Need Help: Teaching Social Skills

[PokerDad]

In my various discussions with PokerMom, it's become clear to me that unless I can show her some research in the area of social skills coupled with some sort of plan to work social skills, she will demand that PokerCub attend a pre-school by at least age 3. Home school during preschool years isn't even on the table (let alone grade school)

This bothers me.

The good news is that I have some time to figure this one out - and thought I'd make a formal request on the forum.

What research have you come across regarding social skill (especially building it outside of a school setting)?
Any books you'd recommend?

To answer my own question... here's an older thread that had some useful insights:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-other-topics/building-emotional-intelligence/

[nee1]

On this thread (http://forum.brillkids.com/homeschooling/to-homeschool-or-to-montessori-that-is-thy-question/msg86327/?topicseen),
Keri recommended 'The Well-Adjusted Child - The Social Benefits of Homeschooling'.

She said
''Maybe this will help with the socialization question regarding homeschooling...research based with lots of anecdotal support as well...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Well-Adjusted-Child-Benefits-Homeschooling/dp/1600651070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340019915&sr=8-1&keywords=the+well+adjusted+child.   I was thrilled with this book and it helped me to successfully counter many of my. Hubby's concerns..''


And read the responses other members made too.

[PokerDad]

Thank you nee1. I've ordered the book...

am hoping for a truck load of recommendations and research articles if anyone out there is aware of any. Thank you & karma for all the help!!!

[sonya_post]

Pokerdad,

Well, as a homeschooling mom to a now 16 y/o gifted child I will assure you that sending an advanced child into the public school system is torture on them. I'd refrain if at all possible.

While I haven't read the book, I've heard about. My thoughts on this are these:

1. The only time a child will be isolated with a group of his peers his exact age is his school time. After that, s/he will have to learn to get along and work with people of all ages and abilities. The school model is not set up to reflect the rest of life.

2. Children by nature need to be taught and trained. Do you really want other children to be your childs teacher? Seriously? Hours a day with little interaction that is lifting a child's thoughts or behavior in an upward direction is a recipe for disaster. Hence our schools. If your child is high achieving (this covers both gifted and educated children) there will be nothing there but boredom and the opportunity to find ever more creative ways to get into trouble.

[sonya_post]

And there is this:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/13/home-schooling-socialization-not-problem/

[Mandabplus3]

Anecdotal....I pulled my son out of Kindy because he was far too advanced to fit into the group. Socially, emotionally, educationally and size! He was given a kindergarten education a year early ( grade bumped ) and then had nothing left to offer them...or they had nothing left to offer him the next year when he should have been doing KIndy.  It was his decision. He said one day " mum I don't want to go anymore all the kids are babies" they were all his age, he is exactly halfway as far as birthdays go.....He was right it was just so obvious. For the record this was even BEFORE he started reading!
Some kids might fit in kindy, others won't. Your wife knows that. Get your evidence ready, but I think it may become pretty obvious as time goes by. I would play the compulsory verses not compulsory schooling card with her too.  Hre I can keep my kids until they turn 6 but every one sends them to prep in the year they turn 5. Social norms are hard to fight

[sonya_post]

I don't mean to imply from my first response that all children must be homeschooled. However, it is very difficult to keep a high achieving child in the system and have things turn out well The research indicates that the brightest of our children are less likely to graduate from college. They are less likely to be successful. This may not be true in other countries, but it is certainly true in the US. Unless you are planning to continue with accelerated/advanced education it is almost better to not start. The only way I can see continuing, if you are not homeschooling, is to find a great TAG school or demanding private school that will allow the child to skip a couple grades. Or of your state allows IEP's for advanced kids you might get them accelerated (however, in our school district it was going to be a huge battle and it was simply easier to homeschool).

There is a bunch of research on this site: http://www.education.uiowa.edu/belinblank/ My son was tested through there when he was in 6th grade after a one year experiment with regular school. We chose not to early enroll in college for various reasons. But we had many conversations with the Belin Blank Center about the problems high achieving children present. We chose to pull him out and continue homeschooling so that we could control his academic life. More importantly, he just couldn't find friends. His classmates were still reading Captain Underpants and he'd just finished 1984 and Brave New World. What is it that they could have in common?

[Mandabplus3]

Sonya, I do agree. My girls have been given the leveling treatment since day one at school,    I am sure my son will too. ( unless I spit it, move to the country and homeschool!) it is a CONSTANT battle to ensure they receive a curriculum at their level. Even with me being a teacher, pushy and knowing how the system works they still spend a large portion of their day in school unlearning.....
Grade skipping isn't considered in our school until high school.
Socially we havnt had any real problems once they started school. It was before school in preschool and young that it was just so obvious my kids didn't belong. Once they started school they happily attached themselves to the brightest and most interesting kids in their class. Interestingly enough they have best friends who are all siblings! ( one of them i am sure has a high IQ) They are all quite social and interact with both sexes as well as older children and each other in the playground.
Like you say I think it is possible with the right school but it is still difficult. i havnt found a better fit near our home so this is it for now...but i am constantly looking. I found a gifted and talented pod group for fast streamed high school for them...so long as they dontget too leveled out in the next few years a primary, they will thrive inthatenvironment. Next weeks task is to see if I can convince them to consider an earlier option for primary age kids.....

[Kerileanne99]

Aaarrgghhh!
I just wrote out a long list of resources from the book "The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling" (Rachel Gathercole) only to have it disappear, yet again On me!

Nee1-
Thanks for reposting the link! This really is a fantastic read and effectively gathers many arguments and resources together...
Such as the if, by the question "Do Homeschoolers get properly socialized?" do you mean will they grow up feeling/acting exactly like they would have had they attended school? NO!
But if by socialized you mean can they grow up as productive adults with the ability to succeed socially/ emotionally? Absolutely!

When did school become the definitive standard for what socialized means, anyway? Many believe that homeschooling actually leaves more time for meaningful socialization, as all social interaction is obviously not equal!

I will re-type some of the better resources, but, in the meantime, please visit the Site for the National Home Education Research Institute! It is a peer-reviewed, refereed, academic journal with scholarly articles, data, and statistics on just about everything you can possibly imagine homeschool related.

http://www.nheri.org/research/home-school-researcher-journal.html

[Kerileanne99]

I forgot to mention another great site that has lists of current books, scholarly articles, suggested resources:
http://learninfreedom.org/

For example, here is a great list of books and articles:
http://learninfreedom.org/recommended_books.html

Another great resource:
http://www.holtgws.com/

And honestly? I think you will find that continuing on the EL path will do more to convince her than any argument you could compile! There will come a time when it will become evident that traditional schools are simply not going to be a very viable option, particularly if you continue to work with him in multiple areas! Some people DO manage it , and quite well. However, starting when you did, with all the information, planning, and research under your belt will simply put you on a trajectory that will make traditional schooling exceptionally unlikely

[Tanikit]

I spoke to a homeschooling Mom the other day who says her husband tells people the following when asked what he does about socialisation for his children:

Oh they are very well socialised just like at public school:

On Mondays we take them to the bathroom and give them wedgies
On Tuesdays we introduce them to drugs and alcohol
Wednesdays we bully them some more
Thursdays is sex education as only middle schoolers can teach it
And Fridays we teach them how to swear, disrespect adults and dress badly.

There is an article (I will look for it) that addresses 19 skills that well socialised people should have: it includes things that are not even touched on at school like:

A well socialised person will address people politely, brush their teeth, wear deoderant on a hot day, wear the types of clothes expected for the place they are going to etc - basic manners none of which are taught at school or cannot be taugfht at home.

In general it is believed that homeschooled children do better on social skills simply because the models they have to copy are adults who have had more time to learn good social skills than children who are the same age as your child and don't know any better themselves.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/social/soc_1.htm - socialisation via education for control

[PokerDad]

This is excellent, thank you all. If you find or know of more resources, please post when you get the chance (I still have a lot of time to get this right) 

[Wolfwind]

I was in a similar situation; my husband supported a home-based preschool, but not elementary school, when my first daughter was born.  I think the biggest thing that's changed his mind is seeing how effective EL really is.  He sees me teaching her phonics and addition and subtraction, and he knows that those things are normally taught in kindergarten, and she's not even two yet, and he starts wondering, "What is she going to do in kindergarten?"  So he's leaning more toward homeschooling, but he's still worried about socialization.

There's been a lot of research cited on this thread, which I will definitely when the time comes to make the decision once and for all, but I think it's equally important, as you said, to have a plan for teaching social skills.  I haven't finished mine, but I'm definitely considering it.  Here's an anecdote that gave me a lot of hope for teaching social skills:

We have a thrift store with cheap books, so I pick up all the parenting ones I see.  I just read "Parenting with Dignity: the Early Years," which I very much liked, and which talked about teaching kids things before the situation comes up, like how to behave in a grocery store or at a nice restaurant (rather than scolding them after they mess up).  So I was thinking about teaching opportunities.

Then we went to the park for play group, and no one else from the group showed up, which made my daughter sad.  She told me she wanted to play with those kids, pointing to some kids we'd never met.  So I explained to her how to walk to them and say, "Do you want to play with me?"  I had her practice on me several times, and then we walked over to the other kids.  She got shy, but I refused to ask, so she spoke up.  She ended up having fun playing with some new friends.

This is very simple, but it's at the heart of what I think people worry kids will miss out on by not going to school: initiating conversations and acquaintances just because the other people are the only ones available.  (And I actually agree that this is one useful school social skill: being able to walk into a meeting or a crowded lunch room full of strangers and sit next to someone and not feel awkward or isolated.  Of course, this comes naturally to some people; not to me or my husband, though!) 

Interestingly, my mom, who is vehemently opposed to homeschooling, said when I told her about this experience: "You know, you and all your siblings had trouble with that kind of thing growing up.  It never occurred to me to teach it, and maybe talk to some parents in advance and stage opportunities for you to practice."  I'm storing that comment up for when I tell her I'm going to homeschool.  I think with thought and care, we can teach our children those kinds of outreach skills even without the school environment, which forces kids to do it.

[Korrale4kq]

I am of the mindset, especially in the early years that babies and young kids don't teach each other social skills. They do teach each other how to bite, hit, scream,  spit, pick noses and more. It is our responsibility to teach our kids social graces.

My son is in early intervention for speech (he is mostly caught up now) and social delays. He goes to a class once a week with other children in early intervention. The kids are between 2-3. The parents remain in the class. The concept of the class is to have the children; all with vary degrees of social delay from autism to shyness; to be able to interact with others. One of the biggest things that we as parents do is model appropriate social behaviour. We do exaggerate it and slow down our modeling. But it is giving these children the opportunity to see how to behave in a social settings. Such things we do is, Sharing, saying thank you and please, requesting items and passing them on, saying hello and good bye, washing hands, standing in line politely, how to be gentle, how to respect toys, waiting turns and more.
We let the children play and interact with each other and step in during teachable moments. For example one child stole my sons baby, my son grabbed it back, then the other boy hit him in the head. We took that opportunity to explain to the child that we don't hit others, and that we ask for a toy. In my sons case we told him that it was good for him to stand up for himself. Any other time he would have let the other kid take the doll and walked away.
We don't step in for every occasion though. Many times we let the kids figure things out for themselves. They do need to learn how to interact with their peers. But once it results to violence or other unacdeptable behaviour we know to guide them away from it.

[Korrale4kq]

Something I have read about homeschooled kids is that unlike their traditionally schooled peers. They learn to interact with people of many different ages. May it be in a 4H club, scouts, church or a performance.
Children in school are often socialized with children in the same grade. I remember having an intervention when I was in year 7  because my best friend who I spent lunch hour with was in year 6. We were both new to the school and were in a composite year 6/7 class. The intervention was called because I should be hanging out with the other year 7 girls instead of one in year 6. Silly.

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