did not relate to the adolescent angst, but rather related to their parents, family, and church.

Teach Your Children Well

Homeschooling is a misnomer. This term developed because the beginning home learning movement needed to inform the authorities and the doubters that we were teaching our own children. The world’s understanding of teaching and learning includes school. So now as then, an increasing number of families are homeschooling, but their teaching rarely resembles traditional school and for the early grades, home school may look like play and family togetherness. 

When you walk by the way...

Our goal is not to have school at home. It is to live life according to God's commandments. As parents, that should be our number one focus everyday. Learning the Truth and learning about our created world is naturally part of that.

We should not try to have a school in our home. Traditional school is not even biblical. Even so, every day there are hordes of children going away from their parents and families to be taught inside a room by a stranger? So how does God expect children to learn without school?

The answer is exciting to read because it is so simple:

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in you house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.           Deuteronomy 6: 5-9

So that is God’s foundational commandment for teaching children and also the most important truth that must be a part of all that they learn, to love God and understand the world through His revelation.

After 24 years of teaching our children, I enjoy sharing with other families that teach their own. I invite you to visit my how to homeschool website.