This post is several years old. I posted it on my regular blog. But I felt the need to revisit it here. Additions will be made in color.
The company you keep
This post has been rattling around in my brain for months. It was
finally shaken loose by some things Gatto said about school and family,
and some conversations with friends.
First: My kids are far from
perfect. Those of us who are Lutherans understand this, but I felt like
it was a necessary disclaimer given what is coming. This post is a
response. It is a response to questions I have been asked many times, by
different people.
(And continue to be asked; thus the revisiting.) It is difficult to write, because I know the
imperfections of my kids and our family. I don't have all of the
answers. But these are the answers I have.
The question has been
some variation of,"Your kids are so nice/helpful/polite/well-spoken. You
all get along so well. They all get along so well. They read all kinds
of good books. How have you done it?"
(My kids are also opinionated and argumentative. Stubborn. And sometimes lazy. So there.)
My first answer is, I've
had a lot of help. In fact, in many ways that is my answer.
(YES!) The other is
that I have resisted two urges that I have seen in the homeschool
community, both of which are--in a way--reactions to the larger society.
The first of these is the urge to control. The second is the urge to
mimic school socialization.
The urge to control comes out most
frequently as limits on time spent doing various activities: Watching
TV, playing with toys, playing with video games or on the computer,
reading for pleasure, playing musical instruments, or just laying in the
back yard daydreaming. The other form is limitation of content. We did
this to a very, very small extent, mostly vetoing kids TV shows full of
snotty attitudes.
(Can I just reiterate how glad I am we did this?)
The urge to control comes in large part from the
checklist idea of education as tasks to be completed. It places higher
value on some activities than others in a way that is often arbitrary,
based on some outside idea of worthwhile activity.
My kids didn't
have time limits. So one day they might have done nothing but play
legos while watching musicals. On Monday Bethany might have reread Anne
of Green Gables for the 15th time and played the piano for four hours.
On Tuesday she might have spent all day playing Zoombinis and playing in
the back yard. There were days on end where none of us left the Oregon
Trail. In later years the boys might have spent six hours playing Age of
Empires and then turned on the news. This post isn't about what
they've managed to learn. That one is still to come. This is about why I
believe they've become who they are.
(And it really was like that. Exactly.)
But, here is, I believe, a huge
part of the key. We didn't "do" "socialization." The s-word is the big
bugaboo in the homeschool community. Everyone knows that homeschooled
kids overall do well on tests, etc., but "WHAT ABOUT SOCIALIZATION?!"
We've all heard it. Generally the answer is, "We have groups. We get
together. Etc., etc., etc."
We didn't. We didn't do homeschool
groups. Or scouts. Or 4-H. Patrick's sensory issues made large groups of
kids torture. Part of the time we lived where there were no groups that
we were compatible with, when there were groups at all.
Of
course the kids have had friends. They played one-on-one with neighbor
kids, were on soccer teams, and made friends at church. As they've
gotten older they've developed friendships with other homeschoolers,
often those who live elsewhere that they met through Higher Things or
other church-related functions. But the social activities that they've
been a part of have been family-oriented. They have been socialized by
our family and friends. They have been socialized by adults who we like
and admire and have chosen to spend time with. I firmly believe that one
of the worst aspects of conventional schooling is the division by age
and the imposition of barriers between child and family.
This part is important: As a
result of our not being group-oriented, I think we have missed out on
some of the attitudes and behaviors that come from kids socializing each
other. They grew up socializing freely with those older and younger
than them. They didn't learn that their parents are uncool know-nothings
and that younger siblings were pests to be avoided.
(Andrew has had more group time with other kids than the others combined. He's taken more group classes. And his extroversion demands people time. But there have been times that we have needed to pull back from certain activities or relationships because we could see negative effects. It has been hard, but it has proven to be for the best.)
As I said above,
we've had help. Our older kids have helped socialize the younger ones. I
love seeing Patrick's civilizing influence on his younger brothers.
Their grandparents and other relatives have had their parts. The hours
that the kids have spent in the company of various pastors, both
formally and informally, has had a tremendous influence on their
thinking. Being a part of the life of the church, trained and useful,
as acolytes has helped the boys to deal with the forced uselessness of
that time that society calls adolescence. The women who are my friends have
had a profound impact on my kids. I love it when I see a glimpse of
Susan, or Lora, or Lori, or Jacqui--and these are just the glimpses I
see the most--in something one of the kids says.
So that's my answer, I'm not saying other choices are wrong, but I've been asked what we've done. And this is it.
Addendum: One could get the idea from part of this that I was a permissive parent. Not really. I've always been pretty much of the "you behave or else" school of parenting. My kids had chores and did them. They learned that there are places where you need to sit still and be quiet, like church and the symphony. They learned that restaurants are awesome places to get yummy food, but you have to sit in your chair and behave like a big boy if you want to stay and eat the yummy food. Freedom to make many choices didn't mean freedom to be selfish pigs. As Patrick points out, I taught them to make wise decisions.