I have found that there are a lot of articles on how to respond to people about socialization when it comes to homeschooling.  While helpful, I find most lacking.  I will preface this blog by saying that I loved school as a child and young adult.  I also never wished I was homeschooled.  Looking back I am well aware that my parents were not equipped to handle such a challenging task.  What I want to talk about here is what people really mean when they bring up the socialization question.

                An institutional product myself, I can see how people who went through a system, and most have, question the social aspect of homeschooling.  When we were in school, we didn’t spend a great deal of time socializing in any classes that were taught classically.  Teachers would teach pupils who sat in their desks quietly taking notes while answering questions from the teachers and occasionally having the chance to ask a few.  Instead our social experience was through a quantity of time with a group of our peers.  We got to know them through how they responded when being called upon and how they interacted with others during and between classes.  Even if they weren’t our friends we had a good idea of who these people were. 

                We also got to know our peers through our interactions in after school activities like clubs and sports.  Because these activities were less formal, this was when we got to form more lasting friendships with people we had much in common with.  It was here that we were more likely to find our true friends and create our social life outside of school time.

                Coming from this perspective, those that raise the question “What about socialization?” do have a valid concern.  However, the only reason that this question is valid is simply because they either have no exposure to what homeschooling is about or their knowledge has been acquired through bad examples, set by even worse parents.  As homeschooling parents, I believe the ONLY way to answer these concerns, that will satisfy the person that asked, is not by giving obscure examples and statistics put forth in homeschooling articles that are intended to help us, but by giving a very general question a very specific answer.  Everyone’s answers will be as different as how they homeschool. 

                The intent behind their question is usually to find out how YOU are doing it, not how every other homeschooling family does it.  I believe it makes homeschoolers look suspicious when we give unspecific answers.  People want to find out how the quantity of time they spent around a set group of kids at school can translate to a homeschool situation.  They aren’t questioning whether or not institutional “socialization” is right or wrong.  They just don’t understand how homeschooling works or they wouldn’t have asked the question in the first place.