I was always afraid that after college, the apparent success I had interacting with people would end, and the non-homeschoolers i knew / met would realize how socially awkward I am. Before my senior year of high school, I was never very successful developing relationships with people. Other kids tended to think of me as an outsider, goofy, awkward socially. Ever since I graduated college, I’ve been afraid that stigma would return.

I was wrong to worry. If anything, it’s gone in the opposite direction.

And I realize that my problem as a child is that I was *way* ahead of my years, socially. This ostracized me from kids my age at the time, but prepared me well for life beyond school. As a homeschooler, I learned how to interact with people of all ages, how to accept people who were different, and how to be independent and confident. Each of these abilities were unnoticed and/or ridiculed as a child, but have served me well as an adult.

Interacting with people of all ages is an incredibly useful skill in the real world. It’s allowed me to land some job opportunities that I’m confident I wouldn’t have without this ability. In my younger days, other kids didn’t like the fact that I was respectful of and comfortable around adults. And they thought it was dumb that I treated younger kids like real people. Today, my ability to interact with children is a major strength (bosses like you even better if their kids like you). And certainly my ability to interact appropriately with my elders is regularly appreciated.

Accepting people who are different is an obviously helpful ability, especially in a big city. As a child, many kids got a kick of excluding those who were different. The fact that I accepted everybody soon meant that I, too, was an outcast. What once was a liability is now a major asset.

Independence and confidence, paradoxically, is a major component in developing good relationships. They sound like self-centered elements, but they actually instill a sense of security in the other person.

I believe that many people, despite how they may act, learned throughout childhood to be insecure and dependent on other’s approval. I imagine this is to be expected if you spend your entire day surrounded by other children who have understandably not discovered their own meaning and source of self-worth.

By contrast, I was taught at home from the beginning that self-worth is not dependent on what other people think. This was reinforced over and over again for many years — believe me, lots of people had lots of different ideas about me and my family; we simply found our worth outside of other’s perceptions.

I never expected, growing up, that I would one day argue that homeschooling can prepare you *better* for a healthy social life. I mean, I knew a wide gamut of homeschoolers, each with their own set of “problems” that made them socially awkward kids. And while I can’t deny that some of those kids grew up to be truly socially awkward adults, a surprising percentage ended up better prepared for the adult world than might have been possible in another schooling situation.

Thanks Mom. :-)