Social Disorientation
Dealing with social disorientation. In this cheeky post, I shared why I am not worried about the overall “socialization” of our kids. However, I had to concede that homeschool kids’ lives can sometimes be very insular and shut off from popular culture, and ideology. As a first generation homechool mum, I don’t know what it would feel like to stand in front of a group of kids and have to say, “I don’t know who Taylor Swift is.” Confused looks to follow, and a child feeling very left out.
I think, if not addressed, this lack of exposure to popular culture and different ideologies could cause homeschooled kids to experience social disorientation when they do go out in to the world by themselves full-time as young adults. I promised a follow up to address this issue. Well, this is it!
How do we expose our kids to popular culture, as well as the things we wish they never had to engage with, so they really are prepared to go out of our homes and not experience extreme social disorientation? Here, I give my top 3 approaches.
1 – Engage in Activities With Kids Who Go to School
You might have extended family that sort this out for you. That’s great! This research paper highlights that an important element of socializing home-schooled kids is making sure they have the opportunity to mix with different kinds of kids and families. We live away from most of our family. As I’ve talked about before, we make use of after-school programs and sports clubs as part of our homeschool community. The kids in these places are mostly public schooled kids. They dress and talk differently from our daughters. Which is usually a good thing! But one day our children are going to find themselves in the workplace together with these children, and they need to know what to do with people who don’t look like them, or share their values.
It might be hard to watch your kids listening to potty humour and the swear words that occassionally pop up. I think of it as an opportunity to talk about what is and isn’t appropriate behavior, and to train my kids to take the lead in these circumstances, rather than getting sucked into the depravity, They also need to learn to show love to people who don’t behave well.
Sometimes, you might be pleasantly surprised by the interactions they have though. Recently, at a sports game, a little girl asked our eldest daughter if she had a crush on anybody. They are all of ten years old by the way! She didn’t know what a crush was, so that was a fun little chat on the way home! My daughter said no, even though she had no idea about the question. The girl proceeded to let her know that she did, but he’s a boy from church. She continued on, asking our daughter, “If you have a boyfriend, it’s better to have a Christian boyfriend, isn’t it?” The girls had no idea they were both Christians, and my daughter, understanding the final part of the conversation, enthusiastically agreed that was true.
2- Watch Popular Movies to Prevent Social Disorientation
I am a little strict here, but movies tend to incorporate the latest trends in pop culture, and push the latest ideologies that kids at school are getting overwhelmed with daily. I do highlight that I almost always watch these movies with my kids. They open up fantastic discussions, and we get to look at the movie from a Christian perspective. We talk about what made the characters act the way they did. Should they have acted that way? How would Jesus want us to respond to that situation? Was the overarching theme biblical?
Recently I let the kids watch a movie without me that looked okay. They finished it, exclaiming how funny it was, but they also got a little annoyed because the main characters kept saying “Oh My God.” I was proud that they mentioned this as a negative feature of the movie, and that they knew that God wants us to honor his name and not use it in such a way.
What To Do With All of the Magic?
I have let my kids interact with fairy shows and magical journeys, although they’re outgrowing them a bit now. I just consider them a fantasy genre on par with “The Chronicles of Narnia,” and nothing too serious. To be honest, the media market is so saturated with these themes that it’s difficult to escape them. On account of that, my kids have become bored of them early, anyway. When we enter the realm of sorcery in films though, it’s a definite no-go!
I have explained to our kids that we don’t want to expose ourselves to things that God has told us are totally off limits, and not good for us. Sorcery and witch craft belong in that category. In my opinion, the exposure needs to be enough to make them familiar with and able to engage with everything floating around out there, but not so much that it can be used by the tempter to lure them into seeking more information about the demonic.
3 – Books, Books and More Books! The Greatest Weapon Against Social Disorientation
By far, I think this is the most effective tool in the arsenal for helping our kids engage with the world outside of their, sometimes, insular home school bubble. Our kids are avid readers, and we are regular visitors at our local libraries. As their appetite for reading grew insatiable, we quickly ran out of what I would have considered suitable material for them to read.
As we looked for options, every book seemed to have a same sex relationship running through it, potty humour, ten to twelve year olds talking about their first kiss, kids in completely unacceptable situations, or the annoying sorcery theme. Our kids knew that as soon as these topics came up in a book they were reading, it was game over. They willingly put books down when they turned up in them, but it was getting more and more challenging. What to do?
The turning point came one day when we’d been to the library, and our eldest daughter had picked up a super funny novel she was enjoying reading. A third of the way through, boom, the main character has two mums. She became extremely exasperated, exclaiming, “What can I read then?
We sat down and discussed the matter, and we came to the conclusion that we couldn’t keep closing books midway when these characters and themes entered in. We turned the book into a read aloud, and it turned out that the two mums in the book only featured about four times in total. They were background characters. So, we discussed what God’s word says, how to love people living in this way, and we moved on.
As a result, our kids know what we think, and how to approach such people. This topic, along with the others listed earlier, has become a disappointment in a text, just like the “Oh my God” parts of the movie. They can mentally register they’re not happy with that bit being in there, while they still appreciate the rest of the story. I’m happy with that, and in a way, the book is helping me out. Rather than having to awkwardly bring up these topics randomly out of thin air, the book opens the discussion.
These books also contain lessons on popular culture that will undoubtedly come up in work place conversations, and with friends they’ll make who went to school. Being at home, our kids aren’t included in the commercialized fads that come and go, and the pop music. These books are really great at introducing this stuff.
Lastly, modern kids’ books make our kids dread going to school. A very common theme in these books is extreme bullying, and struggling with school work. They make us rejoice at being homechoolers! One we read recently had a horrifying bully in it that prevented a young boy from going to the toilet. The boy had previously caught him off guard there, grabbed him, and recorded him saying something embarrassing because he had a stutter. Sadly, as the news regularly reports, violence against students and staff has become the norm in schools, and the book acknowledged this too. They help keep my kids at home! So again, they’re really working to my advantage!
In saying all of this, just as with the movies, there are limits. For example, a graphic novel filled with potty humour that follows a love story unfolding between two 13 year old boys. Um, huge no! I’m always shocked at just what’s out there.
For this reason, I am hoping to help parents everywhere out with a free monthly book review, so you can know that your kids are reading something that helps them understand the broader world around them, without over doing it. I will also be creating an optional activity and discussion booklet to purchase on my blog. Can’t wait!
If you have any more ideas on this subject, we’d love to hear them. Let us know in the comments.
