When measured against the average Canadians ages 15 to 34 years old, home-educated Canadian adults ages 15 to 34 were more socially engaged (69 percent participated in organized activities at least once per week, compared with 48 percent of the comparable population). Average income for homeschoolers also was higher, but perhaps more significantly, while 11 percent of Canadians ages 15 to 34 rely on welfare, there were no cases of government support as the primary source of income for homeschoolers. Homeschoolers also were happier; 67.3 percent described themselves as very happy, compared with 43.8 percent of the comparable population.

You can read the rest here.

***

Socialization. It’s one of the most common arguments against homeschooling. In fact, when I tell people that I’m a homeschool graduate, they almost never ask me if I thought I had a good education, or if I felt prepared for adulthood. No, the question I nearly always get is, “What did you do about socialization?” For most of my life, I have said things like, “Actually, I had more friends when I was homeschooled than I did when I was in public school.” But this week, I had an experience that made me realize that true socialization is a lot more than having other kids to play with. True socialization is gaining the ability to behave socially (and therefore, not anti-socially); it’s mastering the skill of getting along with people.

With my husband out of town on business, I decided to console my children (and myself) with a trip to the local children’s museum, figuring that we’d pretty much have the place to ourselves on a Thursday morning, a welcome change after enduring Saturday crowds on our previous visits.

My first clue that I had made a miscalculation came as we entered the front door and saw giant bins marked with the names of local schools and the word, “lunches.”

“Hmm,” I thought, “there must be some school groups here today. I guess it won’t be as empty as I’d thought.”

It turned out to be just as crowded as on the weekends, only this time, instead of being crowded with families, it was only children, everywhere. Of course, there were a few teachers and volunteer parents, but they were milling around, trying to watch everyone, and therefore not really watching anyone very carefully.

It was chaotic, and several of the children were rather aggressive. We tried to visit the climb-in ambulance, but my two-year-old was nearly knocked down by a couple of gleeful, oblivious, big boys jumping out of it. Everywhere we went, children were running around, some of them getting right into whatever we were doing with seemingly no concept of waiting their turn, others abandoning whatever they were doing and wandering off the minute we approached, looking a little shell-shocked and beaten up. I got the impression that maybe they didn’t realize that I had every intention of making my children wait their turn.

We spent ages waiting in “line” (or perhaps “blob” is a better word) for a favorite experiment, and as we waited, I watched the interactions. First of all, the child who was using it (over, and over, and over) seemed completely unaware of how long she was taking or of how many children were waiting for a turn. Second, hoards of other children kept sidling up, trying to join in when it wasn’t their turn. They were greeted with shoves and dirty looks, which seemed to me to have a touch of pitiful desperation. My children were getting bored standing and waiting, but I explained to them that we had to wait for all the children who had gotten there ahead of us to try the experiment, and that then it would be our turn.

That’s when my daughter asked a profound question, “How do you know that’s how it works?” How do I know? How do I know that that is the way polite society functions? Where was I socialized to understand “first come first served,” “wait your turn,” etc.? And, for that matter, what is the best way to learn these things?

Many people assume that by constant interaction with lots of peers, children will pick up on the nuances of life, like not knocking down toddlers, and not cutting in “blob.” This is all part of the important skill of getting along with people, of being well “socialized,” but as I watched the mobs of kids bouncing around, vying for chances at the exhibits, and getting very little guidance about how to actually treat one another, I started thinking about another kind of social interaction: driving.

Just as we have social rules about not knocking into people, waiting your turn, staying in line, etc. for everyday life, we also have socially agreed upon rules for those exact things when it comes to driving. But with driving, we have a significantly different approach to learning those rules. I began to wonder what the roads would be like if we expected new drivers to learn to behave on the road the same way we seem to expect children to learn how to behave in school groups.

What if we put a whole bunch of people who’ve never driven before in cars in a big parking lot, and just let them drive? Would they eventually figure out how to behave at a four-way stop or how to merge with traffic? Or would we have exactly what I saw at the museum, a few aggressive, gleeful drivers, knocking into others, a few oblivious people doing their own thing, not noticing the effect it had on the others, and maybe a few self-preservationists, hiding off in the corners, feeling nervous, and not really getting anywhere?

You don’t learn things as complex as the rules of the road or the rules of etiquette by bumbling around with other people who also don’t know what to do. You learn by having someone with you telling you, “OK, this is what we do in this situation,” someone like the licensed adult who’s supposed to be sitting next to you when you have your learner’s permit.

When I got my permit, my dad took me to a nearly deserted parking lot, and sat beside me talking me through my first jerky attempts. Later, we moved on to driving on back roads with very few other drivers and Dad beside me all the time. Pretty soon, I was driving everywhere, but always with my mom or dad right next to me, coaching, until at last, I passed a test, and then I was off and driving on my own.

Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to approach socialization the same way: starting small with constant supervision and coaching, gradually adding more and more interactions, but keeping children right with their “licensed adult” parents, until they truly know how to behave? This is Dicipleship Parenting applied to socialization, and it makes the whole question of how children can be socialized without classroom time seem a lot less logical.

Of, course, you don’t become well socialized simply by being homeschooled. Just as you can’t learn to drive if you never get in the driver’s seat, children will never be socially savvy if they’re never around other people. The key is the coaching. Our children need lots of chances to interact with others, but slowly, step by step, back roads before interstates, and always with help.

The museum is a very different place on Saturdays. It’s crowded, but you never have to wait very long for an experiment because the socially adept parents see you standing there and help their children take a short turn, “so the other kids can try, too.” Rowdy children are corralled, collisions apologized for, and polite conversation skills practiced. “Say goodbye to the little girl. We’re going up to the next floor now.” “Say, ‘thank you.’ That boy just got down so you could have a turn.” This is the kind of socialization that’s going to help our children get places in life. And it’s virtually impossible to give it to them in a classroom environment.

As we walked away from the museum after our school group experience, my daughter said to me, “Why didn’t all those kids have their parents with them?” I couldn’t have asked a better question myself.

Homeschooled students on average score over 30 percentile points higher on standardized achievement tests than their public schooled counterparts. This is true even when neither parent holds a college degree. It’s true in highly regulated states and true in states with virtually no state regulation of homeschooling. It’s true when parents are rich and true when they’re poor, true when they spend a lot on curricula and true when they spend less. Homeschooling works.

Read all about the study here.

I am wondering what your thoughts are on your college experience. If I remember correctly, you went to college (a pretty good one in fact) — do you think that was a waste of your time/money/effort? And, are you planning on encouraging your daughters to go to college? The practical side of me thinks that it’s a waste to send women to college who make the choice to be housewives/stay-at-home mothers. The other side of me knows that college has shaped me profoundly and I would be a different person without it (for more than simply academics). Would you encourage your daughter(s) to go to, say, community college, and send your son(s) to Ivy League schools? This is something I’ve been thinking about recently as I think about how I want to shape and teach my children.

Sometimes, I can’t help but think that my college education was a waste, or at least that I could have gone to a less expensive university and gotten a similar education for a lot less cost. I want my daughter (and son) to get the best education they can, I want them to have the full college experience, but do I want my daughter to then become a stay-at-home wife/mother? And if so, will I be the one paying for her education? Should she take out loans and let her husband foot the bill after they get married? I am confused about this.

So, what do y’all think? How would you answer these questions? (As always, remember that my standard for niceness in comments goes way, way up when I pose questions that originally came from other people. Not that I think any of my regular commenters will have any trouble being gracious, though!)

Imagine with me, if you will, that you just bought a new home. You are so excited. The rooms are spacious, the neighborhood lovely, and the surrounding community is spectacular. The area is loaded with restaurants, museums, orchestras, and cultural opportunities galore. All to entertain and educate you and your children. You wander around your new dwelling staring at boxes and dreaming of the future.

Suddenly, your dream is interrupted by a knock at the door. Wondering who it is, you peek through the door. It’s a face you don’t recognize. You greet the stranger warmly. He, however, appears to be all business. “Are you Mrs. Jones the new homeowner?”

Click on over and read the rest of Choice: It’s a beautiful thing.

As you read her questions, please keep in mind that they are sincere rather than rhetorical. As she explains, she is “thinking on paper” and genuinely struggling with this. She has not made up her mind that all Christian parents need to send their kids to public school, and she is not trying to convert “foolish” homeschool moms to her agenda. I don’t want to set this up as a debate with Chatty personally, but rather to give everyone a chance to discuss the issues she has raised, and I have promised her that I will not approve comments that lash out at her (not that I think any of my regular commenters are likely to be the least bit mean; I just want to be clear). I’ll kick the discussion off by giving my response after I share Chatty’s thoughts.

Here’s what Chatty had to say:

I am a Christian and I was public schooled.

In elementary school I was definitely called the teachers pet, or a brown noser because I was obedient. Because of my obedience, I was the one the teacher relied on for help. I remember being teased, never by my friends but by certain bullies who teased all the kids whether they were brown nosers or not.

I have never been to a dance in my life. While it was hard to explain to my friends the reason why I wasn’t allowed to go, I never became a “social outcast”. This was not because I had “spiritual fortitude” but because my friends accepted their confusion and continued to be friends with me in spite of it. Dances or parties were a big deal to the students the week before, but the week after everyone basically forgot about them and the fact that I hadn’t gone wasn’t an issue; life went back to normal. I was never judged for not going or made fun of; people really didn’t care that much.

At one point in my life (last day of college), I said goodbye to school friends and made a conscious decision in my life to focus on making deeper friendships with people who wouldn’t be confused as to my way of life. We had been growing apart because our differences had made it harder for me to feel comfortable being their friend. I felt as if they were the outcasts and I was the one who had the opportunity to have a fulfilling life.

You said “Good socialization is about being with worthwhile people on a frequent basis, people who will pull you up to their level, not despise you for failing to lower yourself” and I believe that is sometimes true. I also believe that a child has to learn how to react to sin, how to say no and choose God’s way, how to be a good Christian in today’s world and live as an alien IN this world. They need to learn how to be strong in the presence of people who could try and pull then down to their level, or despise them for failing to lower themselves. If we are to be aliens in this world, but still work and provide for ourselves, we need to have the skills to be IN the world but not BE OF IT. Are not those skills something that have to grow within a person from day one? Where does the strength to say no to the world come from, if it hasn’t been planted and watered within a child by their parents while they were going through school? It starts as a seed and you hope and pray that it is a strong, mature, stable plant when it has to go out in the wind by itself. It can rely on it’s root structure of “dealing-with-the-world history” to keep it upright. The wind in the past years of it’s life drove the roots deeper and deeper into the solid ground so that it was more than well prepared for the storms of the future.

I can’t say that I will never homeschool because it is looking more and more like public schools are not safe for Christian children. I am just voicing my concerns and confused thoughts out loud here, “on paper,” as almost a cry for answers to my doubts as to whether or not I believed homeschooling is the right way. I took the time to read through the rest of the comments for this post, which is something I should have done BEFORE I commented, but I just wanted to quote a few. These might not be word for word, as I am typing them from a sheet of paper I hastily wrote them down on.

“It’s important to teach our children how to live in the world, how to deal with inappropriate conduct…”
How do we do this if they aren’t living part of their days in the public and learning to deal with these things daily as they grow?

“Every child needs to learn to think for themself and stand up for their own beliefs… 12 years of age is not the best time for that”
So what age is better. 18? Why not never have that jump, that “best time”, but have it be a gradual thing of growth throughout their childhood? Why not let their roots grow deep into solid ground slowly instead of the shock of a storm that they have never felt the likes of before, and haven’t grown the proper root structure to hold them strong for?

I guess this brings up the greenhouse theory of one other commenter.

““hardening off” a greenhouse plant takes a lot of care and time – and so does preparing a Christian child for life as a Christian adult!”
I really appreciated this thought and found it very interesting. BUT why not start the little plants outdoors so that the hardening off doesn’t have to take place, and possibly be a failed mission? How can a plant live in a nice, easy situation and then be put out in nature to bear the brute force of storms if there is no root structure?

Sorry to use the same analogy over and over. It is obvious that I am struggling over this, thank you all for your help!

Here are my thoughts:

These are important questions! It would do absolutely no good to shelter a child his whole life, only to have him blown away by the first sign of adversity out in the real world. Every Christian parent needs to think through these things in planning how best to raise up the little olive shoots around the table.

So how do parents decide what the best plan is for raising their children? We need to begin by stepping back and looking at what the Bible has to say about how people develop discernment, wisdom, and spiritual strength and then apply that to our parenting and educational choices. Before we had children, as my husband and I were studying Proverbs, we came to a passage that startled me, and that has been foundational in my convictions about raising children.

When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;  Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;  Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. –Proverbs 2:10-20

Did you catch that? We develop the discernment necessary to be delivered from the way of evil people by first having wisdom enter our hearts and knowledge be pleasant unto our souls. The Biblical keys to coping with evil are wisdom and knowledge, not exposure to evil over a long period of time. It’s not wind that drives roots down deep; it’s water.

And where do we get that water of wisdom and knowledge? It springs from one source: discipleship. Exposure to strength begets strength. Exposure to wisdom produces wisdom. We actually learn best by walking alongside a godly example. Consider the following verses:

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. –Proverbs 13:20

Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. –1 Corinthians 15:33

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. –Psalm 1:1-2

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. –Isaiah 7:15

We don’t develop a distaste for evil by being around it all the time. In fact, we are much more likely to build up a tolerance and decide that maybe it isn’t such a big deal after all. Ever hear the excuse, “But everybody’s doing it?”

Now, having your children walk with wise men doesn’t mean zero exposure to the world until they reach some magic age where you turn them loose completely and hope for the best. This is more Russian roulette than good parenting. Effective sheltering is much more about limiting unsupported exposure to the world and maximizing discipleship. It means having your kids live in the real world with you.

Have unsaved co-workers and their families over for dinner. Let your kids help you serve meals at the local homeless shelter. Take them street preaching with Daddy, or let them help pass out tracts. Let them spend the afternoon making dinner for a stressed out mother, or cleaning house for an elderly lady who’s broken her hip. Let them see you standing up for what you believe even though it makes you different from the world. Let them see how you respond to ridicule and pressure. Give your kids chances to help with real ministry and chances to witness victories over the real world storms that assail believers. Walk with them throughout the day and let them see you applying Scripture to your life.

If you do this, your children won’t be hiding any more than their parents are hiding.  Notice that Proverbs 13:20 says, “he that walketh with wise men shall be wise,” not he that “hideth with wise men.” Yes we are “in the world.” But children can be in the world beside their parents. Practice the close discipleship of Deuteronomy 6.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. –Deuteronomy 6:4-7

You can’t really do this if your kids are spending the majority of their waking hours away from you at school. Of course, you can discuss their days at night, pray with them, and offer godly advice, but this doesn’t really compare to being there beside them the whole time. (And really, doesn’t “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up,” sound like an all day sort of a job?).

To sum up, I’m not homeschooling because I want to hide my children from the world but because I think the best place for them to learn to deal with it is at their parents’ sides rather than on their own.

What do you think about the issues raised by Chatty’s excellent questions?

Here, in my hometown (and we’ll just call it “Hometown” since this is, after all, the Internet), we have a top notch public school system. In fact, it’s so good that it’s one of the major draws of the community, with families frequently moving from nearby Big Town just so their kids can attend Hometown schools.

So, you can imagine my surprise the other week when one of the other women at the ladies gym where I exercise told me that her son had gone to an “anti-Hometown High School dance.” I must have had a quizzical look on my face because she went on to explain, “Because everyone humps at the Hometown High dances.”

Ah. I see.

Then she went on to describe how her son and several friends had gotten into a discussion about bras, and one of the girls at the “alternative” dance had wound up pulling her shirt down to show everyone part of her bra to illustrate a point. Apparently, this created a lot of conflict in her son. He didn’t know how to cope with the way seeing his friend’s bra made him feel, and he was so upset that it took him a few days just to tell his mom what was bothering him.

So, Mama Christian, I have a couple questions for you. Don’t worry, they’re multiple choice. One of the most common arguments against homeschooling is the lack of “socialization.” So let’s consider the social environment at Hometown High, and see what we think might be the best option for a Christian family.

1. If you want your child to have an excellent education, but you don’t want him to be a social outcast, do you:
A) Homeschool him, or
B) Send him to Hometown High?

If you picked B), continue below.

2. Given that the dances at Hometown High involve humping, do you:
A) Allow your child to attend the dances and hump his date, or
B) Allow your child to attend the dances, but tell him not to hump his date, and hope for the best, or
C) Send him to a “nice” alternative dance where other Hometown High students may wind up showing him their bras, or
D) Tell him he can’t go to dances and hope he has the spiritual fortitude to deal with the teasing, or
E) Return to question 1. and choose option A)?

The thing about “socialization” that so often gets forgotten is that kids who do not submit to the status quo get ostracized. If all the other kids are going to dances and humping their dates, kids who don’t are not going to be “cool.” In fact, once you get too many social infractions on your record, you’re not just un-cool, you’re a downright outcast. You’re that kid who always gets picked last and is the brunt of all the jokes. And suddenly your “socialization” is mostly just teaching you how it feels to be lonely in a crowded room. Now, I’m not saying that this ALWAYS happens. There ARE Christian kids who really do have the spiritual fortitude to deal with things, and who manage to stick happily to their convictions despite the pressure, but they are the exception, not the norm. The norm is some amount of compromise or some amount of misery, all too often a little of both.

I speak from experience. I was only subjected to public elementary school, so it wasn’t humping that everyone was doing, it was sassing authority figures. But this was still something I couldn’t do because I was a Christian. By the end of fifth grade, I had NO friends in my class. Not one. Everyday I listened to the other students whine, and complain, and talk back. I watched when one girl, ten years old though she was, decided that she was so mad at the teacher, she was just going to leave. So she did. I heard she went home. At any rate, I didn’t see her any more that day.

I was well “socialized.” I was especially well socialized about how bad my unshaven legs looked (I was ten, remember), about how I was the teacher’s pet (not hard when you’re the only one not cussing at him), about the various methods the other students planned to use to murder me (so creative, such a shame they didn’t channel it for good). In fact, I was so well socialized that I started having stomach problems frequently enough that the doctor thought I might have appendicitis, and the teacher thought my parents were keeping me home to abuse me. Good times.

Sixth grade came along, and my noble mother, facing much fear and trepidation, embarked on her homeschooling journey. And I embarked on my journey of social healing. We joined the local homeschool group where I met lots of girls who never sassed authority figures, or called each other names, or mentioned my unshaven legs. They even called my mother, “Mrs.” and seemed to like their siblings. They didn’t have dances, so when we hit high school, humping wasn’t an issue, either. When people heard I was homeschooled and asked in horror, “What about socialization!?” I would always laugh and say that I had so many more friends now that I was homeschooled than I ever had in public school.

Good socialization is not simply about being with people your own age all day. For a serious Christian young person, this can, more often than not, simply be the path to becoming a social outcast. That’s because in an ungodly environment, you either conform, or you face the consequences. If your convictions will not permit you to conform, then that only leaves the second scenario: consequences. Good socialization is about being with worthwhile people on a frequent basis, people who will pull you up to their level, not despise you for failing to lower yourself. That means spending time with other young people who will build you up in your faith and with godly mentors, especially the ones you call Mom and Dad.

Now someone’s going to point out that eventually, kids have to learn to face persecution and adversity and learn to be witnesses in a lost world. This is true, but most children lack the perspective to handle that much pressure without building up their strength on many smaller trials first. To expect them to live day in and day out in an environment where they are scorned is asking too much of a lot of kids. We shouldn’t send children alone into spiritual combat anymore than we would send them into real combat.

I empathized with that mom at the gym, agreed whole-heartedly that girls shouldn’t go around showing their guy friends their bras, and left that day feeling even more determined to keep my family out. Socialization. It’s one of the most important reasons to homeschool.