New home educators and those enquiring into home education often fear that socialisation will be a problem but it seldom is. Home educating does not have to mean your children are isolated – stuck at home all day with no contact with people outside their family. Joining HEN will get you ‘in the loop’ for home-ed events, camps, excursions and so on. Your kids can also be involved in sports, clubs and hobby groups to provide additional social experiences and can also keep in touch with school friends and neighbouring kids etc outside school hours. Home education means living in the community – there can be regular interaction with people of all ages from babies to elderly. Home educators generally see socialisation as one of the great positives of home education. See socialisation for more information.
Some kids do have more trouble socialising than others and home education does present special challenges for their parents. Consider how much socialising they need – we live in a society that values socialising quite highly but people’s social needs vary – some kids need a lot of regular contact, others are very happy in their own company. Yes, they need to learn to live in a society, but they will accompany you to many places in the community, they will have contact with family and family friends. Maybe, for now, that is enough and they can build on it over time.
