“How will your homeschooled child ever be able to function in the real world?”
“What about socialization?”
Are any of these questions familiar?
It’s like society has decided to share a collective amnesia concerning school “socialization” and preparation for the real world. Let’s ponder today how our kids will ever function in the real world without all the valuable life skills they’re failing to get from school.
Six Reasons Homeschooled Kids Are Doomed!
Tests and Exams
- How will they cope when their boss asks them to sit a 1-hour exam testing their knowledge of what they learned in their PD training a month ago? How will they ever be able to write a meaningless 3,000-word essay for their boss in two weeks.
Oh, that’s right. That is never going to happen!
All of the hours I spent in high school and university writing endless texts and research papers that would only ever be seen by ONE person. Hours of late nights and hard work for ONE teacher or lecturer to read it and put a grade on it. It didn’t matter how amazing that writing was. It never had a hope of seeing the light of day.
Hands Up Now
2. What will children do if they are not programmed to put their hands up for teacher permission to say anything or use the bathroom?
Yep, another big one we all couldn’t have done without for our adult working life. Don’t move a muscle until you raise your hand and the boss says yes. Seventeen year olds asking for permission to go to the toilet! Oh dear.
Living With Bullies
3. How will homeschooled kids develop nerves of steel walking past the same schoolyard bullies calling them names, day after day?
Wow! If only adults could quit jobs when they work with bullies and move on! If only they could go anywhere and do anything they want as adults.
Don’t you just want to scream along with me when you hear people defending school bullying as preparation for the real world. Not sure about you, but in my entire adult working life, nobody has been waiting by my desk every day to heckle me because they don’t have anything better to do. Even if a co-worker did, if the boss did nothing about it for weeks, I could just say goodbye!
Dining and Hygiene Etiquette
4. Kids are not adequately socialized until they learn to eat their lunch outside, in a row, on a concrete floor that people walk over all day. Social skills and hygiene 101 right there. I can just see my kids in their workplaces, sitting with their co-workers on the foyer floor eating lunch now. Can’t you?
I’m not sure how widespread this is, but this pic is a real news image, and I have witnessed it with my own eyes. I used to attend a weekly playgroup at the local public school when our kids were babies and toddlers. I could not believe my eyes when I saw upper-primary-aged kids sitting in a thoroughfare, in rows, eating lunch on the ground. So happy to see my kids eating at a table each meal time, practising their table manners.
Passive Smoking Every Day
5. They’ll be completely done in if they don’t learn to put up with second-hand cigarette smoke and vape fumes every time they go to the bathroom.
Oh, I forgot! Unlike public schools, there are actually laws that make sure adults can’t smoke within certain distances of their workplaces. Shockingly, grown-ups tend to follow those laws.
It was pretty upsetting to see recently on a parents forum, that there are children not going to the toilet ALL DAY at school because they don’t want to be faced with this scenario. Craaazzzy. This is not the real world. Worse, it’s a pretty serious health hazard.
If you read about the vaping issues going in schools, it’s pretty concerning. See one young man’s story here –
Busy Work
6. If children aren’t made to sit down for hours and hours a day engaged in busy work they have no hope for the real world.
NOT!!
Homogenous Socialization
7. How will homeschooled children cope in the real world if they don’t socialize exclusively with their own age group and socio-economic demographic every day while growing up?
Of course! When our kids move into the workforce, every staff member will be the same age as them, and from the same community, so they better get used to it now.
As I reflect on any workplace or social situation I have been a part of outside of school, this has never been true!
My Own Story
I know this is a very cheeky post, and it probably looks like I have a real hatred for school. I don’t. I simply think the idea that kids can only get optimal social skills and life preparation from a school setting is outdated and plain silly. It was already outdated years ago when I finished public school.
When I left high school and took a gap year, I was shocked at how different the real world was from what I’d known at school. Suddenly, the ‘cool kids’ who had dominated the schoolyard for years, were nobodies. I felt pretty sorry for them, actually. What a letdown after all those years of imagining how extraordinary they were! I never had to see the faces of my bullies again.
Whenever I tried to apply for a job, they wanted experience. Um, that was weird and extremely discouraging. Apart from my small weekend retail roles with other high schoolers, my main life experience for the last 13 years was sitting behind a desk with notepaper, pens and books.
I was seventeen years old and I had no idea how to manage a home. My mum had done all that for me so I could focus on my all-important studies. Imagine when I moved out of home by myself!
Already, I can see my kids have far better social skills than some of their friends from traditional school. They can look an adult in the eye and say hello. They can tell a story to just about anybody who will listen. Our children can confidently go up to greet and assist new kids who visit church. It always makes me so proud of them. Apart from that, they can do simple daily chores and throw a basic meal together for themselves.
Of course, there are modern issues that homeschooled kids are shielded from that we have to have wisdom about. In another post, I will share my thoughts on gradually exposing homeschooled kids to things we wish they would never have to see or experience but will have to eventually.
That’s all for today though. I’d love to hear your thoughts on homeschooled kids and life preparation in the comments. It’s always such a controversial topic!
