Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy can one homeschool a highly social child?

Unless I'm taking it out of context, I'd disagree with this statement. It's my opinion that you'll need to work at providing plenty and regular options for social activities, that won't take care of itself. If your family provides those opportunities in abundance, with your child being very social, then it shouldn't be a large issue.

The majority of gifted children have every bit as large if not LARGER issues with social / emotional issues than they have with educational issues.

Maybe I should say, first make a decision based on what's best educationwise, and then figure out what to do about social life.

I agree with Old Dad, here-- at least until mid-adolescence, the relative importance of the two things may ultimately be about at parity.

Even though it may not seem that way now, having really excellent social skills (and a way to exercise them regularly) is perhaps even MORE essential to kids who are non-normative.

I say this as someone whose socially-adroit introvert has always been home-educated; you have to work QUITE hard to make sure that such children get very regular opportunities to socialize within a structured activity. Because that is what schooling provides in such abundance, and it's the foundation for working with others in higher education, in the workplace, etc.

The thing that concerns me about social life and homeschooling isn't that there are no socializing opportunities--there clearly are. I'd be worried about having the opportunity to develop *long-term, deeper relationships*, which have become quite important to DD9. Going to this art class for 6 months, then that science class for 4, then this soccer league for 4 months, then that Lego club for 5, doesn't give you the same depth of friendship as seeing the same group of friends daily at school and, essentially, growing up with them. If you have a consistent, long-term homeschooling group that meets frequently, this could be solved, but in our area these groups are loose or...odd. Of course, one CAN cultivate long-term friendships through parental effort and arrangement of playdates, but at school, this happens without my work.

These responses are giving me a lot to think about. I should have added, that in a year and a half, we will have the option to send DS to a local private school. So if the homeschooling thing doesn't work out, we could end it and have another good option.

DS has close friends from our religious community. We have been a part of it since before his birth. Also he has a lot of neighborhood friends. We live in an urban community where you can easily have 20 kids in the same apartment building who go to 10 different schools. We literally have friends at our doorstep who go to a different school than DS.

Our highly-social DD homeschooled at 7. She developed a long-term, deep relationship with another girl who was homeschooling just up the street. We arranged for the kids to have a scheduled "recess" together every day. They were not intellectual peers, but they bonded over other interests.

DD8 is now back in school, for pretty much the same reasons mon said, but also to expose her to a broader subset of kids.

My DD's magnet is on the smaller side, so she is developing long-term relationships for sure. If she had other close friends whom I could rely on to stay in our lives, it would be less of a concern for me. But this hasn't been the case for us. We have "casual" friends whom we see fairly regularly and whom she considers friends, but she hadn't really deeply connected with other children till the magnet.

And I also agree with mon about the leadership issue. However, I think it's possible to find ways to handle this...with effort.

Another concern for me is the ability to take direction from a variety of adults in a variety of higher-stakes situations. Taking adult direction is hard for my DD, so this is important!

(A great homeschooling coop could solve this problem, too. And there are other ways. But it looks daunting to me personally. )

Social life? Choose one.

[ ] B&M school with bullying, violence, drugs, gangs.
[ ] Homeschooling in the safety of home with loving parents and siblings.

Why the binary choices, though? Maybe:

[ ] move to a better neighborhood

ought to be a third choice?

After all, I can't choose the second option since my daughter has no "siblings." Should we not homeschool?

I mean, surely there are other alternatives. While I understand that some schooling situations are truly unsafe, I really don't like the homeschooling community's penchant for painting all B&M settings as "dangerous" and "damaging."

Just as not all homeschooling is nurturing and academically rich, not all B&M schooling is a cruelty-filled horror show.

It's all about the details. Child, schooling options, and family dynamics.

There are some social learning opportunities in school settings which are quite difficult to replicate for a homeschooled child. Those probably matter more to some children than to others.

Um, violence, drugs, and gangs? In a K-5 school?