Socialization goals--for "self-aggrandizing" parents of "geeky" kids

[Rosy]

(refer to http://teacherrevised.org/2009/05/30/the-case-against-homeschooling/ if you're wondering about the title)

 

I've been wanting to ask this for a while and now seems like a good time:

 

1) How do you define socialization?

 

2) Do you have specific socialization goals for your kids?

 

3) What are you doing to achieve them?

 

I know some people think that proper socialization is the result of a happy, healthy home life and there is no need to go out of one's way to provide social education (for lack of a better term), and others almost make it a subject area, with curriculum, measurable progress, etc.

 

What do you think?

[Jean in Newcastle]

1. I define socialization as being able to relate to other people in a variety of settings: work, academic, special interest (clubs and even church because there are special social "rules" often involved), community and personal friendship.

 

2. My goal is that they know how to work each "system" of social involvement so that they can participate as fully as they would like to. I also want them to interact in each of these systems in a way that honors God even though I realize that sometimes enhances their involvement and sometimes hampers it at least in the view of others.

 

3. I have been gently guiding their social interactions from the time they could talk.

 

a. As they get older I am letting them take the lead on some work related social skills - Asking Ds11 to schedule a delivery for his bread baking business or apologizing to a customer and offering a free loaf of bread if he goofs. Asking Dd7 to make sure she gets the correct information from our neighbor for her cat sitting job.

 

b. Having them participate appropriately in sports and church classes and following the rules of that academic situation.

 

c. Having them participate fully in our ministry to low-income elderly. That includes expecting them to interact with people personally. Having them participate in worship "praise" nights instead of letting them run around in the yard as many parents have opted to do. (This is more than a parenting thing - it is a thought-out way of letting our children participate now in the church instead of having them suddenly decide if they will when they are college age.)

 

d. Having them do their own shopping at times. Having them be our main home receptionists. Having them talk directly to the wait staff at a restaurant. All of them teach them to interact appropriately in the community.

 

e. Having them be responsible for their friendships as they are able. But monitoring more when the other party is also a child who is learning the ropes still.

[FO4UR]

Socialization is simply teaching a child how to behave with others, in all sorts of social settings. Families and peer groups are just two examples of social settings.

 

My goals for socialization are general. I want my kids to be able to handle themselves with strength and grace wherever life takes them, and whomever they meet. Specifically - I want my kids to have a *healthy* view of authority - they should be able to talk to their future boss as a human, and yet still give the respect due. They should be able work within a group of peers without feeling the need to seek approval for personal decisions (peer pressure yadayada) OR put others down in order to gain self-approval (pecking order....as seen in nearly every classroom everywhere....).

 

#3 - Model it, talk about it, read books that emphasize the good qualities, and monitor their interactions with other kids so I can guide them. (and I start that before 2yo....in the sandbox kwim)

 

I don't think a parent has to sign their kids up for multiple extracurriculars to achieve "socialization." Generally, I think if the parents are properly "socialized" then the kids will follow.

[Dirtroad]

Socialization lessons come from adults - regardless of the public school theories. Your child learns manners, proper behavior and consideration of others from adults NOT OTHER KIDS.

 

Social practice comes living with and among other people (including kids).

 

Most "lessons" (of which I have seen) learned from other kids are hand gestures, slurs & insults, disrepectful sarcasm, silent manipulation, coveting of the latest fashion or gadget, and how to get out of things. These behaviors require immediate "reprogramming" and returning to the social behavior lessons. Errr!

 

Socialization is knowing how to behave in a group of ALL AGES and ENVIRONMENTS! It is to know the difference in skateboarding on the ramp in the drive or park... and down the sidewalk in front of church. It is opening the door for a mom & her baby... or loading the groceries of an elderly lady at the grocery. It is also knowing when to KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT and when to SPEAK UP! When to shout for the Touchdown and when to quietly give a hug for the suffering of someone.

 

It is manners, compassion, and appropriate behavior at the appropriate times! IMHO :)

[Sebastian (a lady)]

(refer to http://teacherrevised.org/2009/05/30/the-case-against-homeschooling/ if you're wondering about the title)

 

I've been wanting to ask this for a while and now seems like a good time:

 

1) How do you define socialization?

 

2) Do you have specific socialization goals for your kids?

 

3) What are you doing to achieve them?

 

I know some people think that proper socialization is the result of a happy, healthy home life and there is no need to go out of one's way to provide social education (for lack of a better term), and others almost make it a subject area, with curriculum, measurable progress, etc.

 

What do you think?

 

Here's how I would explain socialization. It is the realization that each person is an individual who operates within the framework of various groups, be they school, church, social group or community. That the choices of individuals have consequences for the group and that there will be certain limitations placed on individual liberty in order to become and stay a welcome and fruitful member of the group. At the same time, socialization is learning that people have value as persons outside their group identity and that the approval or disapproval of the group is not in and of itself a justification for decision making.

 

I think that both sides have a point and a tendency to argue against strawman positions. Strength of character means having the ability to go against what is popular because you have determined that it is right. Individuals do need to be able to accept and relate to people who are unlike them (be that religion, political background, social background or age) Homeschoolers are probably much less likely to encounter peers who are very unlike themselves in terms of value systems. On the other hand, schooled students are less likely to deal frequently with a wide range of ages.

 

It is human to want to form relationships and bonds with others. And I encounter poorly socialized adults on a daily basis. The majority of them are public school graduates. But what I think makes someone unsocialized is not necessarily their school background. There is a selfishness and egotism that is part of human nature. I would say it is part of the nature of fallen man. Someone else might attribute it to genetics. But I'd say that you could look at times and locales with no schooling and with 100% forced schooling and see similar ratios of selfishness and selflessness.

 

PS. Reason #5 on the cited blog post is reason enough to dismiss it out of hand.

[katemary63]

Take a lesson from dog training. When I was raising my Bullmastiff, one of my aims was to fully "socialize" him. I had this as my goal: Eat out of seven different containers each week. Meat 7 new people each week. Walk on 7 different surfaces each week. Go to 7 different places each week. Hear 7 different sounds each week. There were others, but you get the idea. The goal is to end up with a year old dog, who is used to lots of different life experiences and knows how to behave in all of them and is not afraid of any of them. ( It worked, by the way, he was AWESOME!)

 

Hmmmmm, sort of what I want for my kids. We live our life, go lots of places, meet lots of people, try lots of new experiences, learn lots of new things in lots of different ways, and all the while, DH and I guide them in their behavior. Hopefully, by the end of that, they will be healthy adults who know how to relate to other people and how to handle life experiences with wisdom.

 

Socialization for us does NOT mean unsupervised time with other young people so they can learn how to get along or relate. That's just stupid. Indy didn't learn how to be a great dog by hanging out in a room full of untrained puppies all day! He spent his days with me, enthusiastically experiencing life as I encouraged him and trained him to behave. My kids' time with other kids is supervised and limited to healthy activities such as sports, art or music classes, Sunday school, Awanas and supervised play, etc.

 

ps. I am NOT comparing kids to dogs! It's just an illustration. Believe it or not, there are a ton of great lessons for parents found in good horse training also!

Edited June 2, 2009 by katemary63

[KJB]

One thing I thought was humorous in the second article was the assertion that home schooled kids need to be in public school to experience the diversity so that they will be able to accept and relate to people of all kinds. That idea was coupled with the statement that home schooled kids would be mocked and labeled as geeky because they were home schooled.

 

Apparently, according to the author, the public schooled children aren't able to deal with all different groups of people with acceptance in spite of their "diversity training" if home schoolers are mocked and labeled as a group of geeks.

 

Either being around all these diverse groups promotes acceptance and love of all different kinds of people, or not.

 

One thing I have come to believe is that most home schoolers are out of the box type thinkers. We have made this decision because we are able to open ourselves to other possibilities for our families without marching lock step with our traditionally schooled neighbors.

 

In spite of all the lip service played to the idea that going to school will open you to new ideas, people, and situations, the truth is that being schooled untraditionally opens you to the idea that it's OK to be different. I hope that being different will help to create a compassion for other people with differences.

 

To the op's question:

 

Socialization (to me) means the ability to integrate into a group or team and work cooperatively. Also, the ability to meet people and interact without being overly introverted or inappropriately attention seeking. Also, to be socialized, a person must have the ability to make and keep friends since healthy relationships are vital to being a happy human.

 

Regarding socialization in general, I believe (and have experienced first hand with my kids) that home schooled kids have to learn to behave properly in a group of other non-family members without a parent as the adult in charge. I think this is a skill for which we have to create opportunities.

 

Also, our kids need to have chances to test themselves against other kids both intellectually and physically. Otherwise, they won't have a realistic idea of their personal strengths and weaknesses.

 

I have trouble solving the socialization problem with my kids. We move so often that they have difficulty making new good friends as they get older. We do all the recommended activities (scouts, art and music lessons, swim team and soccer, Sunday school, etc.). My younger kids can pick up and play with anyone at the playground but my tweens have had more difficulty. Fortunately, we are in a neighborhood full of kids and that helps.

[Ravin]

Hmm...my refutations:

 

10. Kids college-age and younger also often use "gay" as an insult. Derogatory insults have nothing to do with who a person really is, and avoiding them should not be the primary focus of how one socializes children, because there's no way around it all the time no matter who you are. I'd rather teach my kids how to deal with such insults, whether to their education, sexuality, religion, race, or whatever. Not something they're effectively going to learn in school.

 

9. Eating and learning don't go together? Then why do schools have cafeterias? Kids need both knowledge and food to grow--who cares where they get either one, as long as it's not in a germy bathroom?

 

8. Maybe with those homeschooled kids out of the way, the teachers will have more time and energy to focus on the kids whose parents don't care about their educations? Since it's not the job of the students to teach their peers, however much those peers might want to rely on them, the absence of some of them should have no bearing on the education of the rest.

 

7. Hmm..again, this person wants our kids to not only teach their peers, but also teach them religion? In the public schools? Whatever. Besides that, whatever religious reason I might have for keeping my DD out of school has more to do with protecting her from the peer pressure of prostelyzing preteens, since we aren't Christians and don't have any religious commands to spread the word. If the Gods want you, they'll call you. Not our job.

 

6. With professional resources of well-written curricula, a well-rounded education of my own, and one-on-one attention? I guarantee I can teach my own child than some committee of professionals. The ones who really know their stuff mostly aren't teaching K-12 anyway. Most K-8 teachers aren't single-subject professionals, either.

 

5. Not much of a case. As a wal-mart cashier, lazy people who pick meat out of the case then change their minds about buying it and leave it on the gum shelf next to my register piss me off. As a teacher, you don't have to deal with homeschoolers, so why spend so much attention on them?

 

4. My household just happens to have adults of multiple sexualities, backgrounds, and races in it. Amazingly, my daughter isn't being raised by clones. Also, she can go out the door and find lots of other people who aren't like her. She meets many of these people on the bus on weekday outings to local museums, the library, etc. If it was the MTV Real World house, there'd be cameras and someone would be paying me. Too bad it's not. Public school students don't live among people of other cultures. They live in their family's culture and usually develop homogenous peer groups at school. It's not the real world, either.

 

3. If my DD feels she hasn't been adequately socialized in a grand multicultural expermiment, I'll encourage her to go to college in another part of the country, or better yet join the military. I learned a lot about that grand experiment in the military. Not so much at the largely-white, clique/class concious small-town public school. And socialization is not necessarily something that must be achieved in an institutional setting, anyway.

 

2. If that makes me arrogant, good. Maybe I'll be able to teach her self-esteem, too. Certainly not something she'll learn in public school.

 

1. Most of the geeky types I've known grew up to be highly successful professionals. Except maybe myself, but I could easily blame that on public school. Social awkwardness isn't a product of educational setting; it's a combination of inborne and environmental factors. Homeschoolers do not, in fact, keep their children locked in the closet without human interaction.

 

In summary, I think the writer of that author is full of it.

[Tabrett]

Away from what the definitions of "socialization", the person who wrote the article sounds angry that they are not getting to teach "our good" kids and are left with kid who's parents don't care as much as they would like. Many of the the same points could be said against private schooled children. I feel in no way responsible to allow my child to go to public schools so other children can have a better education or teachers can have better children to teach.

 

The author only stated feelings about hating homeschooling and not a single fact or study that proves anything about homeschooling.

 

The "socialization" factor is the only thing people can used to try to persuade others against HSing. There is no evidence that being in PS makes you more socialized. They can't complain about homeschool academics.

 

In fact, I have heard more about parents pulling their dc out of school because they started to be influenced in a bad way.

 

I use to teach public school. Believe me, the writers of this article are just angry they they don't have parents who care. Socialization, unless you live in the middle of nowhere and never come in contact with other people, is a joke.

 

PS-When I was in college, the same arguments were made to us to use to persuade people to send their kids to public school instead of private school. There is a taught belief that if ALL dc were sent to public school, they, private schooled dc and their parents, could turn public schools around. This was talked about a lot by my professors. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to sacrafice my dc for the good of other dc.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Tabrett

[Closeacademy]

This is my view.

 

1) How do you define socialization?

 

The ability to work and play well with others. It is also manners and protocol so that you do no embarass yourself in social situations.

 

2) Do you have specific socialization goals for your kids?

 

Not specific goals.

 

3) What are you doing to achieve them?

 

We have a small co-op where we work on team work, public speaking, listening and discussion sorts of skills. We also attend a play group with the same children so that they can play but they also work on all sorts of social skills at play that they will need later in life.

 

I don't believe that you can get everything that you need socially from just interacting with family or in formal classes. Children need time to run free with other children. They need that time to build up imagination, leadership, negotiation, following, working together and other such skills. I know that some of the best times in my childhood where when I just played imaginatively with other children and I believe that there are important skills learned through this play and interaction.:001_smile:

[BamaTanya]

My dc have all been 1 or more years, and I taught ps for 9.

 

Public school does not socialize children. There are plenty of nerds and geeks and hoodlums and future sociopaths right there.

 

As the mother of 2 children with developmental disorders, I will not say that we've given up hope of socializing our dc, but I'm over taking any blame for the lack of it. Some kids are who they are and catering to cultural diversity or teaching tolerance will not keep them from picking their noses or shooting off the first stupid thought that comes into their heads.

 

The "dumb jocks" with whom I attended school? They were socialized, right? But it didn't make them more responsible or care more for their fellow citizens. They got their share of idol worship along with a healthy dose of the big-head. That's real world preparation, don't you think? (((SARCASM!!!)))

 

Guess what? At our 20 year reunion, the shy people were still shy and the class clowns were still stealing the show. Of course, the complete geeks were not there. Maybe they had decided to avoid the crowd that had caused them so much grief for 12 years. Or maybe they were too busy with a space shuttle mission or brain surgery to fit a party in their calendars . . .

 

Oh . . . and if my dc grow up to be geeky, it's because they were born with the geeky gene and were headed that way anyway.

Edited June 2, 2009 by BamaTanya

[OHGrandma]

I read that blog at the link, then followed a couple more links and came to this rebuttal: http://spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2009/05/case-against-homeschooling.html . I thought the rebuttal was well-written.

[Rosy]

Great posts! It's encouraging to see that people have really thought this through. There are a lot of homeschoolers who blow off the socialization question with a flippant, "they have brothers & sisters--that's all the socialization they need." I don't believe that to be true personally.

 

For me, I think most of our social education has been in the context of learning character. As they get older I intend for them to have a wider variety of places/situations to apply what they've learned, but for now learning about authority, truthfulness, selflessness, honoring the elderly, caring for the weak, etc., mostly in the form of stories with limited personal applications is fine (my oldest is 8).

[Tammyla]

Wow...what an intolerant, uninformed and angry person she is. I guess the melting pot doesn't allow for home-schooled families.

[Elizabeth Conley]

For me, socialization is an ongoing process. I'm as concerned about the way my children interact with us, our parents and each other as I am concerned with how they interact outside our family.

 

For a period of time in both kids development, I was concerned about their sportsmanship. I wanted them to be gracious competitors.

 

At other times I was concerned with their ability to resist peer pressure, speak out when appropriate, and recuse themselves from situations they needed to avoid.

 

Socialization is pretty complicated. I think we could write a book on the subject, and barely scratch the surface.

 

The public school teachers who wrote the scathing diatribes against home schoolers were more than a little naive about the nature of socialization in the public schools. More to the point, I don't think they were aware of how good the socialization is outside of school walls. Really and truly, one of my biggest socialization worries was the poor role models the kids were exposed to at school. Many of the teachers were seriously unbalanced, aggressive, profane, quarrelsome and tactless. They interacted in wildly inappropriate ways, and their discipline practices were clearly dysfunctional. In spite of the fact that they acted like loons, they were my kids' teachers. Knowing how much children respected and emulated their teachers, particularly in the elementary years, I was appalled by the bad examples these teachers set.

 

It's one thing for my kids to encounter nutty "role models" when they're old enough to understand that "all of the kookies are not in the jar". It's another for them to encounter clearly dysfunctional people in leadership positions when they're too young to put the problem in perspective. Because my kids are still too young to deal with really bad role models, part of their socialization still involves deliberately seeking out the healthier organizations for them to join, and avoiding the troubled ones.

 

Like I said, socialization is complex. It's a very, very broad topic. I've only touched on a few minor aspects.

[flyingmommy]

Ok, this is kinda off topic, kinda not. This angry person, who needs some bean dip and Mike's, makes a big point about her credentials. Maybe I am incorrect, but shouldn't she phrase her question, "Do you think you can teach English better than I?" I--not me. Am I wrong? I am pretty sure that "I" is the grammatically correct choice. If so, she might have shot herself in the foot, figuratively speaking. :)

 

Maybe I am incorrect. I hope someone will let me know.

 

Jeannie

[Kfamily]

Funny, I was just about to post this very thought. I was shocked at the anger in her tone and I too wondered how an English teacher could have made these grammar mistakes.

 

Interesting?!!

[Mekanamom]

s just an illustration. Believe it or not, there are a ton of great lessons for parents found in good horse training also!

 

Absolutely. I think there should be one of those posters, "Everything I Need To Know in Life I Learned From Horse Training."

[Elizabeth Conley]

Dear Flying Mommy,

 

You are correct. The teacher/journalist did make several grammatical mistakes, and that was one of them. I don't critique Grammar, because I know that I live in a glass house where that is concerned. I'm a mathematician, and I find Grammar inscrutable.

 

If I am writing to publish, I have my smart friends go over what I write with a fine tooth comb. Even then, I see errors when I go back and look for them. Grammar is hard! A lot of people worked him over due to his bad Grammar. I left that alone. I would have embarrassed myself if I'd tried to correct his Grammar.

 

He got spanked. He chose the wrong crowd to get snarky with..

[flyingmommy]

Elizabeth,

 

I agree, I don't make a big deal about people's grammar, UNLESS they start spewing credentials at me. I figure the author just painted a big old target on her forehead.

 

I love grammar. It's math that I find inscrutable. :001_smile:

 

Jeannie