friends

Before embarking upon the journey of home education, one thing that always crops up is the "socialisation" issue....  

"But what about socialisation?" is the question you always hear when you mention home ed.

I have noticed that people mean different things when they use that term 'socialisation'.

Technically, "socialisation" is a term which refers to the lifelong process of inheriting and passing on norms, customs, values and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society. Socialization is thus "the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained" (from Wikipedia). And these are taught via "social skills" which can be verbal or non-verbal.

Now, it always seemed to me, that saying that children should teach other children "social skills" or "socialisation", was a bit like saying that the blind should lead the blind...

How can a child, whose own social skills are still immature, be considered an effective teacher of social skills to another young child who skills are also immature? How can a child be the best teacher of cultural norms, customs, values, ideologies to another child, when they themselves aren't even formed in that knowledge?

Surely therefore only an adult can be an effective role model of social skills and socialisation for a child?

In which case, if that knowledge is imparted by the adults in a school, then why should being at home with parents be any disadvantage to learning those sorts of skills, and true 'socialisation'?

In fact, the research shows that home educated children are more likely to adopt the values of their nuclear family (religious, cultural etc) than school children are (who tend to be more peer-oriented).

But sometimes when people use the phrase "But what about socialisation?" in relation to home education, they actually mean  "but will the child have other children to play with?"

Now first thing to say is that we all know that the truth is that many children are unhappy in school; despite being surrounded by lots of children all day long they feel totally alone.

So I don't think it is true to just assume that school will automatically equal a happy child surrounded by friends who are good influences.

However, if when people say "But what about socialisation?" they mean "but what about potential opportunities for your child to make friend with other children of a similar age" then that is a legitimate question.

One main difference with school , is that in HE the parents have to make the regular effort to allow the children time for these friendships to develop. If the parents don't take children  to the activities or arrange meeting up with other families, then of course it is harder for friendships to develop.

We are lucky where we live, but I think this is slowly being reflected all over the country, that the number and diversity of home ed activities is large. And, most important of all, we have a large number of proactive energized parents who are willing to arrange regular activities, open to all.
Over the years I have worked out what style of groups work for us, and what doesn't, and this year has been very good; a schedule which is full, but not too full, and everything we have done has been just right for the boys.

Over the years B7 & R4 have made friends with many children, boys and girls, of a wide spread of ages, and now they have a number of children they especially enjoy playing with who they call their 'best friends'.

 We are building up a lovely community of friends, and keeps on growing!

Little T0 is always fawned over by big girls wherever we go!

Boys, climbing up the chalk pit walls

So I always say to new families that HE children do, of course, have friends, and good friends as well, so not to worry about any aspect of "socialisation."