Social Skills and the Homeschooled Preschooler

There is a myth which is
widely associated with the homeschooled student and that myth is that he is
going to have difficulty developing normal social skills. It’s true that
children learn social skills primarily in the school environment, but this doesn’t
have to be the only place that kids can learn how to socialize with peers and
non-relatives. What a parent needs to realize is that children DO need to learn
social skills by interacting with others outside of the home but that there
are many different ways that this can be done.

This is especially true for
the preschool age child who is being homeschooled. Many parents of children
this age are planning to send their children to public school once kindergarten
or first grade rolls around and they fear that their child will fall behind
socially at that time because of being homeschooled up to that point. Taking
active steps to make sure that your child develops social skills can be done
while still protecting him from the outside influences which may have caused
you to be interested in preschool homeschooling to begin with.

The main thing that a homeschooling
parent needs to know is that there are different stages of development which
take place during the preschool years. Making sure that your child has the opportunity
to engage in the appropriate type of socialization at the right time is the
key to making sure that the social skills of the child develop positively. The
first stage takes place usually before the child is three years of age and is
known as “side by side play”. In this stage of social development,
your child will be interested in playing next to other kids, often mirroring
the other child’s action, but probably won’t engage directly with
the other children. As your child gets into the ages of 3 and 4, he will be
more prone to group play.

Knowing this can help you
when setting up and supervising play dates with your child or even just in situations
where your child is naturally interacting with other kids, like at reading time
at the public library or during playground time at the park. As a parent, if
you know not to force your young child to interact with other children or to
appropriately encourage such play, you’ll have the edge up on watching
out for signs of problematic social development in your homeschooled preschooler.

In summary, your child DOES
need to socialize with others. A child who doesn’t have any interaction
with other children or with adults outside the family unit may have some trouble
adjusting when he is finally thrown in to that environment. But chances are
that you already engage in activities that allow your homeschooled preschooler
to gain necessary social skills. You probably have friends who have kids that
your child plays with or have a big family with cousins that come over on holidays
or take your child to public activities where socializing is natural. Social
skills aren’t just learned from a preschool environment, so as long as
you’re staying aware of what’s right for your child’s developmental
stage and giving him the opportunities to develop appropriately, you don’t
really have to worry about those old myths that homeschooled kids are bound
to be socially awkward. It simply isn’t so.

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