We are all sick of hearing the socialization question, I know. By now, most of us have developed pithy answers about how our children are better socialized than public school kids because they are accustomed to spending time with a wide range of individuals - not only those of the same age, reading level, and address, with last names that begin with the same letter as their own. That is a valid point, of course, and most of our kids have had that experience. However, there is another side to socialization, overlooked in homeschooling circles all too often, having to do with respect for each other. I organize many activities and field trips for homeschoolers, and I'm fond of telling the event coordinator that our group will be easier than the public school groups they are used to because there is a higher adult to child ratio. Unfortunately, I often get stories about the problems that they have had with homeschoolers. Many of you have similar stories, I'm sure.
A few months ago I was attending a school show at the Capital Theatre in Concord with my family. We probably attend a dozen a year – they are inexpensive, educational, enjoyable, high quality and we like them very much. You do not have to put together a group to go, you can simply reserve and pay for the number of seats your family will need, but at the school price…..a pretty good deal, I think! This particular day we arrived early in hopes of getting good seats within the homeschool section – and we were told the front row of the balcony (excellent seats in this particular theatre) was “off limits” in school shows from now on, because the children had been throwing things over the edge of the balcony endangering the children in the orchestra seats below. We sighed and patiently explained to the house manager that “we were homeschoolerers and that wouldn't happen since there are parents with every group of kids". She sighed and patiently explained to us, that the kids who had thrown the items off the balcony at the very last show, were homeschoolers too! We talked her into giving us another try, and so far it has been working out well enough that we got our front row seats back for now.
Some time ago our local support group arranged for a talk on the recycling systems at a recycling center. One of their employees took us on a tour by bus of the facility, showed us slides of the construction, explained how and why the center worked the way it did and then took us on a nature hike at the end. Although most of the children were calm and respectful during the presentation, there was a small group who sat in the corner beeping their electronic games while our guide was talking to us. Is it any surprise that this was the same group who had to be physically pursued by our guide on the nature walk because they strayed outside the approved area? Or who opened the emergency door of the bus while we were on the bus tour? Of course there are kids who behave poorly in every group – and every kid behaves poorly sometimes. The question is what is done about it? In the public school field trip, the chaperones have the option of leaving some kids back at the school, or sending them out to the bus, or sitting an adult next to them to force them to behave respectfully to the presenters and the other kids. What do we do with the homeschool parent who does not feel it necessary to do the same? Can we who organize the trips step in? We seldom feel authorized to speak to a child about their behavior when they are accompanied by their own parents!
Some of you are familiar with the Homeschool Resource Center in Dover. Some conflict has developed at the center that further illustrates the need for mutual respect among homeschoolers. It is not easy to coordinate efforts of people with different goals. Some see the resource center as a place to hold classes and other structured activities, some see the center as “recess” in their homeschooling week – a place for the kids to play and interact without structure. How to balance those often-conflicting goals is the very difficult work of the resource center coordinators. I have been the facilitator of the drama club, which meets at the resource center, for the last several months, and found it to be quite a challenge. The kids don’t want to come inside to work on scenes and monologues when their friends are playing tag or capture the flag outside. So, they choose not to come in, the club rehearses without them, and their parts are reassigned to the kids who did come in. They are sad about that and feel that I am “forcing” them to come to drama club, when the idea of the resource center is that kids should make up their own mind about how to spend their time, and the meeting and socializing is an important part of being there. I think that the coordinators of this particular center (in Dover) have done a great job of balancing everyone’s needs and priorities, in fact there is now going to be a community meeting to discuss these issues at the resource center every week. However, the drama club recently produced at show at the center. A large number of kids and adults came to see the show. Again, most were respectful, but some talked and laughed in the middle of the kid’s presentations. Some of these kids had worked for weeks on these monologues… memorizing lines, getting costumes together…. practicing every week in front of the other club members to get every nuance just right – many were performing in public for the first time. Yet there were times when it was actually difficult to hear the performers because of adults who would not stop talking in the audience. I was appalled at the lack of respect shown for these young thespians.
We had a similar problem in a parent/child music class that was presented here in Dover a year or so ago. Parents would sit in the room with the kids, but chat with each other instead of participating. So, the poor teacher (who we were paying) not only had to try to keep all the kids interested in basic music theory – not an easy task when you consider the wide age range we presented to her – but she also had to try to be heard above the voices of many parents paying no attention to her at all.
Socialization includes teaching our children a few social skills. We need to draw a distinction between allowing our kids the freedom to express themselves and ask questions, and allowing our kids to be rude to those who are working hard to share creative or artistic work which they have developed. They need to understand the concept of paying attention to the expert that we have invited to speak to us about a particular subject, whether it is science, history, math or literature. If the presentation is not as fascinating as we had hoped, perhaps we will not ask that particular speaker to come back, or perhaps we will quietly excuse ourselves and leave the room…but it is not alright to be disruptive and obnoxious just because we may be a little bored at this moment.
Socialization includes the ability to work with many different types of people, to see that we can learn something new from every person and every experience. Just because we may not love this presentation, that doesn’t mean the person next to us might not be trying to listen. Perhaps we can think a bit about which things our kids will actually enjoy before we take them to something that is really not appropriate for their current level of interest. Many of us are quick to say that our kids are better socialized than public school kids, and there is no question they have the opportunity to be, but it takes some work on the part of the parents just like all other aspects of homeschooling. Being independent is not an excuse to be rude! None of us is perfect at this job, nor are our children, it just seems to me that bringing the item up for discussion in our families might help. It is, after all, about respect.
