Unschool Socialisation: Making Friends, Being Different
It’s Saturday afternoon. I’m at home, settled in front of the heater, thinking about socialisation. Am I’m feeling sociable at the moment? No. I’m quite capable of socialising, but I’m happy sitting here alone with my computer. Actually, I often feel like staying home and not seeing people. And my girls feel the same way. I suppose part of this has to do with the fact we’re introverts. But some of it is due to the fact we’re isolated unschoolers.
Now we’ve all heard people criticising homeschoolers for keeping their kids home: “But what about socialisation?” This is rather ridiculous because our kids have more opportunities to get out into the real world to meet all kinds of people than do school kids. I tend to ignore the socialisation issue. For us, it’s an old debate.
But there’s another aspect of socialisation that does affect us. I’ve had homeschoolers tell me that I need to provide more opportunities for my girls to meet other children, especially those of their own ages. “Come along to our homeschool group. You need to make an effort for your kids’ sakes.”
For a long time, I smiled politely and ignored this advice. Then one day, the words ‘you need to make an effort’ took hold of my mind. Perhaps other people were right. So I consulted my daughters. “Do you think we should go to a homeschool group? We might make some new friends. Should we give it a go? ” We decided we would.
Everyone in the group was welcoming and friendly. There was just one problem: We were the only unschooling family. The girls didn’t like being organised into activities they weren’t interested in. That’s not the way we do things. Conversations weren’t very relevant to us. Kids talked about what year of school they were in and what assignments they had to do. Parents chatted about curricula and planning and how to make kids do their school work. And that was okay because they needed to talk about such things. But we didn’t have anything to say on these topics.
One day, after we’d been going to the meetings for 9 months or so, we looked at each other and said, “Do we really want to go today? Or should we stay home?” We stayed home. And that was the end of that.
We’d tried going to a homeschool group. We’d given it a fair go. We couldn’t see the point of continuing. Other people might criticise us but we were happy.
Why do we worry about socialisation? Are we afraid our kids won’t be able to talk to people? Maybe they won’t be able to make friends. And they need lots of friends. Or do they?
As introverts, I don’t think we need crowds of friends. A few kindred spirit ones are enough. To be honest, we haven’t found any of these locally. Unschooling has made us different from those around us. No, that’s not quite true. Unschooling has allowed us to be who we are: different. But maybe one day we might meet other people just like us. As Sophie once said – in the podcast, Do My Unschoolers Mind Being Different? – “I can’t be the only weird person in the world!” In the meantime, we do connect up with like-minded unschoolers online.
Despite the fact my girls are weird, they can talk to people, any people, not just unschoolers. They have good communication skills. And this is something not all kids have.
“They don’t know how to talk properly,” observes Sophie referring to some school kids she knows. “They have no idea how to have proper conversations where everyone is included. They talk about themselves all the time. They’re not interested in hearing what other people have to say. They don’t really want to know about me.”
And this can be really hard. How do you become part of the conversation when no one is willing to listen? When no one is interested in what you might have to say? When they don’t even realise you’d like to be included? Often, my girls give up. As they say, sometimes it’s the people who are always talking who have a problem. Just because someone has no shortage of words doesn’t mean she knows how to relate to people.
Getting together with other people on a regular basis doesn’t necessarily teach us how to communicate and get on with others. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. So I’ve stopped worrying about such things as homeschool groups and organised field trips. As long as our kids are capable of being sociable, it really doesn’t matter if they choose to stay home.
Of course, my girls have each other. We’re a crowd on our own. What would I do if I had an only child? I don’t know. I’ve never experienced that. Have you?
I wrote this post a couple of years ago. I published it and then changed my mind and reverted it to a draft form. Now I’ve published it again!
I told this story in episode 139, of my podcast: Unschool Socialisation: Making Friends, Being Different.
I explored the following questions:
If someone doesn’t want to be our friend, is there something wrong with us?
How do you become a cool kid?
Should we pretend to be someone we’re not so that we’ll be accepted and have friends?
Or is it better to be ourselves?
Do we need lots of friends?
Does ‘socialisation’ actually teach us how to communicate with people properly?
Or maybe some people who have no trouble talking don’t actually have many communication skills?
Of course, some unschoolers may be part of big unschooling groups and have no trouble finding like-minded friends!
I’m also talking about
NaNoWriMo and friends
My unschooling book
How I stepped outside my comfort zone and had an exciting adventure!
Show Notes
Podcast
Episode 48: Do Unschoolers Mind Being Different
Novel Writing
Video
Pam Laricchia’s Podcast
Photo
Gemma-Rose and Sophie look happy even though they don’t really have any kindred spirit friends, don’t they? Sisters can be best friends with each other! Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoy my podcast, please consider sharing the link so we can spread the word about unschooling. A quick review or rating would help too!
Please feel welcome to leave a comment about anything I talked about in this episode. I’d love to hear about your own socialisation experiences. Do you have trouble meeting like-minded people? Do you worry about your kids not having many friends? Or are you fortunate: Do you belong to a thriving unschool group?
You could just stop by and say hello!