A cultural myth is something that our society believes to be true, like “work hard and you’ll get ahead” or “all children must go to school to be properly socialized”. The most interesting part of this to me, is that many people will continue to believe that things are true, when there is often mountains of direct evidence to the contrary.

Men can work hard all their lives, women can work themselves into the ground; old, withered, wrinkled at the end and they seem no further ahead than where they started. Some men or women have been on top of the world through no direct work of their own.

I get really tired of the socialization argument when talking about homeschooling. Anyone who has spoken directly to any one of my children for more than ten minutes realizes that there is absolutely no cause for concern.

The process of socialization could be described as follows:

“Socialization is the study of animal and human behavior (ethology, social psychology, and psychology) is the process by which human beings or animals learn to adopt the behavior patterns of the community in which they live. For both humans and animals, this typically occurs during the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge necessary to function within their environment, insofar as interaction/coexistence with other members of their species or culture is concerned, but also includes adult individuals moving into an environment significantly different from one(s) in which they have previously lived and must thus learn a new set of behaviors.” source

What this often boils down to when we are talking about homeschooled children, is people want to know how will they learn things like getting along with others and standing in line. Those are just two examples in a never-ending stream.

I set out to find just what was considered “normal” social development in children and what kind of dangers are present. From the time a baby comes into the world their main source of everything is their parents, usually the mother. This is reinforced through masses of research that all say a child’s initial and most important source of aquiring social skills is from within the family.

Moms’ nurturing linked with less troubled young
Encouraging Social Skills in Young Children: Tips Teachers Can Share with Parents – cites many sources
Child care centers and socialization
Emotion socialization in families of children with an anxiety disorder

Gradually, parents draw away and let the child handle more social interactions on their own, following the examples they have already learned from parents, who continue to remain an influence. Research has show that children who frequently interact with their peers better adjust to being in an institution such as a school or daycare. Note this is directly opposite to what the cultural norm seems to believe, and that is that children learn to socialize when they get to school. In fact, they have already learned what do to – the rest is a testing ground and a place to pick up on new behaviours.

By the time middle school age has arrived, normal children start to pull away form their parent’s influence towards that of their peers. (source) This is seen as a natural and good thing. At some point, this influence is actually damaging if it grows to exclude the family altogether.

Peer Pressure
Peer Influence
Adolescents’ and Their Friends’ Health-Risk Behavior: Factors That Alter or Add to Peer Influence
Time spent playing with peers influences gender-typed behaviors in young children

Too much socialization with unwanted influences leads to undesireable social behaviour. This is a fact backed up by volumes of research. Below is just a few links to get started.

Research-based help for teens in jeopardy
Study reveals alcohol-abuse contributors
Teens’ risky behavior is about more than race and family resources

The “Cure” for Adolescent Drug Abuse: Worse than the Problem?

In all this, parental involment is the number one line of defense and prevention.

When I started to research this issue, I had a vague idea of what I believed to be true. The volumes of papers and articles I came across have all come to the same conclusions: parents are the single most important influence for children to learn social behaviours. Peers are secondary, and too much peer contact – which leads to peer influence – leads to a greater likelihood of undesireable and even harmful behaviours.

I was most disturbed to read in a great number of studies that, although the researchers concluded children were spending too much time together, they couldn’t figure out why.

The institutionalization of our children, when research and our own hearts tell us this is the worst thing we could do, is so ingrained that society at large thinks it is “normal”. Massive amounts of research continue to tell us differently.

When Education Becomes Abuse: A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children

Be “abnormal” and keep your kids at home – proudly.

Without getting into the longer discussion (as I am on my way out the door), the past few days I have been, like many others, wondering what was up with our favorite legal group and their (re?)issuing alerts about the UN and children’s rights.

Seems Val has figured it out. Membership drive! *smacks head* Wish I’d thought of it sooner. It makes perfect sense now.

Thanks Valerie for wading through all the articles for the benefit of the rest of us.

Last night I worked on some functionality for Homeschool Journal. Tonight, I’ll be finishing that off. Andrea and I are in process of compiling a comprehensive prioritized punch list of things to do for the site. So, I won’t be posting anything succinct here tonight. In lieu of that, one of the reasons I brought the camera with me this week was that I wanted to take some landscape shots. I got some good ones and some ok ones but before I show too many off, I’ll need to do some image editing.

Before Christmas, Andrea and I were looking at a 5.X megapixel camera which took incredible pictures. I’m really looking forward to the day when we get one. In the meanwhile, here is one of them that will give you the sense of the shot I was going for. Use your imagination to create a crisp image

This yearling was gracious enough to stand on the road while I coasted up for a close up shot. Once I got about 15 yards away it decided it was time to go. So, I didn’t get a chance to zoom in.

Andrea posted a virtual tour of the house in our online album. Click on the first image below to see all the images. I’ve been wanting to post some pictures anyway, but now that she did the tour, I have a good excuse

This floor had hard tiles that were all the rage in the late 60′s or early 70′s. Over the last month I’ve removed most of them. The dark area at the back is a section where Meaghan has removed the paper/cardboard underlay that was put under the tiles. The foreground shows what is left of the adhesive & underlay after the tiles are removed. I’m planning on sanding and refinishing the floor (softwood) during the first weekend in July. This will be the second bedroom I’ve done.

The weekend before Mother’s Day, I transplanted 4 roses bushes to in front of the veranda. At the time, the leaves were just beginning to open. The 2 bushes in the middle are a rugosa rose that I split (deliberately) while transplanting it. The outer two are centifolia moss roses. There are 2 more rugosas and 4 more of the centifolia ones on the other side of the step and I have 2 & 4 respectively in large pots. I moved them to pots so that they would be ready to move in the middle of the summer if we were moving households.

A few years ago, I was at the nursery and the nicely arranged flower pots had a price tag of $30 or more. I decided to get a pair of nice pots and make the arrangements myself. Since then, every year, before Mother’s Day, we go and pick out what we are going to put in the pots that year. The 2 images below are the result of this year’s picks. Most of the plants were picked by the girls. On Mother’s Day, Andrea and I decided on the arrangements and transplanted them together. These flank the back door of the house which is the one we normally use to go in and out.

Today was a statutory holiday in Canada, so I am still home. Tomorrow morning we (Andrea & I) are leaving here around 7 to take Addison to the hospital in Moncton where he will have surgery on his eye. Once he has been admitted, I’ll be proceeding to Saint John where I’m working for all of this week. I’m expecting it to be my last trip there for this project (it’s where I’ve been going every 2 or 3 weeks). Andrea will be staying with him and be there when he gets moved to recovery. If all goes well, they will be home around supper time.

Unless I find an access center which is open in the evening, I will be away from the internet until Saturday. Andrea will post an update in her blog as soon as she has the time and more information to report.

Have a good week.

• a typical homeschool blog
• kestrel for a knave quiz

Ok, I’m not a mother, but you can take the quiz here

The “Know Thyself” mother

“I believe the joy of motherhood is self-discovery—for them and for me.”

* Sensitive and family-focused, the INFJ mother looks for and encourages the unique potential of each child. Self-knowledge may be her byword. Her aim is to help each child develop a sense of identity and cultivate personal growth. In fact, she may value the mothering experience as a catalyst to her own personal growth and self-knowledge.
* The INFJ mother spends time observing and understanding each child. She is drawn to intimate conversations and seeks a free exchange of feelings and thoughts.
* Sympathetic and accommodating, the INFJ mother strives to meet the important yet sometimes conflicting needs of each family member in harmonious and creative ways
* She is conscientious and intense as well. Probably no one takes life and child-raising more seriously than the INFJ. She approaches mothering as a profession requiring her best self.

This is really simple to take (as long as you already know your profile). I decided to post it because Andrea had done it. Earlier tonight, when I read the post in her blog I opened the link in a new tab. I got called away from the computer. In the midst of the disruption Andrea and I decided to test a small change I’d made to a plugin. When she sat down to the computer she noticed the tab and told me that you just filled in your profile. I told her to go ahead with mine. The next thing she said was, “sounds just like you.” In any event, it is interesting to see the jung typology applied to the perspective of parenting.

Thanks, Chris.

You cannot legislate salvation; individuals must work it out for themselves. Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to legislate morals that were intended to accompany salvation. – mikalyn

A nice short post that’s got it right. When I read Guerrilla Learning the following paragraph caught my attention:

“The presumption … is; People will only be good if they are forced to be. The fundamental question, more honestly posed, would be: Are you going to force your children to be good or let them be bad? The dichotomy is false because, in fact, people cannot be forced to be good. Goodness counts only when it is freely chosen, as the biblical parable of the prodigal son illustrates.”

In other words when someone is given no choice what they are doing (or not doing) then it is neither good nor bad as it related to them. Good will only be a meaningless abstraction unless there is another less “good” choice available to be made. Except perhaps in hypothetical discussions, I’ve never heard anyone say something to the effect of gravity is good (or bad). But, most consider someone holding the door for them to be good because the alternative of letting it slam in their face is there, unchosen.

andrea’s carnival of unschooling