Common Questions Asked of Homeschoolers

(Thank you to Jason Holm for pointing me to this incredibly appropriate and wonderful comic and you need to check out his site at www.inflatablestudios.com!)

I will be posting questions that are asked of homeschoolers and giving my views and answers. Please feel free to leave your questions in the comments section and I will address those in upcoming posts as well.

The first question comes from Jenny - "What About Socialization?"

The irony in this question is that when your children go to public school they're not asked, "What About Socialization?"
And who should be more concerned about their children, those of us who -

• Teach them at home
• Have some measure of control over who they are spending time with and what they are doing
• Can encourage them in extracurricular activities and positive ventures like children's church and awanas
• Can spend our days building up our children and giving them opportunities to be around people of all ages.
  

Or should we be more concerned about those children in public schools where your children will -

• Interact with every child in that school whether you consider them a positive influence or not
• They will be exposed to more sex, drugs, alcohol and rock 'n roll than most Christian parents can wrap their minds around and that is just walking down the hallway between classes.
• They will deal with the rejection that comes with cliques around every corner
• Don't forget how important it is what clothes they are wearing. If we are having a lazy day, my kids can wear their pajamas and not get mocked and belittled.
• They will be taught humanism, evolution, that God is not real and its okay to have sex as long as its safe. (I prefer to teach my kids to love God first and then to love your neighbor as yourself, that God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th, that God is real, ever present and concerned about all details of their lives and that God already has their spouse picked out for them so to have sex before marriage would be dishonoring their future husband or wife and how sad that would be.)

That is the kind of socialization that matters most to me. Oh, but for all the naysayers that are concerned about the welfare of my precious children let me assure you -

1. Between my 5 children they attend 14 different dance and gymnastics style classes each week
2. They are very active in children's church and will all be in the Christmas musical at church for which practices start this week
3. They have the honor and privilege of having one set of their grandparents (my in-laws) live with us and their other set of grandparents live 2 miles away. Both grandmas interact and supplement their homeschooling as well and my children behave beautifully with the older generation because of those strong connections
4. They have friends over to play frequently throughout the week and its not uncommon to have 1 or more friends over to spend the night once a week
5. None of my children are really into sports at this point, but if they were they could be doing AYSO soccer and city football, baseball, basketball and volleyball - there are even some local homeschoolers playing football one of the middle schools in town this year.
6. They will be in a Science fair in November
7. We attended a Patriot's Day Celebration September 11th at the National Guard Armory in town for homeschoolers
8. Tomorrow my 2 oldest will be going to the Community Playhouse with me to see a live stage version of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" a musical
9. We go to our local children's museum once a week and follow that by a visit to the library
10. That doesn't even begin to touch on what we do for school and the multitude of individual interests my children have

But I just wanted to say, "Thank you for showing such an interest in my children."