Welcome to The Educating Parent Beverley Paine's archive of articles about homeschooling and unschooling written over a period of 30 plus years

Free download a quick guide to getting started with homeschooling and unschooling by Beverley Paine The Educating Parent in this excellent Resource Directory
Introduction to
Home Education

 

Free directory of Australian homeschooling and unschooling support groups organised by national, state and territories National and State
Support Groups

 

Plan, record and report all in the one document! Always Learning Books planners available in each year level to suit your homeschooling needs, includes curriculum checklists
Yearly Planner, Diary & Report

Let Beverley and friends help you design and write your own curriculum to suit your child's individual learning needs, learn how to prepare lessons, unit studies and more, record and evaluate your children's learning in this series of 3 parent workbooks developed on Beverley's popular homeschool manual Getting Started with Home School Practical Considerations

Homeschool Course for Parents

this Always Learning Year 7 Plan is everything you need to get started a comprehensive collection of curriculum aligned resources and links to activities, lesson plans and unit studies for your year 7 homeschooling student
Homeschool Learning Plans
go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

Forced versus Natural Socialisation

by April Jermey, Aug 2017

SOCIALISATION. Yep, that dirty word.

I've been thinking on this a lot, and I'm still compiling and sorting through my thoughts on this. I apologise for the rambling in advance!

School forces socialisation on children, so I'm going to refer to it as 'forced socialisation'. That is, where children are forced to socialise 30+ hours per week with their age peers and teachers. This is not a natural social setting, and not one that is emulated ever again in life. It's a setting that presents children with a unique set of challenges. How to get along with people you'd rather not spend time with being one of them. Now, while that isn't a bad skill to have, it's not one that needs extensive work, in fact, schools set children up for 12+ years of practice and revision in this skill, which can be hugely frustrating. In real life, we would just limit contact with those we don't want to see, and be polite when we can't avoid them.

Someone said to me recently that at family gatherings, his home educated children are the only ones who want to socialise, the schooled relatives just want to watch tv. I replied that maybe the 30+ hours per week those kids are forced to socialise have worn them out, they simply don't have the mental energy to socialise further, and are needing some down time.

Now, as parents of ASD children, we know our children are often frustrated by other childrens' behaviour, far more than NT children can be, or at the least they struggle with ways to deal with that frustration. Forcing social situations on them that stress them out can be more detrimental than helpful. While it's not a bad thing to challenge them occasionally socially to help learn coping mechanisms, maybe we the parents need to challenge
ourselves on our perception of our childrens' social needs.

A lot of home educators worry themselves about their kids needing to make friends, and spend time with children their own age. We can't help it, we have this ingrained belief that having friends is important, and we look automatically at age peers to fit the bill. What if it's not important for your child to have friends? What if your child is content without friends?

My NT daughter makes friends with everyone she meets, she is 5, and her friends are from all age groups, I don't know how old the lady she befriended at the nursing home is, but yeah, she makes friends with everyone.

My ASD son hasn't made a close friend ever, but he's okay. He really is okay. And I'm learning to be okay with that too. I'm realising that all these years I've had this sadness watching him with peers, sad at not seeing the interaction blossom into close friendship. I'm learning to trust him. If he wants a close friend, he'll make it happen. And if he's content without a close friend, I can be content for him.

The lesson for me as a parent? Stop forcing socialisation. Stop assuming what my children need. Trust them to tell me what they need (words and actions), and follow their lead.
Trust children.

Browse our comprehensive library of articles!

keep up to date with new posts to this website daily by clicking here to subscribe

Support Groups: National SA VICWANSW QLD TAS ACT NT
Registration Guides: VIC NSW QLD SA WA TAS ACT NT

Looking for support, reassurance and information? Join Beverley's
The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of ours!

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of our Always Learning Books homeschool year level learning plans, packed with links to FREE lesson plans, unit studies and activities for each curriculum subject area, hundreds of suggestions, use what you want, only $18

Want to learn how to write your own education plans to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?

itap into Beverley's four decades of home educating experience and learn how to write your own homeschool curriculum and learning plans to suit your child's and your family's individual needs, a complete how to homeschool course for parents in 3 self paced workbooks each focusing on a different aspect of home educating, planning, recording, evaluating and creating lesson plans image shows 3 workbooks, plus samples of pages, and 3 children walking in bushland

The Educating Parent acknowledges Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present.

click here to become a Fearless Homeschool member giving you access to all past summit workshops as well as exciting new content and webinars, online discussion platform, and more

Twinkl downloadable Home education resources helping you teach confidently at home

say goodbye to home education registration stress with this ultimate rego bundle from Fearless Homeschool

make homeschooling a lot easier, zero to homeschool's excellent course is here to help

go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The opinions and articles included on this website are not necessarily those of Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books, nor do they endorse or recommend products listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements on pages within this website.

Without revenue from advertising by educational suppliers and Google Ads we could not continue to provide information to home educators. Please support us by letting our advertisers know that you found them on The Educating Parent. Thanks!

Affiliate links are used on this site that take you to products or services outside of this site. Beverley Paine The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books assume no responsibility for those purchases or returns of products or services as a result of using these affiliate links. Please review products and services completely prior to purchasing through these links. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question before purchasing or signing up.

Text and images on this site © All Rights Reserved 1999-2025