I'm continuing with my 10 part series on the pros and cons, as I've experienced them so far, of homeschooling here in the UK. As I said before in part 1, these observations are in no particular order. Here's number 2:
We've all heard the scare stories, and perhaps some of our children have been unfortunate enough to experience it. The peer pressure, the bullying, the teasing... I think it's important for my children to be 'in the world' and not completely sheltered from it, but on the other hand I want to give them the gift of childhood and innocence as long as I can. Since coming back from Russia our children have suddenly been under much more pressure to have the 'latest gadget'. "Why can't we have an iPad? Eloise has an iPad!", "When can I get a phone, Mummy?" We know of children at school being bullied because they don't have a smart phone, which is terribly sad. There are also other things they pick up in the playground - bad language, unpleasant jokes, and perhaps even exposure to explicit ideas or images that they're not yet ready to handle. The more scare stories I hear from my friends who have children in mainstream school, the more thankful I am that I get to protect my children from that for just a few more years.
The reverse of this, of course, is the need to create opportunities for positive socialisation. Since they don't get to make friends naturally in a school setting, I have to work harder to engineer their social lives for them. For us that has meant making an effort to keep up with the close friends they made at school last year, and making sure that each child is enrolled in one or two extra-curricular clubs, like Guides, Gymnastics or Saturday Football. So far this seems to be working well, but we have yet to make any close homeschool friends. It's been hard to find that perfect homeschool family - one that has children of similar ages and genders, that lives reasonably nearby, and where both the kids get on with the kids and I 'click' with the mother. I think that our background of living in Russia makes us a little weird and different as a family, even within the homeschool network here where we live, lovely though many of them seem to be!
Do you have any thoughts on the whole idea of negative and positive socialisation? Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.
Abide in Him!
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Pro: Avoiding Negative Socialisation
We've all heard the scare stories, and perhaps some of our children have been unfortunate enough to experience it. The peer pressure, the bullying, the teasing... I think it's important for my children to be 'in the world' and not completely sheltered from it, but on the other hand I want to give them the gift of childhood and innocence as long as I can. Since coming back from Russia our children have suddenly been under much more pressure to have the 'latest gadget'. "Why can't we have an iPad? Eloise has an iPad!", "When can I get a phone, Mummy?" We know of children at school being bullied because they don't have a smart phone, which is terribly sad. There are also other things they pick up in the playground - bad language, unpleasant jokes, and perhaps even exposure to explicit ideas or images that they're not yet ready to handle. The more scare stories I hear from my friends who have children in mainstream school, the more thankful I am that I get to protect my children from that for just a few more years.
Con: Needing to Work Harder at Creating Positive Socialisation
The reverse of this, of course, is the need to create opportunities for positive socialisation. Since they don't get to make friends naturally in a school setting, I have to work harder to engineer their social lives for them. For us that has meant making an effort to keep up with the close friends they made at school last year, and making sure that each child is enrolled in one or two extra-curricular clubs, like Guides, Gymnastics or Saturday Football. So far this seems to be working well, but we have yet to make any close homeschool friends. It's been hard to find that perfect homeschool family - one that has children of similar ages and genders, that lives reasonably nearby, and where both the kids get on with the kids and I 'click' with the mother. I think that our background of living in Russia makes us a little weird and different as a family, even within the homeschool network here where we live, lovely though many of them seem to be!
Do you have any thoughts on the whole idea of negative and positive socialisation? Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.
Abide in Him!
Are you new to Grace to Abide? Keep updated with each new post via email, facebook or twitter.
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