I’ve covered goals we want our children to achieve before they leave our home and our reasons for homeschooling as part of sharing our family’s homeschooling vision, originally composed in 1999. This week, I’m going to focus on the big questions that everyone—including the grocery store cashiers—asks: What about socialization?
Here’s what we think about the whole socialization issue:
- We want to socialize our children in ways that will be honoring to God, rather than their peers.
- We want control over our kids’ friends and contacts.
- Our children do not need over 1,000 hours a school year of interaction with kids who could possibly be a bad influence on them.
- Our children need to learn how to relate well to people of all ages and in all situations, not just to kids their own age in a classroom setting.
- Our children are/will be involved in various church, co-op, and community activities with kids their own age. They will be permitted to choose one other sports activity at a time according to their own interests.
- We aren’t hermits, and we are not raising our children to be such.
Q4U: What do you think about the whole socialization issue?
Bethany LaShell 
I couldn't agree with you more! This is the way I look at socialization. . . for eleven years my son had a highly trained service dog. This dog was a HUGE blessing, and was able to go places and do things that few other dogs are able to do. How did this dog get this way? Well, for starters they did NOT throw the puppy into a pen with 19 other pups and expect it to develop into a service dog. Instead–after careful breeding to try and bring out good health qualities, they remove the puppy from the rest of the siblings and place it one on one with a puppy raiser. It is not allowed to be raised in a house with any other puppies–older dogs, yes, but no other puppies. The puppy lives with the puppy raiser, and is always carefully watched. In fact, if the puppy raiser is not watching the pup, it is placed safely in a crate or kennel. Every day it receives proper attention and training. After it is old enough, and obedient enough, it goes on very short trips out into \”the world\” with the puppy raiser always on the other end of the leash. NEVER is it left on it's own unsupervised, left to get into trouble or eat something that could be poison. At the right age, there are training classes with other puppies, but again–ONLY with the puppy raiser there to make sure interactions are correct with other pups. After a year and a half of this puppy raiser training, the dog is sent back to the professional dog trainers for an additional year of professional training. After all of this, maybe, just maybe, the dog will choose to obey and will be among the 30% of dogs who graduate as a service dog. All this care and attention go into raising a service dog. Why should I think that I can throw my child into a classroom of twenty other children with little supervision and hope that they will come out as a strong Christian in the end? I wouldn't train a service dog that way, and I can't get a good result from training my child that way either. And yes, this is the answer I give if I am asked at the grocery store about socialization! 😉
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