Are homeschooled children missing out on the “extras”?
By Mimi Rothschild
Founder & CEO, Learning By Grace, Inc.
One of the reasons why parents choose not to homeschool their children is because of the extracurricular that public schools offer like team sports, clubs, music competitions, and others. Most homeschoolers are not allowed to participate in those things because they are reserved for students who attend that particular public school system full time. So, many parents give in to the pressure and ultimately trade a better education for their children’s social life.
Certainly homeschooled children need to learn social skills, just as we all do, but parents must not let them spend the bulk of their time with others who will not be a good influence or example to them.
It has been shown that more often than not, homeschooling parents in general are very diligent about the people their children socialize with. They want more control over their children and situations with those people their children are spending their time with, so they choose to monitor their children’s friendships and relationships more closely.
When we began homeschooling our children, one of the first concerns others would convey to us was about the “extras” that our children would miss out on. We were constantly being warned that our children would be isolated and socially inept when it came time to get a job, go to college, date, or just make friends. They even called them social misfits. However, now that our kids are grown and have moved on with their lives and their own families, those same people have come to us with a different story.
Now these folks are telling us how happy, encouraging, congenial, and respectable our children are, how wonderfully they get along with people of all ages, and how proud we must be of them. One gentleman even told us he had been wrong about his statements in the past, and he apologized.
My encouragement to you is to keep your children’s academic education first and foremost, and let their social skills develop naturally through time.
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