It’s been a minute since I’ve written. I remember feeling like I was focusing too much on the blog and not enough on the homeschooling. So I stopped writing, wanting to finish strong with the kids I was still homeschooling. I can’t say it all went as planned, but now the homeschooling has come to an end. Part of me wishes I had continued writing. I also wish I had written from the beginning. That might have been fun for my kids to read some day…especially those who plan to homeschool their children. But now that our journey has come to an end, it’s time to add one last post to answer the socialization question to the best of my ability.
When we began homeschooling nearly 24 years ago, the question of socialization wasn’t even on our minds. Our focus was educating our boys (4 boys when we began our journey) to the best of our ability, and to “raise men of character”. That was our mission statement, as all the books we read about homeschooling suggested we have a mission statement. Or at least one book did. So we took it to heart and came up with our mission statement, which we left to the wayside after our 6th child was a girl….”raising men of character” was going to need to change. Deep into the trenches of day-to-day schooling and raising children, we didn’t focus too much on a mission statement by that time. But a few years later when my sister suddenly died at the age of 44, I did decide to stop worrying so much about all the little things homeschooling moms worry about….making sure they were up to par and comparing them with other children, etc. While educating them was still important, having an eternity focus became the new mission for raising them. All the while, we were constantly asked about socialization, and thus it became the title of this blog.
Originally I felt the need to defend our decision to homeschool. To prove to everyone we were not only keeping up with socialization, but actually excelling as we were able to have our children socialize with not only peers while participating in sports and other activities but with adults in every day life. We felt we did a pretty good job of keeping up with all that as we always stated we weren’t raising them to socialize with children, but to be successful as adults.
How’d we do? Hmmm. I think they all can socialize, but I don’t think it necessarily has to do with the way they were educated as much as it comes down to their individual personalities. The same child who struggled with socialization as a homeschool kid, would have had the same struggles in a public school setting. And I believe the same goes for the ones who had no problem socializing with peers. Some of them socialize more than others…not necessarily better, but with more people and more often. They all have their own unique ways of socializing as well as different levels of involvement. I think this can be said of all people, no matter how one is educated.
So, “What About Socialization?” It’s my opinion that there are far more factors than homeschooling to consider when asking that question. Each child has different learning aptitudes whether it’s math, spelling, reading, or socializing. As far as achieving our mission statement….Again, each child has a different walk, a different timeline for learning. I think we’ll have to wait for heaven to find out how we did with that one.
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