It\u2019s a spectrum, of course. \u00a0There are many\u00a0school families that don\u2019t get sucked into the assembly-line socialization rut, and thus teach their kids to cultivate\u00a0a mature social life long before graduation. \u00a0There are likewise homeschooling parents who cling so happily to their middle school social skills\u00a0that they pass them on to the second and third generation. \u00a0But if you\u2019re in for the full Not-Back-to-School Social Life Experience, here\u2019s what you can expect:<\/p>\n
1. Homeschool kids break their own ice.<\/strong><\/h2>\nI picked up my son from his Confirmation kick-off event, a true microcosm of suburban 9th grade living. \u00a0We were delayed in departing, and I noticed he was chatting with a boy I\u2019d never met before, who had \u201cChris\u201d written on his name tag. \u00a0We got in the car. \u00a0\u201cSo I saw you were chatting with, um, Chris? Is it? \u00a0Nice kid?\u201d<\/p>\n
Usually the boy has a few interesting stories to share about the people he meets. This time he shrugged. \u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t know. \u00a0I just started talking to him when you showed up. We were so busy doing ice breakers we didn\u2019t get to actually meet anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah, homeschool kids don\u2019t get ice breakers. \u00a0You show up at a new event with people you\u2019ve never met, and your parents leave you to the wolves. \u00a0\u201cGo find some kids. \u00a0Or make yourself useful somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
They always do. \u00a0It can take as long as five or ten minutes, if it\u2019s a large group event the kids are joining midstream. \u00a0But my kids never sit in a corner neglected. \u00a0They are in the habit of introducing themselves, striking up a conversation, and finding something, anything, in common with whomever is tossed their way.<\/p>\n
2. Homeschool kids spend the bulk of their time with people different from themselves.<\/h2>\n
Sitting at a lunch table with the same five friends every day, exactly the same age, same academic track, same clubs, and same fashion tastes? \u00a0Yeah, that never happens in homeschooling. \u00a0Mixed-age, mixed-neighborhood, mixed-ability social circles are the norm among homeschoolers. \u00a0Cliqueishness is a no-go, because 1) the parents lose patience with that nonsense fast and 2) on any given day, you might have to be friends with exactly that one person you would have happily excluded if only this were the lunchroom and you had the choice of your favorites.<\/p>\n
From there, it only gets more different: Homeschool kids spend a lot of time with grown-ups. \u00a0Not just their parents. \u00a0Not just teachers. \u00a0(As a kid writing fiction, I could only ever think up \u201cteacher\u201d for a profession for my adult characters, because that was the only profession I was ever exposed to enough to have an idea of what the job entailed.) \u00a0Homeschool kids spend their formative years going wherever their parents go, doing all the adult chores that grown-ups do. \u00a0 The people who live and work in their community aren\u2019t stage hands for a me-centered teenage drama; they are the community. \u00a0Homeschool kids get\u00a0used to having spur-of-the-moment adult conversation with grown-ups of every age, profession, and cultural background.<\/p>\n
3. Homeschool kids form deep, lasting relationships with the people they treasure most.<\/h2>\n
A reality of homeschool life is that you might have certain very dear friends you only see a few times a year. \u00a0Of all the many friendly-acquaintances you gather everywhere you go, a few really resonate. \u00a0They\u2019re ones who understand you. \u00a0They\u2019re the ones you could spend hours talking to, and when you pick back up again six months later, it\u2019s like you just saw each other yesterday.<\/p>\n
School friendships are a little bit like this, in that you socialize all year with whomever is at hand, but very few of those friendships carry forward once you\u2019re no longer in the same class or club. It\u2019s easy to imagine at school you\u2019ve got a real friendship going, when really those friends will drop you as soon as they find something better.<\/p>\n
The homeschooling difference is that there\u2019s never any illusion that you\u2019ve got five best friends sitting next to you at lunch each day. \u00a0You have to be intentional about cultivating your friendships, and you\u2019ve got the mental space to do it in. \u00a0When you find that one good friend, you make an effort to stay in touch. \u00a0You learn to use whatever resources you have at hand to arrange a way to get together more often. \u00a0Sometimes you discover that the friendly acquaintance was only ever just that, or the friendship wanes as your values and interests diverge later in life. \u00a0But it\u2019s not uncommon for homeschoolers to have multiple deep, lasting relationships that endure for years despite distance and long separation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s okay to have a mature social life at a young age.<\/h2>\n
Sometimes I hear parents lament, \u201cMy kid gets along better with the teachers than the kids in his class at school,\u201d as if this were a bad thing. As if the desire to spend time in intelligent conversation with someone who wasn\u2019t obsessed with the latest trends or popularity scores was somehow indicative of a deficiency. (Sometimes the kids are more grown-up than the adults, though.) \u00a0We pay lip service to \u201cbe yourself\u201d and then get upset at children who don\u2019t \u201cfit in\u201d. \u00a0You can\u2019t have it both ways.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, when my kids show up for activities that involve a mix of kids from all educational backgrounds, one of the questions they get immediately after their homeschooling status is divulged is, \u201cBut how do you make friends?\u201d<\/p>\n
To which we must answer, \u201cWhat is wrong with you that you can\u2019t make friends unless you are forced to spend six hours a day with thirty other kids exactly your age?\u201d \u00a0Actually we don\u2019t say that.<\/strong> \u00a0We try not to even think it. \u00a0And then, because we are well-socialized, we make friends with the kid who asked the question.<\/p>\n![\"File:Macrocranion](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/9\/96\/Macrocranion_tupaiodon_01.jpg\/800px-Macrocranion_tupaiodon_01.jpg\")
<\/a>Wikimedia\u2019s featured image: What people think homeschoolers\u2019 social lives are like.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nImage by H. Zell (Own work) [GFDL<\/a> or CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve been in the depths of back-to-school preparation on multiple fronts, and I\u2019m continually astonished that people still bring up the old \u201csocialization\u201d thing with respect to homeschooling. \u00a0So let\u2019s be blunt: Homeschoolers do not socialize the way school kids do. \u00a0 It\u2019s a spectrum, of course. \u00a0There are many\u00a0school families that don\u2019t get sucked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,216],"tags":[256,253,255,257,254,200],"class_list":["post-1830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeschooling","category-its-all-catholic","tag-cliques","tag-homeschooling-2","tag-making-friends","tag-mature-social-life","tag-socialization","tag-teenagers"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"File:Macrocranion](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Macrocranion_tupaiodon_01.jpg\")
<\/a>Image by H. Zell (Own work) [GFDL<\/a> or CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been in the depths of back-to-school preparation on multiple fronts, and I\u2019m continually astonished that people still bring up the old \u201csocialization\u201d thing with respect to homeschooling. \u00a0So let\u2019s be blunt: Homeschoolers do not socialize the way school kids do. \u00a0 It\u2019s a spectrum, of course. \u00a0There are many\u00a0school families that don\u2019t get sucked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,216],"tags":[256,253,255,257,254,200],"class_list":["post-1830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeschooling","category-its-all-catholic","tag-cliques","tag-homeschooling-2","tag-making-friends","tag-mature-social-life","tag-socialization","tag-teenagers"],"yoast_head":"\n