Homeschool: Real World Living

If you homeschool, have you ever had someone accuse you sheltering your kids from the "real world"? We have. I have a few questions for them.

1. When your kids grow up and get a job, are they going to be in an environment where everyone they work with is their same age? In the school system, they are in classes all day with kids their own age. Is that the "real world"? In homeschooling, they learn to relate to people of ALL ages.
2. When there is a family illness in an extended family member (grandma, grandpa etc.) do you take your child with you to care for that person if they live outside your town and it requires them to miss school? Most would have them stay with friends or relatives in the same town so they would not have to miss any school and can still have "fun". In homeschooling, you pack up the school books and take the kids along. You may not get any schooling done, but your children learn what it is like to think about others instead of themselves. It's a difficult lesson for some to learn as I discovered this past week, but that is real life in the real world and few traditional schooled kids learn it.
3. What about grocery shopping? How many traditional schooled kids are required to go to the grocery store with their parents to get groceries? Mine are due to the pain it causes me to pick up the heavy items. (Helping others is real world education) At the store I take them through the self check isle and they learn to scan the items, push the right touch screen buttons, run the credit card through the kiosk and pack the groceries out. Real world skills. How many public schooled kids do this? I never see too many at the store learning these skills even on days when we go after public school is out. The kids I do see with parents are too busy begging for stuff and giving their parents a hard time to be of any help at all.
4. What about getting along with siblings 24/7? Now here is some "real world" stuff. Kids that are traditional schooled are separated from their siblings almost all day. When they do go home and are around them, many don't get along at all and have very little time to learn to get along. (Not all families are like that that traditional school. It depends on what the discipline at home is like and how much time parents actually spend with their kids working with them on these things outside of school) Most often sibling rivalry dominates the day at home. In homeschooling, siblings are around each other almost 24/7. There is ample time to learn interpersonal relationship skills. I have been blessed with two kids, a teen and a pre-teen (boy and girl) that get along very well and missed each other a lot when we were separated for three and a half days this past week. They talked to each other on the phone for 30 minutes each night we were separated and when we got back they were so happy...laughing and having fun. It was a joy to hear them. This is the real world...getting along with siblings and family members.

These are just a few areas of the "real world" my kids live in. It doesn't even touch the surface of the many facets of the "real world" I could point out. Those who complain that homeschooled kids are sheltered from the "real world" don't know what the real world is. It certainly is not the age segregated world of the school system.