Nuh-uh! Homeschoolers Are Too Socialized!

Again as a person who was homeschooled I am amused also at people's general idea about what it means to be socialized. I've been out of school for quite a while now and know that homeschooling has improved a lot since I was there. Yet, I never felt even that long ago that we lacked in that area. Not only did we get together with other kids that were homeschooled numerous times a week, we also had Co-op( which is for extra courses that might be harder to do at home)where we met and interacted with people of different races, religions, etc, and I also had neighbor friends that I played with. My friends that went to public school always thought it was cool that I was homeschooled. I lead a happy, successful life and am comfortable in my own skin, which is more than I can say for most of my friends that weren't homeschooled.

I think your concept of socialization conflicts with the prevailing idea of what it means to be socially functional. Profanity does not make one socially inept, just as avoiding its use doesn't necessarily make a person well adapted. Resorting to semantics - as you have - is a great distraction from the question. An observant person can pick out another's birth order with very little effort. It's also easy to spot children who had no siblings. People notice accents, and can easily identify what region a new acquaintance is from. Humans learn their place within the social hierarchy of family and community. However, without regular interaction, this process can be delayed. Neurologically, these learning paths are built from a very early age. They set the pattern for adaptations to changing social landscapes later in life. Depriving a child of this natural process can make them less socially agile. While social agility may be difficult to quantify, we're still able to assess

Good points :)

Great article!!!! My daughter is able to/will be able to participate in a huge amount of extracurrciulars that would simply not be possible if she "wasted" 7 hours in school all day.

This is a very good article. I'm shocked to see no comments here. Great job. I just did an article called "The Most Common Misconception About Homeschool: Socialization". You might be interested.