jmkreth

I've always felt that, as much as bullying and dealing with mean kids can be difficult, in many instances, it can help a child's social skills by teaching them how to deal with difficult situations. Now, of course, there can be extreme cases where the problems being caused way outweigh any benefit of learning to work-through and deal with those issues, but do you feel like your kids are still exposed to those type of situations and learn those skills when you home school? I'm sure they can still arise, but I wonder if you get the same benefit that way or not.

EDIT I don't know that anyone has taken my comment this way, but I wanted to clarify anyway. I am in no way saying that I think homeschooling is bad. Nor am I suggesting that homeschooling a child because of bullying issues is a bad thing, nor am I trying to downplay anyone's experiences with bullying. I was just genuinely curious as to people's experiences with homeschooling and the effect it might have by potentially removing a child from having to deal with bullies and mean kids as part of their social learning experience. I wasn't sure if simply exposing your child to other kids through other means would expose them to the same type of bullying/mean kid experiences and what that effect might be. Thanks for all the responses.

As an attorney myself, I can see why you'd rather homeschool your kids ;)

All makes sense to me. And thanks for the input.

Certainly, everyone's experiences are unique and in no way am I suggesting that it will help in all circumstances nor am I minimizing your experiences. With that said, my personal experience tells me that it did provide me with some helpful social skills. I was bullied, as most kids were, but not to any extreme. I can remember being miserable at times, but I learned to handle the situations in an appropriate fashion and as I grew older (now being in my early 30s) I can honestly say that while the quantity of people that are crappy to me has decreased significantly, there are still definitely a few, and those skills I learned at an early age still come into play. YMMV.

Sounds good to me. I'm certainly not trying to judge your parents' (or anyone's) decisions to homeschool. Really, I was just curious about people's experiences regarding removing a child from the school environment where, from my personal experience, I learned to deal with a lot of difficult situations that other children caused. I had always wondered, when thinking of the homeschooling in the abstract, if homeschooled children would obtain those same "problem solving" skills (for lack of a better phrase) where they weren't having to deal with bullies and mean classmates on a fairly regular basis.

I'm sure you would experience them in other facets of your life when you saw or socialized with other children, but that raised a few questions for me:

1.) Were the "negative" interactions with other kids equivalent to what you'd experience being in the school system?

2.) Do children really gain something from dealing with those experiences?

3.) Assuming the answer to 2 is yes, do you really need equivalent experiences to those you'd deal with in the school system to gain those benefits or can your interactions at a less intense level still serve that purpose? and

4.) If you do need equivalent experiences to get "maximum benefit" from them, is the harm of being those negative, bullying environments actually outweighed by the social skill you gain from being in them?