What are the long-term effects of homeschooling?

Long-Term Effects of Homeschooling

I have been homeschooling my two children for eight years now, and would like to make a simple point. Every child is different. It is possible for one child in a family to be very well socialized, while another fits the homeschool stereotype. This is the case with my two children.

My daughter seems to fit in very well indeed. She is often asked to parties, talks on the phone incessantly, and seems very comfortable in most (if not all) social situations. When she encounters problems that would have had me in tears as a preteen, she simply discusses it with me and moves on. I am amazed by her social abilities.

My son, on the other hand, does not fit in so easily. Even though he did attend school for three years, he seems to struggle with maintaining social relationships. Interestingly, he also had problems fitting in during his private school days - before we even considered the prospect of homeschooling. He is a very intellectual sort, and just does not seem to have a flair for socializing, particularly in large groups.

It seems that no matter how hard I try to help my son become socially involved, he gravitates toward solitary pursuits. I have noted similar socialization patterns in other homeschooling families I have met in co-op classes - one child extroverted, another introverted in the same family.

I believe that regardless of the schooling situation, my daughter would be more at ease in a group, while my son would be more capable with his studies. If you are concerned about the long-term effects of homeschooling, take a long look at your children's personalities before you begin. I believe that that personality sets the socialization tone. Truly, every child is different.

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• I homeschooled through junior high and high school. I agree that there are some social disadvantages to homeschooling, but I think that they can be avoided or changed. I realized when I was 15 that I was awkward around most of my peers and so I worked really hard at changing that. If parents are careful to involve their children in social groups the kids will be able to learn the necessary skills.

I was lucky; there is a big homeschoolong community where I live, with many children to interact with. I was also very active in a theater program and I developed strong friendships and a social group with the other kids.

I am now in college and I don't have any qualms about participating in social groups with other students, whether homeschooled or not. If done right, I don't think homeschooling interferes a whole lot with social skills.

• I don't know of any studies that have been done on the subject, but as a current college junior at a top-25 U.S. university, I thought I could at least give you my perspective.

I was homeschooled from the 6th through 11th grades. I graduated early, went to a community college, then transferred. Before I began home education I had ... shall we say, a bit of a problem with authority. Being homschooled, naturally, did not alleviate this, but I can say that it gave me time to THINK. I had much more time to read and study on my own, and this caused me to develop goals for my future such as going to a top-tier university and graduate school. I seriously doubt that this would have happened had I stayed in public school.

I was rather social before I began homeschooling, and was involved in several co-op groups and the like after I was taken out of public school. My social experience was, needless to say, very different from my more typical peers. I always figured that I would have no problem once I moved away to college, since I was adept at communicating with people of all ages and had little trouble making friends (despite my rather picky nature in this regard).

Unfortunately, when I finally did move away to a top university last fall, I was shocked at how underdevelpoed my social skills were. I had (and still have) a certain degree of difficulty feeling at ease with others, but I am the type of person who prefers smaller, more intmate social circles in general.

The main thing that I have found to be highly debilitating is my lack of ability to communicate verbally in a class situation. It is very hard for me to hold an idea in my mind and discuss it coherently in a class situation. I am just not used to it. This has, of course, seriously impacted my grades.

Oral presentations and office discussions with professors are typically awkward, though it is something I have been working on. It is difficult, though, because professors at my school are totally unaccustomed to students with this kind of difficulty. Most of my peers went to private school and are extremely outgoing.

• I was home-schooled from 4th-12th grade. I absolutely loved it. I experienced things that I wouldn't have if I was still in public schools. Right now I am a freshman at a Bible college. Last semester I received good grades and I am learning so much. On the contrary about being unable to socialize; my brother and I were actually so busy with 'socializing', that we at times were overwhelmed. But we loved it. Here is also some information about a study done on home schoolers:

Ann Arbor: Teaching children at home won't make them social misfits, a University of Michigan study suggests.

The detailed study of 53 adults who were taught at home by their parents is one of the first to examine the long-term effects of homeschooling - a practice now followed by as many as 300,000 American families.

'One of the major arguments against home schooling is that it deprives children of the peer contacts needed for normal social development,' says J. Gary Knowles, U-M assistant professor of education. "Public school educators and other critics also question whether home-educated children will be able to become productive, participating members of a diverse and democratic society.

'But I found no evidence that these adults were even moderately disadvantaged in either respect. Two-thirds of them were married - the norm for adults their age - and none were unemployed or on any form of welfare assistance. More than three-quarters felt that being taught at home had actually helped them interact with people from different levels of society.'

For the study, presented recently at an educational conference in New Zealand, Knowles analyzed data from a mail questionnaire. He then conducted extensive interviews in person or by telephone with 10 individuals who agreed to the in-depth discussion and were geographically accessible.

The survey respondents were, on average, 32 years old, and nearly three-fourths were women. One respondent was Hispanic, another was Black and the rest were white. 'Minority home-educated adults are extremely difficult to locate and identify,' Knowles says.

More than 40 percent attended college, and 15 percent of those had completed a graduate degree. Nearly two-thirds of the individuals were self-employed; but only a few worked alone as crafts people or in other solitary occupations; while most either provided employment to others or worked along with family members.

'That so many of those surveyed were self-employed supports the contention that home schooling tends to enhance a person's self-reliance and independence,' Knowles says.

'The religious conservatives who operate home schools are strange bedfellows with the often liberal proponents of the practice who support home schooling for its superior pedagogical benefits,' he notes. 'What both groups share, though, is a feeling that public schools are not serving the best interests of their students, in one way or another. They're perceived as rundown, dirty, dangerous places filled with drugs, weapons, immorality and poor teaching. Whatever the reasons for being educated at home, the adults Knowles surveyed had many positive things to say about the experience. When asked whether they would want to be educated at home if they had their lives to live over again, 96 percent said, 'Yes.' 'They had many warm memories about their home schooling,' Knowles says. 'Many mentioned the strong relationship it engendered with their parents while others talked about the self-directed curriculum and individualized pace that a flexible program of home schooling permitted.'

'...this survey and the life history accounts that arose out of it clearly show that, done in an enlightened, broad-minded way, with plenty of flexibility in curriculum and methods, home schooling can be a positive experience for children with benefits that last for many years.'

I hope that this helps others wondering about home schooling and home schoolers. I would not have changed being home schooled for anything!!

• I am 30 years old now, and was homeschooled through junior high and high school. At the time I was home-schooled, there was much less available to parents. Now there are associations, field trips, sports, plays, etc for students, so a parent can greatly reduce the impact of less social interaction.

Part of the answer to your question is this: Socialization with adults is improved, while socialization with peers is hindered. The reason for this is that teenagers are "weird" :-) . There are so many social do's and don'ts that are very arbitrary and are pounded home by peer pressure, teasing, cliques, etc. In my case I had some trouble adapting to peers in high school, but by college age peers are more accepting of personalities a little different from theirs. There was an adjustment period, but no long term problems for me.

For some, this can be considered an advantage. The family will remain a close relationship and an important influence in the teenagers life, since the amount of peer pressure and social inclusion rituals will be reduced. It depends on the teen's personality and how much value they place on "fitting in" in high school. Understand that there are lots of kids IN regular schools that don't fit in either, and I've seen kids that have been devastated by the peer social structure in those cases, too.

• I've seen a few responses from people that were homeschooled lamenting their own lack of socialization. Feeling awkward, unable to deal with certain social situations, feeling that they were poor judges of others character and suffering from these social maladies. I just wanted to add that I was NOT homeschooled and share these exact same feelings, weaknesses and social fears. I suspect that to some degree they are the norm for most people regardless of their schooling. Very few people are always comfortable socially, always confident, always good judges of character.

I would be very interested to see the results of such a long-term study with a good methodology to see if homeschoolers are more likely to suffer from these social maladies. But in the mean time for those of you who were homeschooled and feel you lacked some important aspects of socialization, let me tell you that traditional schooling is not a panacea in this area.

• I was homeschooled from the middle of second grade through highschool. My familiy lived in isolated sites in Alaska, so most of the time I only associated with my younger sister and adults.

When I got to college, I found that I was better prepared emotionally than the majority of the students who had been to public, warehouse high schools. Most of the kids from the warehouse schools had learned to distrust their teachers, and they carried that over to college. I was able to treat the professors as equals, rather than as threats. I was accustomed to being responsible for showing up on time, and for getting my work done. That was new and difficult for some of the warehoused kids. I was better prepared academically, too, but that's another story.

Since many of the freshman students weren't quite behaving as adults yet, I found some of their behavior strange, but they changed, and I got used to them. They had been isolated from the real world for most of their lives, and so in college they had to make some big changes. Most of them adapted to the adult world quite well, but that was the world I'd been raised in.

If you look at http://geocities.com/nelstomlinson/research.bibliography.html , you'll find some links to research articles which answer your question. The sociology research generally seems to suggest that homeschooled kids do at least as well, and often better, as adults, socially and academically, than do the kids who were warehoused in the public schools.

• I have quickly read the other questions and responses and would like to comment that I am nearly 50 years of age and homeschooled for some years, including all of my high school years. My education contained a real mix of styles, with a combination of unschooling/child-led/natural learning and, occasionally, a text book thrown in!

It (home education) was highly unusual then and, in the country I live in, is only just gaining popularity in recent years. Because of this I was fairly embarrassed by the fact I hadn't attended "normal school" and did not share details of my "inferior education" with anyone for many years!

I was a bit of a loner in my early teens and realised that I needed to increase my social skills, enrolling myself at the age of 14 at an adult community college for a couple of courses (eg, typing) and beginning some part-time jobs. I had friends in my street who attended normal school and whom I met up with after school and on weekends and so the issue of socialisation wasn't a concern. Books were my delight and I learnt a lot from them.

I became self-sufficient from an early age in that I was earning money, learning new skills continually (as one does) and bought my first car before even being old enough for a drivers licence. Although shy, I threw myself into many situations to gain confidence and to learn from, and this was because I felt the need for it, not because my parents thought I should.

College and university did not interest me at all and I did a variety of work, travelled, and completed various courses of interest along the way. Some of these were career related and I often topped the class.

I have been happily self employed for some years and no longer feel that my education was inferior - in fact I now believe it was far superior to what I could have had if I'd remained in the school system.

This is a brief answer to your question, however I trust it has helped.

• Just realised I hadn't answered your socialisation question too well... personally speaking I mix with everyone and anyone and have done for many years, however I don't think this has much to do with whether I was homeschooled or not. I see people who went, or are going, through the school system who are very limited in the range of people they associate with.

In my opinion homeschooled teens (I have all teenagers myself) have the capacity to observe and understand people very well, and choose who they wish to spend time with. My children have no desire to be in with groups of teenagers who behave badly, and that's their choice, not something I've 'disallowed' them to do.

• My background: I'm 30 years old and have lived in Sweden my whole life. Home schooling is not something I have ever heard about before seeing articles about on the web.

The closest thing to home schooling I have heard of in Sweden is a kind of private school (it's "hippie" than "upper class"). The teaching is done in small groups of about 5-10 students per teacher and the reasons people choose that kind of school seems to be similar to what I read about when people choose homeschooling. I know one person who went to such a school. He is now an addict, and the only person I know who has spent time in prison for a drug-related crime. I was really surprised to hear of this because he "doesn't seem the type". I don't know if his school made him too trusting or if it would have happened anyway.

I see people mention concerns for the children's ability to "socialize" and responses that indicate that people do just fine. What I react to is that people seem to think that "socialize" means "get along with friendly, like-minded people". Anybody can do that. The problem is that socialization ALSO involves social "survival" in a world of thugs. You can read any number of books about bullying, but you won't learn to deal with that until you've actually met some bullies (and the younger you are when you learn that the better, since then you won't have to un-learn a misconception).

When I was really small child (I am also an only child) my mother kept me with a private babysitter instead of sending me to kindergarten (I guess this is my closest personal experience to "homeschooling"). When I started school was the first time I had to be around a mixed bunch of kids. The first thing a couple of them did was tease me about something trivial. I responded with what I thought seemed the right way: I tried to reason with them. They responded to that by teasing me more. I got frustrated because they wouldn't listen to my arguments (I had never experienced such behaviour from anybody before) and I guess my face got red and my voice went UP! when I repeated my argument. They thought that was hilarious and teased even more, and the process was repeated until they got me to cry. My mother then told me I should ignore them but it took another five years before that message actualy sank in (because it took that long before I UNDERSTOOD that they were not interested in dicussing things, that they weren't actually criticising my hair (or whatever), that they just enjoyed "pushing buttons" and causing a reaction. My instinct was to treat everybody I met as a friend.).

When I finally figured out how to identify and ignore teasing I became much happier, felt more "competent" as a human AND I did better at school. Now I discovered that I was shy (I was twelve years old so puberty might have had something to do with that), but that wasn't a big problem. I had already learned something about human nature and overcoming difficulties and being in a normal school meant I had plenty of opportunity to practice overcoming my shyness.

I don't see how either of these major steps in my development would have been possible if I had been taught at home.

Another thing that makes me cringe at the thought of home schooling is that it doesn't make sense for a couple of reasons. 1. In some film somebody says "Sure, I tought him everything he knows, but I did not teach him everything I know." This expresses how I feel about having only one teacher (and your parent at that!). One of the best things about school is that different teachers are good at different subjects. You get to deal with experts or near-experts much of the time. Even if you sometimes get a bad teacher that too can be an important experience (you learn that grown-ups can be incompetent too, not just that skinny kid in the back of the classroom who always picks his nose and eats glue). It is also very refreshing when you are taught different/opposing things by different teachers (you learn that one of them has to be wrong, but you have to figure out yourself which one) or when a teacher teaches something that goes against what your parents taught you (in my case, I learned in school that meat contains nutrition and that people who disagree with my mother's vegetarian theories aren't necessarily doing so because they're stupid or immoral). How can one or two parents hope to compete with the competence of a much larger number of teachers? 2. Sure, the student gets to work in his own pace, and gets much more teacher attention, with the result that his knowledge of "skill subjects" (math, spelling, foreign languages, etc) is good compared to "ordinary" students. What I wonder is, when will this student learn to work with others, match and adapt to their pace, work to deadlines, etc? 3. If you want to teach your child certain values, what will happen when he meets people who disagree with him? (I suspect this could be a problem that could result in prejudice and trouble getting along with others) What happens to a person who has been taught what to think and one day discovers that he "disagrees with himself"?

Going to a normal school one meets a fairly representative selection of people. They are rich/poor (OK, the REALLY stinking rich go to private schools, but IIRC even a certain Swedish princess went to an ordinary school) and they are smart/stupid, religiously and politcially different. Some are "troubled" in various ways. You get an idea of what Real People are Really Like. When people don't know that weird things can happen (like a few years ago when Swedish politicians tried to make stockbrokers out of the Swedish people - 90% or so simply ignored the situation which soon became one big fiasco, or when bosses are out of touch with how the work their employers do is actually done and make decisions that lead to disasters, or when engineers design products without first finding out how real people will actually use them)

• I was homeschooled for 1st-9th grade. I attended 10th and part of 11th grade. I took my proficiency test and attended community college on and off for 6 years. My younger brother was homeschooled from 1st-8th grade and attended 9th-12th grade. He did not attend college. Almost all the kids I hung out w/ were homeschooled also.

We were both socially impaired by it; our parents made a point to keep us in sports and try to keep us socializing w/ other kids. But it wasn't enough. Most of our friends were also homeschooled too. Some of us turned out OK, some didn't.

Also, the learning environment is very different. There is no lecture/notes type environment. With a well laid out curriculum I was pretty self sufficient w/ my education. I had a number of pages to read, do the even questions in the work at the end of the chapter, mom graded it, if I didn't make the grade; I did the odd questions too. When the weather was nice, we went to the beach, and I did my math in the sand. When I didn't understand a math concept, my uncle who was a math genius tutored me on it, if I didn't understand something in science, my dad tutored me on it.

I cannot learn in certain types of classroom environments. I think this is why I left high school, and never finished even an AA at a community college. I never learned to take notes, still can't take notes. I can sit through a lecture, absorb everything and ace a test on it, but if any part of the grade relied on keeping notes, I was a D student..

I have a good computer job now, and do well. My brother also has a good job, is happily married w/ 2 kids and has just bought a house.

Some of my friends that I was homeschooled w/ are 30 years old and working in fast food.

I wouldn't change a thing myself, and I don't think my brother would either.

I think I got a far better education homeschooled then I would have in a public school, but I know that my social skills were very underdeveloped because of it, and that makes furthering my education more difficult (at least in a formal classroom environment, I can still teach myself).

• I was reading through some of the responses, and felt I should add my input. I am a seventeen-year-old junior and have been homeschooled my whole life, except for one year attending private school in fourth grade. I have 6 siblings, all of whom were homeschooled. Two are graduated.

I am very involved in community theatre, and do about three shows a year. I have a large circle of friends from the various theatres I've performed in.

For the past four years, I've been taking theatre, choir, art, and piano at a local fine arts center for homeschoolers. The center has over 200 families... around 400 students.

I also take classes such as history, economics, etc. that are held once a week at a local church & contain over thirty students. they are taught by a Harvard-graduate lawyer and homeschooling father who is highly motivated to further the homeschooling cause. We have held two highly successful events for the local community as "class projects"--if they can be called that, as both were completely initiated by students and only slightly supervised by our teacher.

The first was a dinner featuring a well-known college president. The second, a gubernatorial debate (for governor), was televised by a local news station. Both had over 200 in attendance. All thirty-plus students are highly motivated and able to work together well, as is evidenced by these two events. We are all friends and get along very well; some of my closest friends are from these classes.

In addition to the above listed, I have a job, take classes at a local dance school, and go to summer camp. My interest in politics has prompted me to help plan a 9-11 memorial and attend young America�s foundation highschool conferences along with many other events such as the March for Life. I have many, many friends and acquaintances whom I am able to see and socialize with on a regular basis. I also have a group of close friends whom I hang out with on weekends, talk with on the phone, and have "parties".

I get interaction with homeschoolers, privately-schooled kids, and public schoolers alike. I am able to get along well with people, I am outgoing and have good self-esteem. I am close to my family, and have avoided one main thing that i am devastated to see many of my public-school friends become involved in: drugs. No matter what anyone says, I know these facts from my personal experience: I have yet to know someone homeschooled for a good amount of time who is involved with drugs. However, many, many public school kids i know are involved in drugs. (This is also true with drinking and smoking.)

Homeschooling gets kids focused on and thinking about their future. They have fun, they socialize, and they enjoy being teens. But there's a certain level of independence and leadership that you gain from working on your own that you do not gain in school. You motivate yourself to get things done�much like being self-employed. You develop a strong character because no one is there making you complete your assignments on time. (Except Mom who pays my cell phone bill but may choose to stop doing so if i don't finish that eighth-grade health book!!!) And as for that social question, from my own personal experience, I can say that I am homeschooled, get tons of social interaction, and have many friends.

• I am now in my 50s, and attended public schools throughout. I was moved ahead in grade school, so in junior high and high school was younger and better academically than my classmates; I was also very shy. As a result I was tormented and bullied, an object of practical jokes by former friends, and slapped down by teachers who seemed to feel that good work couldn't come from someone like me--I must have plagiarized it or otherwise cheated. As a result of this marvelous school socialization, my college years were especially difficult and I have spent my whole life overcoming the effects.

I homeschooled my son; he has a wide circle of good friends, is happy and sociable, and when he goes to university next year, I am sure that he will have no trouble fitting in.

• Our son was not socially impaired by homeschooling. He was more mature than other children his age, however. By the time he was High School age, he did desire to be around more kids his age, so he chose to attend a small private school for 2 years. From there, he went to the public school for his last 2 years. He related to adults as good or better than he did to kids his own age, but did not have any problems socially.

• I have been reading the responses that are listed and thought I would add in a bit. I'm in 10th grade and have been homeschooled my whole life up to my sophmore year. I'm currentally attending a public school consisting of over 1,600 students and I'm very disappointed in the past few months that I've been going there. I really miss being taught at home and will only be finishing the semester and will be homeshcooled again. There are some benefits of going to school, but there are more and better benefits to being homeschooled. What really upsets me is when people judge homeschoolers as being socially inept and incapable of having friends or a "life". At school I am very social and quickly became friends with many people. At first, yes, I was a little uncomfortable being around that many people for that long in the day, but I think that also comes with being the new kid. Over time I got used the the schedule, routine, and people. The social matter is not the problem, it is the way the teachers teach and the quality of education I am getting. I learned so much more and comprehended the material better when I homeschooled. At school, I am often confused at what the teacher is asking me to do, and when I ask other students, they sometimes don't know either and end up getting a bad grade because the teacher did not make the assignment clear and understood. Or, they give up trying and don't care any more about their grades. In some of my classes, for example geometry, my teacher will briefly explain the chapter( sometimes only 5 mins) and after will assign many problems to do. That is not a teacher, that is only someone there to assign work for you. I've been very disappointed in the quality of most of what I'm learing. Sending your kid to school is not always the best and homeschooling should always be considered when choosing ones education.

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