Last year, at the homeschool conference, my husband and I ran the cafe while our 13 year old J handled my used curriculum table. She’s quite capable and friendly, and she did a great job. I split the profits with her.

Looking around at homeschool functions, I’ve always noticed those families. You know the ones: Neatly dressed Mom and Dad, stair-step children and the girls all in dresses. From the outside they APPEAR to be the ideal, or at least I thought that years ago when we first began homeschooling.

A family like this had a two-table area at the sale, apparently selling books from their family business. J sat at our table, directly across the aisle from them. I checked in on her several times, always asking how things were going. The second time, she said, “Mom, those girls keep staring at me.”

J was 13 at the time. She was wearing a Yamaha motocross jersey, blue jeans with ripped knees, and makeup (not much though.) She said that “One of the girls about my age came over to look at your books, and when I asked her if she is looking for something in particular, her eyes got really big and she turned around and walked straight back her her table! It’s like she was afraid of me Mom.” Afraid of J? The friendliest kid in the world? I didn’t quite get it at the time, but told her that they are isolated, which was fairly obvious, and not used to talking to kids their family doesn’t know. It was actually this particular weekend that I found an article online about “Cloistered Homeschoolers”. I realized that is exactly what these lovely girls (and boys) were.

When we tell someone we homeschool, the “S” word inevitably comes up. “What about Socialization?” Well, what about it? My kids socialize more than I do. My kids have tons of friends and are involved in church, sports, volunteering, and just life in general. The socialization I have seen them experience WITHIN the walls of public schools concerns me much more than their socialization outside of those walls. Outside the walls, I know who they are with and what they are doing.

Do I control them, or micromanage? No. But I know what my kids are up to. If I suspect that a friend who has invited them to something isn’t quite forthcoming with information, or possibly being deceptive, I contact parents and get exact details. I’m nosey that way. I would expect every responsible parent to be the same way.

The trouble here, of course, was that these children were SO sheltered that they were, quite literally, afraid to speak to my daughter. They didn’t recognize her as “one of them”, and I suspect their parents had probably used my daughter as some sort of bad example to them too. Even the parents seemed to look down their noses at my tomboy daughter, whose heart–if they could see it– belonged to Jesus in it’s entirety. But what they looked at was her outside, saw the jeans, and automatically made assumptions. THIS is bad socialization. THIS is unhealthy!

My children are not, nor have they ever been, isolated. They learned from a young age how to address an adult, how to shake hands, how to make eye contact and respond when someone speaks to them, no matter what the age of the person. While we prefer that their closest friends be Christian kids whose families share our values, we don’t shun all others. We are just careful about what situations they go into with them; namely, organized, supervised, and planned activities with beginning and ending times.

We don’t throw our kids to the wolves, but then again we don’t hide them away either. You can be a protective parent without shielding your child unnecessarily. This is UNSheltered Homeschooling. Combine this with ThatMom’s Thoughts on Relationship Homeschooling, and you will raise well-adjusted, loving and outgoing kids who can handle pretty much anything. Even a curriculum sale and a chat with a kid who doesn’t dress the same way they do!