Homeschool Encouragement: the Myths of Comparison, Public School, & Socialization

In talking to another mother who is new to homeschooling, I recognized all the fears and anxieties that I encountered when I began. Sometimes, miles down the road, you forget what the start of the journey looked and felt like. Of course, I encouraged this mom – she’s doing a great job! – but it also made me realize that one of the things I most wanted to do with this blog was encourage other homeschoolers in their journeys. Here are some thoughts and encouragement concerning a few of the big myths and fears concerning homeschool:

Don’t compare your beginning to someone’s middle or end

How many times have we heard that advice? It’s also true for homeschoolers. If you don’t have a schedule down pat or you just spent a Monday in pajamas watching TV or you still can’t decide which math curriculum would be best (not at all moments taken from my real life, ha), take heart. We’ve all been there. And chances are good, you’ll find yourself there again before it’s all over. The difference is, a little farther down the road you’ll realize this does NOT mean you’re failing at homeschooling, ruining your child’s life, or just ‘not good at this.’ It means you’re real, you’re learning, and you’re willing to adjust and adapt and roll with the punches. Your children are going to learn so much more than math facts watching you navigate hard days and get back up when you fall down (and want to turn the alarm off, hide under the covers, and pretend you’ve run away).

The truth of the matter is, I had hard days, unproductive days, days with more tears than laughter, and days when I wondered if I really knew what I was doing. You might think it’s easy for me to say “It’s fine” now that it really is fine and my kids are grown, well adjusted, and successful. And it is easy for me to say that now. I’m at the end, of the homeschooling part at least. So I’m at a completely different place on this road – a place where I can confidently look back and shout, “Keep going! The view from up here is magnificent!”

Your homeschool won’t look like anyone else’s – no one else has YOUR strengths, YOUR weaknesses, YOUR schedule, or YOUR kids. Your homeschool shouldn’t look like anyone else’s. And we all learn and grow as we go. Focus on where you are and remember your goal, but only look around for encouragement, not comparison. Because like the proverbial apples and oranges, there can be no accurate comparison. You will spend too much time focused on what someone else is or isn’t doing instead of considering (and rejoicing about) the uniqueness of your family and homeschool.

About public school

Comparing our home school to public school is the worst comparison most of us make.

I was public schooled and so was my husband. It was my ‘norm’ for education. Anything else was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, with the possibility of producing citizens unable to coherently speak, write, or add.

Or maybe not.

Since birth, you’ve been teaching your child. How to drink from a cup, how to speak a language, how to use a toilet, how to walk, how to handle catastrophic events like skinned knees and not getting everything you want at the store…you’ve been teaching them all along. Suddenly at age 5, we buy into the idea that we are no longer equipped or intelligent enough to teach our children.

Even if you’re not a certified teacher or you struggled with algebra in school, there are endless resources out there to help you navigate teaching any and every subject imaginable. It doesn’t take a PhD, it takes determination, a willingness to learn, and a deep love for your kids and desire to offer them an optimal learning experience.

I’m guessing if you’re reading this, you meet all the criteria to knock this thing out of the park.

But you may be second guessing yourself because you’ve bought into the idea that public school offers your children all the things you can’t.

Public school is set up for the mass educating of children. My best friends are teachers, so first and foremost I want to say that I respect (good) teachers and my disdain for public school in no way is directed at the multitude of tireless, passionate, overburdened teachers out there who love kids, love to teach, and really want to make a difference in the lives of young people.

They aren’t the problem.

The problem is, there’s too few of them, and their hands are tied by a system that doesn’t work well for most kids.

Yes, some kids will do really well and excel academically – and those kids will also excel at home and have endless opportunities to shoot for the stars when they are not held back by a classroom.

Other kids will do mediocre, get by and get a diploma. But they most likely will lose their curiosity with the world, their desire to learn anything, and ultimately their disgust at ‘education’ will translate into a disgust for reading and learning.

Then there are the kids who struggle hard at school. You may think that they need all those programs and bells and whistles from professionals who are trained to understand their struggles. Let me just say this right here: no one understands their struggles more than the person who loves them most in the world. You may not have a degree in special education or perhaps you googled what IEP stands for (I did, when I started helping my autistic nephew), but make no mistake: these kids will positively bloom with individualized curriculum and one on one help. It will be hard, many days may look completely unproductive, but if you are willing to go all in, these kids will achieve more than you can imagine.

Public school is an assembly line education. It cannot offer a tailor-made education or invest in your child’s strengths while working one on one with their weaknesses. It’s not even their fault; they have a classroom full of kids with a plethora of strengths and weaknesses. They have to aim for the middle, even though advanced kids will be bored and struggling kids will be left behind.

I’m also a tad nauseous at the attitude of some associated with public school who feel that homeschool is a little house on the prairie version of their elite establishment. While they specialize in EDUCATION, we are baking bread and hemming our pantaloons. (If you’re baking bread or hemming pantaloons right now, no offense meant, and can we all just take a minute to be jealous because I can almost smell the bread baking from here!)

It’s time we switched the narrative in our head: public school is an option when we are forced to settle for something, but homeschooling is a far superior alternative. 

For the love of Moses, let’s talk about socialization

*rolls eyes wayyy back into head*

If I had a dime for every time I heard….

And this panic hit mega proportions in 2020, not even with the homeschoolers. As kids had to stay home, parents were convinced their darling princess would never get a job one day because she wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation in the real world after all the time spent pantaloon-sewing in silence. And their young gentleman will never manage to be well-adjusted and mentally stable if he isn’t subjected to numerous conversations with 8 year-olds throughout the day.

Wait, what?

But, um, haven’t the homeschoolers been turning out kids that know how to say, “Hello, how are you today?” and getting jobs and going to college and getting married and doing all the things all the well-socialized (sarcasm right there if you can’t tell) public schooled kids have been doing?

This section went a little into my nerves and has come out a tad prickly.

Now before someone says that even the homeschoolers weren’t forced to lock down – and you are right – what I hear is not concern for real socialization, but rather concern for the kids to be surrounded by peers of the exact same age in a very controlled, institutionalized setting.

I can get on board with a parent that sends their child to public school because it is the most reasonable option for that child’s education taking into consideration the needs of the family at the time. Then: yes and amen, you do what works for your family and your child.

What I can’t fathom is the number of people that use socialization as their sole excuse for sending their children into a less than optimal educational setting because they want them to have friends and prom memories.

Let me just throw this out there: we were a pretty unsocial homeschool family. I’m an introvert and it is what it is. I never joined the co-ops and I actively ran from one homeschool group that tried hard to recruit me into their midst. We did attend church regularly and my kids had lots of cousins that they grew up with. We weren’t hermits. I wrote some articles about homeschooling introverts and extroverts if you’re interested in more details about how we interacted with the world.

What I’m trying to say in a nutshell is this: public school actually offers a very poor version of healthy socialization.

Also, I understand that in a pandemic, socialization options are very bleak. But they are not much better in a room where your friends must stay 6 feet away or behind a plexi-glass shield and social interaction is limited or discouraged. I don’t think seeing your friend from across the room counts as socialization training.

Even in a ‘normal’ public school classroom, the relationships and hierarchy are not training for socialization in the world. It’s highly unlikely that you will be surrounded by peers of your own age, give or take 10 months, for the rest of your life. Then there’s the matter of being subjected to the varied and often cruel criteria with which immature and inexperienced young people deal with one another.

I worked in ministry with young people (elementary through teenagers) for many years, and I can say with certainty that I never met a public schooled child whose self-esteem came through unscathed. Popular or unpopular, every young person I know suffered negative consequences of this highly sought out ‘socialization training’ that parents are so adamant their children need.

So if you take any one thing completely off the table (and out of your brain) as an irrelevant argument against homeschooling, please oh please let it be this nonsense about socialization.

Conclusion

I could rant for a whole novel, but I’m sure I’ve said quite enough this round.

I most wanted to assure you that public school, your neighbors down the road, or that homeschooling family you read about that produced 5 rocket scientists are not your measuring tool for how well you are doing.

I wanted to convince you that homeschooling is a superior option for educating children. This is true in your home, too, regardless of your own education level, if you’re willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears.

And I wanted you to know that the journey looked like a cross country trip with toddlers and a Labradoodle and three cats and a parakeet to all of us as we sped along, sometimes with the pedal to the metal and other times out of gas on the side of the road…often sort of a disaster. BUT when we reach our destination, we seem to forget the bad parts: when the Labradoodle threw up in all the crevices of the car seat, when the toddlers cried nonstop for four hours as we barreled through Kentucky, and that time we lost the parakeet out the window. Nope, when you reach the destination, you suddenly see the forest for the trees: everyone CAN add and read (hallelujah!), your children are well adjusted, social (praise hands), productive, kind, amazing adults. You remember the laughter, the learning, the bonding, and even the worst moments take on that shimmery, warm, right at sunset glow (as memories tend to do), allowing you to see it all in a different and more beautiful light.