Is it a bad idea to homeschool our kids (9M, 15F) without friends on purpose?

[Coily]

While I can appreciate your concerns, i think isolation is going to make those vices more appealing to your kids as time drags on.

When it came to cigarettes and alcohol my parents made it very clear that if I wanted to try it, they would get those for me and have a lecture about them before I could try anything. Well that killed off all interest I had.  My friend kept condoms in a box on the refrigerator when her two kids were growing up, and strictly let them know if they were to have sex it had to be under her roof; at her youngest's wedding I found out how effective it was.

My point is you make vices less alluring, because it's something "boring mom and dad" do with the kids.

 

As for bullying, it's rough seeing anyone dealing with that, but as i was heavily bullied growing up; the only way forward was dealing with things on my own terms. Yeah it sucked at times, but learning how to cope with difficult people helped immensely as an adult.

[Seraphim]

Adults bully and get bullied as well, so you won’t be saving them from that either . My husband was bullied at work last year. I have been bullied as an adult at work as well. Bullying doesn’t end in childhood , all you were doing is depriving them of a way to learn how to handle it. 

[Cherylyn]

2 minutes ago, Seraphim said:

Adults bully and get bullied as well, so you won’t be saving them from that either . My husband was bullied at work last year. I have been bullied as an adult at work as well. Bullying doesn’t end in childhood , all you were doing is depriving them of a way to learn how to handle it. 

I agree bullying applies to children and adults.  It's horrible.  I was bullied as a child,   a teenager and as an adult from long ago colleagues as well by local and faraway relatives.  What has helped me was to enforce strict boundaries or in some cases,  ultimate estrangement.  

Unfortunately,  being bullied didn't always teach me how to handle it as a child or teenager.  Not that I preferred to be protected.  I actually had to learn how to handle it during adulthood but practice makes perfect.  😋  Live and learn.

[HomeschoolMomwithQs]

Thank you all for your responses. But I feel there are a lot of inaccurate, pretty unfair assumptions going on here.

1) My daughter didn't start being homeschooled until 12, meaning she went to a public elementary school from K-5 then a private middle school for one year. She's not socially awkward and knows a lot about school social norms. Likewise with my son, who spent a year in kindergarten at that same private school.

2) I just don't feel they will be the odd ones out. They show no signs of that in the first place. Remember, we're non-religious homeschoolers who don't overly restrict (with necessary exceptions) internet, phone, movie usage, etc. They're up to date with pop culture, modern humor, etc. 

3) It is a major stereotype that all "sheltered" kids will go buck wild when in college and out on their own. This may be unconventional to some, but in order to not paint alcohol as such an extreme, tempting thing for our kids, we very occasionally allow our daughter to have some under our supervision. She hates the taste of it and shows no signs of going "crazy" over it when on her own one day.

4) Moreover, this is precisely the motivation behind my "method." Dealing with this stuff in childhood––when you are NOT prepared for it, where it burdens and handicaps your undeveloped mind––is not beneficial. But having an upbringing where you can connect to yourself, ground yourself in your dreams/convictions/who you are produces an adult who can strongly handle the toxicity of the world. Not a baggaged person already weighed down by toxicity they would have been better without in childhood/adolescence.

[Wiseman2]

3 minutes ago, HomeschoolMomwithQs said:

 I feel there are a lot of inaccurate, pretty unfair assumptions going on here.

Why are you so defensive about it? Are you under some type of scrutiny? What exactly is the issue you are hoping to examine? No one can tell you how to raise your kids.

[LootieTootie]

My parents sheltered me and my siblings thru-out our childhood and I have seen the pros and cons. There were 8 of us and we were all close to age so we always had a lot of fun. Very close-knit family, which sometimes my husband says we hang out too much lol.

We all went to college, some went away fro college. None of us went buck wild, maybe me the closest to always partying every weekend and having lots of dates and acquiantances (never did drugs or one night stands). 

However, my siblings and I all agree that none of us were prepared for socialization in college and this includes job settings. In fact, most of my siblings, including me, identify ourselves as "socially awkward."  We also admit that we all can't seem to keep a friend, that we are bad about keeping in touch. I've tried but I just can't seem to keep doing it, even the people I miss the most from my high school and college. I just have this gnawing feeling that I come off desperate so I stopped. One of things I noticed a lot is when I'm in with group of people around my age, they'll talk about kid shows back then or how they went to summer camp every summer, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, neighborhood soccer, etc. and I just can't relate. It doesn't make me insecure but it does make me feel like I missed out. Maybe that's why my siblings who have kids have taken a different approach from my parents.

They really make their kids do everything by exposing them to everything - if that makes sense. They've all admitted wanting to give their kids things our parents couldn't or didn't give them. 

[Seraphim]

Okay, well revisit it when they are grown up. I am sure they will give their opinions . 
Did you want discussion or agreement? My son is almost 26 . I give my mom very definite discussion where I feel she messed up. 

[boltnrun]

If you've already decided your approach is the correct one, what exactly are you looking for when asking for advice on this forum? Your title includes the words "is it a bad idea...?"

[bluecastle]

What do your kids say about this decision? While I'm not suggesting their say is the say, I do believe that their thoughts and feelings, far more than a collection of internet strangers, is likely to be your most valuable feedback on this and a valuable lesson for them in knowing you take them as seriously as human beings as you do your charges. Can only speak for myself, but when navigating anything school related regarding kids—particularly changes—this has been a vital step. 

As for the specifics, you're bound to get all sorts of takes, as everyone has different beliefs and experiences. What I am curious to better understand is: Are your children allowed to interact with peers and do you do anything to ensure that happens rather than putting the onus on them? After school climbing camp? Team sports? Sleepovers at the homes of their friends from the school's they're currently at? Echoing others, I personally think that's pretty key stuff when it comes to the developing years. The internet is a not a substitute for that, even with limited guardrails. 

Lastly, you write about this with a lot of confidence: in this approach, along with your perceptions of the ills of the alternatives. What I'd like to better understand is: Are you open to the idea of this experiment proving itself to not work? As in: If your kids tell you they are miserable, are you open to changing course? This is just me echoing me, in ways, but I think that kind of sensitivity and flexibility is the pixie dust that really helps kids thrive. 

[HomeschoolMomwithQs]

9 minutes ago, bluecastle said:

What I am curious to better understand is: Are your children allowed to interact with peers and do you do anything to ensure that happens rather than putting the onus on them? After school climbing camp? Team sports? Sleepovers at the homes of their friends from the school's they're currently at?

I said we are homeschooling and until they ask for those things and show they really want them, then no.

[Seraphim]

Okay, honest question, what is the question then ?

[Batya33]

They may not know how to ask or what to ask for. Also unless they do after school activities or activities with other home school kids it’s highly unlikely they’ll be included in parties or sleepovers etc.  

[Wiseman2]

19 minutes ago, HomeschoolMomwithQs said:

I said we are homeschooling and until they ask for those things and show they really want them, then no.

Unfortunately you won't know how much this isolation method will damage their mental health until it's too late. Please address whatever happened to you as a child, but not through this cloistered experiment on your children.

[bluecastle]

48 minutes ago, HomeschoolMomwithQs said:

I said we are homeschooling and until they ask for those things and show they really want them, then no.

Can you entertain the idea that, under the circumstances, this might be a tall ask of two children? 

The subtext, if that's even the right word, of the way they're being schooled and raised is: it's bad out there. Very, very bad. Or, more specifically, the subtext is: Mom and dad think it's bad out there. Very, very bad.

Ergo, on some cellular level, there is a chance that they are scared to ask for things, or express a desire in things, that they already know are viewed as verboten and could potentially threaten the bond with the only two people they interact with on the planet. One of the hardest things for us adults, after all, is to broach subjects with other adults that we suspect might be uncomfortable. To put that onus on a child is, well, a lot.  

Guess all I'm saying, or suggesting, is that it might go a long way to say something to the effect of, "I really care about how you guys are feeling, whether you'd be interested in something like a team sport or after school activity, and want you to know that I 100 percent support that and don't want you to feel you can't talk to me." That's different than creating an internal rule in your head—that they must (a) ask and (b) show seriousness—because it's letting them see the full workings of the system they're in.

[Cherylyn]

I can't tell you how to raise your kids but I can tell you how my parents were inept raising a family. 

I lived a somewhat quasi-sheltered existence.  I wished my parents would've better prepared me for all sorts of mean characters in the world.  They didn't do anything when I was bullied nor teach me how to defend myself.  I was taunted and had clods of dirt thrown at my face as I walked home from school.  I also remember a bully when I was in 7th grade.  During high school I was unscathed but I wasn't involved in anything.  I went to school and walked home.  I was not part of campus life.  I sat with a few friends at lunchtime and that was it. 

Even though it helps to socialize children while they're young and throughout their upbringing,  I felt my true training on how to interact with society didn't arrive until well into my late teens and adulthood especially when I began employment. 

I learned the dark side of human nature at my first teenage job while working with several adults.  I hadn't been exposed to wickedness at that level and then the meanness factor dialed up increasingly during my night shift job for several years.  Then combine that meanness from some in-laws and relatives years after marriage.  I was pummeled left and right to the point where I couldn't breathe. To me,  the real education regarding fending off bullies,  learning interpersonal skills and navigating one's life shrewdly didn't come until I grew up and became exposed to the adult world.  True ugly human nature directed at me was a real education and wake up call years after childhood.  Most people are in for a rude awakening once they leave home. 

[Kampuniform3]

Statistically, homeschooling produces the best outcomes for children, and I applaud your decision, and rationale.

The goal should be raising children who are functionally healthy: high in conscientiousness, and agreeableness.  
 

This is the primary socialization stage, and you are equipping them properly to meet life’s adult challenges if they depart into the world uncorrupted.  This makes them less susceptible to being corrupted, not more.

Yes, they will encounter difficulties in their interpersonal interactions in the adult world, but no more so than any other young adult, as we all followed that same path in our youth, learning these lessons as we aged.  Being surrounded by pot-smoking *** in high school doesn’t prepare you for the adult world at all.

 

[Tinydance]

I think you've actually made a big generalisation that ALL teenagers are bad, a bad influence and all drink, do drugs, have sex. You likened being in mainstream school to being a robot or something like that. Are you actually saying that all teenagers are not actually individuals but they're just one cookie cut/robot person who are all bad? I think this is wrong and it's actually insulting. In my group of friends at school, they weren't "bad" or "rebel" people and they didn't drink or smoke or drugs or anything like that. You also have to remember that many adults do things like casual sex, drugs, smoke, vape, drink alcohol. Unless you're actually planning to lock your children up at home even as adults, how do you plan to be able to control them or who they spend time with?

Also from reading your posts it sounds to me like you're not actually doing this for your kids  - you're doing it for you. You don't approve of certain types of people and you actually want to control your kids' lives in the sense that they don't have a choice of friends. Because they have no friends to begin with because you're preventing that. You're trying to "protect" them from so-called bad influence, but in that process you prevent them from actually knowing ANYONE. You sound quite controlling to me to be honest.

[Seraphim]

4 minutes ago, Tinydance said:

I think you've actually made a big generalisation that ALL teenagers are bad, a bad influence and all drink, do drugs, have sex. You likened being in mainstream school to being a robot or something like that. Are you actually saying that all teenagers are not actually individuals but they're just one cookie cut/robot person who are all bad? I think this is wrong and it's actually insulting. In my group of friends at school, they weren't "bad" or "rebel" people and they didn't drink or smoke or drugs or anything like that. You also have to remember that many adults do things like casual sex, drugs, smoke, vape, drink alcohol. Unless you're actually planning to lock your children up at home even as adults, how do you plan to be able to control them or who they spend time with?

Also from reading your posts it sounds to me like you're not actually doing this for your kids  - you're doing it for you. You don't approve of certain types of people and you actually want to control your kids' lives in the sense that they don't have a choice of friends. Because they have no friends to begin with because you're preventing that. You're trying to "protect" them from so-called bad influence, but in that process you prevent them from actually knowing ANYONE. You sound quite controlling to me to be honest.

I agree, my son as a teen or adult has never taken one drug or drink or cigarette or anything and never in trouble . He never had friends that had any of these issues either. Every teen is different and if we don’t allow them to become independent they become stunted . 

[Jaunty]

I have to say that it's mind boggling that you took the option of having real life friendships away from your daughter after she'd been interacting with peers from kindergarten through the age of 12 and she's perfectly fine with that.

Also of particular confusion to me is that your children have "full, private access to the internet" and are forbidden actual real life human friends.  

My daughter was an adolescent in the days of MySpace and she also went to school, had friends, had social problems and boy troubles, and got in trouble.  But the most trouble she got in was from weird people on the Internet.  

She's in her 30's now and at the moment is camping on a river with a group of friends including one from her middle school years.  I am still close friends with people from my school days as well.  

I'm not predicting that your children will go wild, but I am very sad that some of the best parts of life are forbidden to them.  Of course you have the power to control their lives as you see fit, and obviously you're not really looking for opinions here - but there is nothing that can convince me that a childhood without friendships can be good for anybody. 

[boltnrun]

I don't understand why they can't participate in supervised activities with friends you vet for them.  Of course you would vet their parents as well. There are a ton of wholesome activities they can take part in.

[MissCanuck]

If you have already made up your mind that your way is the right way, OP, why did you come here asking for opinions? 

 

[Wiseman2]

5 hours ago, HomeschoolMomwithQs said:

I said we are homeschooling and until they ask for those things and show they really want them, then no.

Homeschooling is not abusive but the extreme social isolation you're imposing seems a bit like that. Perhaps that's the real reason behind your question. Because you're not asking about homeschooling per se you're asking about isolating them from any peers or the outside world. Homeschooling is just a means to that end.

[Kwothe28]

7 hours ago, HomeschoolMomwithQs said:

I said we are homeschooling and until they ask for those things and show they really want them, then no.

But what if they want them and ask for them?

Here on Forum we had a pair of "Ultra Covid measurments" parents. They also boasted how open minded they are and allow children freedoms. Until their kids asked for freedoms. Then they very much did mind it. 

Same with you. If your kid makes friends online(because God knows you dont allow them to make one in school or in person) and wants to go to a party, what would you say? You are sheltering them and not allowing them to experience what their peers experience. Ofcourse they would be socially ankward later down in life no matter how much you boast they arent. You cant judge their social ankwardness, you are not their peers, you are their parents. You really dont know how they would fair when talking to their peers.

[Jibralta]

11 hours ago, HomeschoolMomwithQs said:

I said we are homeschooling and until they ask for those things and show they really want them, then no.

How do they 'show' that they really want something?

[Batya33]

10 hours ago, bluecastle said:

Guess all I'm saying, or suggesting, is that it might go a long way to say something to the effect of, "I really care about how you guys are feeling, whether you'd be interested in something like a team sport or after school activity, and want you to know that I 100 percent support that and don't want you to feel you can't talk to me." That's different than creating an internal rule in your head—that they must (a) ask and (b) show seriousness—because it's letting them see the full workings of the system they're in.

Yes and also OP you're taking the easy way out with your rigidity.  The answer is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but have those difficult nuanced conversations.  For example I recently had to explain to my 14 year old (because he deserves an explanation) why hypothetically I'd be ok with him walking to the starbucks near his new high school with classmates after school but I'm not ok at this point if he wants to go down the block by himself to our local park and run the jogging oval. 

This past year for the first time I let him go with a friend for ice cream in the friend's neighborhood and I let him stay with that friend in the friend's home alone for a few hours during the day while the parents were down the block at an event.  But this was because of the particular friend/parents/neighborhood.  Certainly if I end up saying no to a different friend/scenario -since he is 14/teen he deserves more than "cause I said so" at least at first. 

I've had to explain why I was comfortable with him approaching one on one an unhoused person who was on the same park bench we'd pass daily en route to day camp -he wanted to give her money (and he did) -but why it was dangerous when we were in a car stopped at a light and he shouted a greeting to an unstable person trying to get our attention from the sidewalk.  It's really awkward sometimes to explain to a child, a tween, a teen the differences in the situation.  But it's essential and in both cases he directly "interacted" with these two people.  

I explained to him why I called the principal when a middle schooler tossed a full open juice box over the very bathroom stall my son was in but why in other situations of teasing/comments etc I told him to deal with it on his own -at first.  He learns this way. It's hard ! But he learns.  He has to doesn't he??

I explained to him why it was wrong to toss a small piece of deli meat in the cafteria that landed on the teacher's clothing instead of on his friend's in friendly fire, and also wrong for the teacher to threaten him to the extent he did after.

But you -you're copping out -you never have to have those nuanced conversations -and those nuances teach your children how to approach situations with nuance.  Otherwise how will they know if they're not enmeshed in positive and negative social interactions with peers/other adults/and see how other adults interact with peers, how other adults navigate fairness between students?  They have to know -when should I deal with the person one on one, how should I do this, how do I discern whether it's friendly teasing or enough is enough, how do I deal with being in a group where one person is mistreating another? Etc.