What is Enough Socialisation? – Worldschooling & Homeschooling

I received an e-mail from a reader recently. He and his wife were thinking of taking their child on a travel adventure, a taste of worldschooling, but were concerned about socialization. They thought she wouldn’t “get enough socialization away from her friends” and asked for my opinion. It’s an interesting question. Homeschool socialisation ( and here worldschool socialisation) isn’t something that’s ever bothered us. It seems to bother non homeschoolers an awful lot more.

Here we’re obviously taking the word socialization in it’s simplest form, hanging out with friends. That’s not really what it means, the sociological definition is about acquiring the habits and beliefs of your social group or community, or something like that.

It’s not something I spend a lot of time worrying about, particularly as we flit between multiple societies where those norms differ hugely.

The Homeschool Socialisation Myth

There’s this great myth around homeschooling that kids brought up outside the school system are somehow missing out on socialising or socialisation. We call it “the S word”. It seems to be the most asked question of home-ed families standing in supermarket checkout queues.

In my 10 years as a homeschool mum, nobody has ever asked, so I’m wondering if the question is actually as mythical as it is weird. But what does happen, often, is I get asked the question above in e-mail enquiries, almost always from parents of children who go to school or are too young to go to school.

These are the parents with the school way of life so deeply engrained from their own childhoods that they can’t imagine any other way of growing up. Children are not better off socially in school. Children in school have forced association with a bunch of kids and an adult that they may or may not like. if one of those kids is a nasty piece of work, they’re stuck with them for years. If the teacher is a bully – tough.

In adult life we can choose our company. School kids’ socialisation is actually greatly restricted by being trapped in a box all day. I don’t know why more people don’t spot that. The real world with its glorious diversity of people is outside the school gates.

How Much Socialisation Does a Child Need?

How much socialisation do you need? Can you measure it? I doubt your social need will be the same as mine if you’re a party-loving extrovert.

I suspect that some knowledgeable person has blown their research budget studying this at some point but their results will always be an average because everyone is different. Their research will no doubt be based on kids in school. Kids in school are different to free-range kids.

Have you read that famous piece about caged giraffes? It talks about giraffe research based on giraffes in captivity. Eventually, the researches recognised that caged giraffes and wild giraffes were very different.

Learning Social Skills and Habits

Learning how society runs is much better learned from adults than from a schoolyard group of children, don’t you think? Kids not confined to classrooms will learn accepted manners, respect and empathy. They’ll also experience negative socialisation skills. They’ll recognise unpleasant adults with antisocial behaviours and see that this just doesn’t work in the real world. They’ll be free to go to the places adults go and learn how to behave appropriately. All they learn in school is how to behave and get by in school.

The real world is outside the school gates. If school is preparation for the real world – why not just not leave the real world at all?

Socialisation for Worldschoolers

I thought I’d share my answer to the reader’s letter above because a lot of you must wonder how it works for full-time homeschoolers, family travellers or worldschoolers. Remember we travelled full time for 6 years and were rarely slow travellers.

We are whole life homeschoolers, this wasn’t a gap year and my kids were not pulled out of school and put back in afterwards. Being in school does seem to change kids and their feelings of social need.

I haven’t prettied the email up to make a blog post, this is more or less how I wrote it, without thinking too much. I don’t have all the answers, I’m not the authority but I was asked for an opinion so I gave it. I can only know how my own kids handle it and how I would have handled it had it been me.

Will Homeschooled or Worldschooled Kids Get Enough Socialisation?

Thanks for a great question, I’ll do my best to answer it briefly. If your child is already in school and finds that hanging out with classmates in break time is the norm, she may miss it. Most school kids do miss it. If however she had always been out of school, or didn’t enjoy school she won’t miss it at all and will far rather be off school. Does she prefer weekends and school holiday or school days? I know which I preferred.

In terms of “enough” is there such a thing? She is probably not gaining anything developmentally ( I haven’t looked this up, just a hunch) from being around other kids, it’s just something she does. It’s not normal nor required to be in a class full of same-aged children. It’s far more normal to live life in the real, mixed, world than in a segregated institution.

So really, there’s no answer here, I think you need to think about why and what exactly you mean by ” not enough”. I’m not really sure so I’m trying to cover multiple bases.

Nothing bad will happen to her, I don’t think. She may say she’s bored and throw her lack of available friends at you as a reason. My kids often say they’re bored when I won’t let them use computers. It’s good for kids to be bored, they say, it promotes creativity. I don’t hold with the cliché about only boring people being bored. That’s nonsense, I’m bored a lot, it prompts me to find something to do like being hungry prompts me to eat.

I can tell you for sure that my two are extremely happy, friendly, socially adept kids who interact well with most people. One is naturally shy and you need to get to know him first. I’m the same, that’s fine. They certainly haven’t missed out on anything.

In many ways, they are more adult, more mature, with better vocabularies, views on adult topics etc because they DO spend a lot more time with adults chatting. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not but they do OK on it. They don’t just spend time with us, but many friends, and acquaintances of all backgrounds, all nationalities, all educational levels and attainments. Today, for example, they are out with a 30 something architect friend “helping” him with a house project. He is their friend. Friends don’t have to be the same age and that in itself is an important lesson for them to learn.

Also, of course, they have times when they just go crazy with other kids with Nerf guns. There are kids everywhere if you want to find them. We have intensive days or weeks of play and other child company when we stay with or near families, at other times we are fairly quiet and antisocial. I need that quiet time, as does my younger son, my elder not so much, but he does enjoy time to himself to work on things he enjoys in peace.

So no, lack of social opportunities with same-aged kids has never been an issue, but I must say it’s a lot easier for them to find playmates in countries where English is widely spoken. This was incredibly noticeable this summer during our time in England and Wales, we were far more socially active than normal. Language barriers with kids are a problem, no matter what others say, and one that my two have never really enjoyed.”

I am no expert on this and EVERY CHILD IS DIFFERENT, but mine are fine, well and happy.

I love what Charlotte has to say on the subject, she is another of their friends and they loved hanging out with her for one glorious summer in Romania.

It’s not my bailiwick as a childless but I agree and can wholeheartedly say both Boo and D are some of the easiest PEOPLE not adult or child or whatever to socialize w I’ve met – ever!

Charlotte, Washington DC. Yale grad

What My Travelling Kids’ Social Life Looks Like

• They have each other, they are both boys, they don’t go to school, they are close. This is important.
• They have very good friends, also boys, also homeschooled, in London, we visit often for days on end.
• They had good friends through homeschool group back in Australia, we’ve lost touch.
• In London we also attend various homeschool meetups and sometimes, Forest School, bumping into the same kids over and over again.
• When we travel, we meet people, including children. Some they get on with, some they would rather avoid. You can’t just throw kids together and expect them to get on. For this reason we’re not keen on arranged meet-ups with strangers.
• There is some Skype communication and emailing, but mostly they can’t be bothered.
• They chat to other kids around the world via Minecraft Homeschool and other online and gaming platforms.
• They enjoy hanging out with people of ALL AGES, it doesn’t have to be just kids.
• They socialise in an almost identical way and to the same extent, as I do.

What You Can Do For Your Kids Social Life on The Road

• Go to places kids gather, playgrounds, swimming pools, anywhere.
• Organise meet-ups with other travelling families, it’s easy to do if you want to do it, find them online.
• Model social behaviour, talk to people, say hi. Encourage fearless interaction but don’t force it.
• Stay in accommodations with shared restaurants, bars etc, places where people chat. Hostels even, but we find hostels expensive.
• Cruise ships, any sort of boat, are a great place to meet other people and be thrown together for days or weeks.
• Avoid countries with a language barrier if you want them to interact with locals.
• If you’re staying a while in one place, sign them up for clubs and courses if they want that, but don’t force them!
• Small group tours and holidays are a great way to meet people. I met my husband on a group tour in Egypt. Bhutan and Tibet were group tours. These tours are an awesome way to see a lot, fast, with no stress or organisation.
• Volunteering is a great way to meet people and learn. We love Tangaroa Blue for this.
• Leave them be. If they want to find other kids to hang with, they will.

Travelling Kids Will Have A Lack of Deep Roots in Society

Yes this is true. Obviously we don’t care. The society we’re in today won’t be the society we’re in tomorrow. My husband and I grew up on opposite sides of the world and now live a very long way away from old friends and family.

Most people we know moved away after school and university. It doesn’t bother us. We did not want our kids putting down roots that could be hard to cut through later, freedom and detachment, lack of dependency are very important to us. Maybe we’re unusual in that.

Remember we are whole life nomads because it’s what we love, we’re not just going on an extended holiday. The kids that go on gap years probably won’t be affected by this at all.

What do you think?

So that’s basically how I replied, a little longer because I have more time and I’ve added a few paragraphs. I’m not very comfortable with this stuff as it’s all opinion-based, I’m far better at fact based travel with kids tips. I’m a scientist, I like data. Now, I’d like to know if you have any questions on this topic, I suspect you do. As I said, I don’t have all the answers but it’s all worked out fine for us and we’re in the exciting phase of launching grown worldschooling teenagers out into the world. It actually surprises me that people ask these sorts of questions, after all, we were out in the real world far more than most. I guess a lot of people just don’t get homeschooling. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.