Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form...
by Pinsy352 on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @06:52PM
(#38106504)
The main thing I struggled with (K-12 homeschool grad) was having no peer relationships that weren't filtered by my parents. Basically, I had a lot of experience with deferring to authority (my mom/teacher), but no experience choosing my own friends, navigating peer to peer conflict where a parent wasn't going to intervene at the slightest hint of disagreement, or establishing personal boundaries.
It actually made for a very unsafe college experience. I had no experience telling anyone no, or doubting anyone's intentions. It took being lured alone with a man to realize that he didn't want to study Calc I, he wanted to make sexual advances on me when I was alone. I was lucky to learn that lesson without getting sexually assaulted.
Took me another few years to realize that I didn't have to obey everything my boss said, even if it was personally detrimental to my career.
My mom, of course, would tell you how great it was that I wasn't socialized with "an unnatural collection of same aged peers" and how I was always "so polite around adults."
Elementary and middle school are even less like being an adult than high school
I think GP's point is that the school environment is nothing like "adulting," so your original point was just plain wrong.
And I agree with the GP: I don't see any reason why home-schooled kids would be at a disadvantage to public school kids when learning to navigate the adult world, because the school environment is strange and not at all focused on "adult life skills."