I don't know if my mom or one of us children has ever been asked the "famous" homeschool question, "But what about socialization?!", but I have heard about it so much in the blogosphere and especially the HS magazines. But you know what? I have observed it seems like the "socialized" kids who go to public school are WAY less sociable than the unsocialized homeschooled kids! Let me tell you about it...

Most every Saturday our family goes out for our church's calling program. For calling, we go down the streets in our town in small groups of two or three and knock on people's doors, inviting them to church and often asking them if they've thought about where they might spend eternity. We have gotten many different responses from this! On occasion, some people are receptive and actually listen to what we have to say. But most of the time we get responses like, "I already go to such-and-such-church," or  "Okay, thanks." They like to keep it short and sweet (or in some cases, not so sweet, LOL!)

Sometimes we get a public school victim who doesn't know how to socialize with anyone except those of their own age, so they can hardly utter more than three words to us. At one door we knocked a few weeks ago, a teenage boy answered the door, and I tell you, he did not say ONE word. All he did was go, "Uh... uh... uh... mmmmm... uh...", etc. Either he did not speak English (doubtful) or he was UNSOCIALIZED! Imagine!!

And we sometimes even get unsocialized adults (who of course went to public school in the past) who don't know how to even be friendly. I mean, I understand if you aren't interested in what we have to say, but you don't have to act like we are the most boring people you have ever met.

What about the "unsocialized" homeschooled kids? We have some (homeschooled) friends that are definitely NOT unsocialized. Just a few days ago, they went to a city meeting and asked the mayor questions on different things (these kids are under 12). My younger siblings go out and talk to the mailman almost every day when he brings the mail. Sometimes they will be out there for nearly ten minutes (partly due to my 4 yo. sister who will carry on and on about topics that she pulls out of thin air, LOL. She's got a good start)! We're able to talk to the adults in our church, we're able to play with/talk to the other kids in our HS group, etc, etc.

Yes, I understand it goes both ways. There are some homeschooled kids that don't know how to relate to other people outside their family or their circle of friends (and there are public schooled kids that do fine at talking to other people). But for the most part, I don't think that the people who claim that homeschooled kids are unsocialized could really prove it.