I have been observing as my homeschooled kids enter and exit the middle school years, that the socialization that public school advocates say our kids so sorely need actually cannot be avoided. Outside of keeping our kids under a rock, if they spend any time at all in the real world, they will butt heads with the clicks, the bullies, and the manipulators.
This phenomenon is intensified when parents pull their kids out of public school to homeschool in the upper grades. When you take a kid that has already been socialized, and often in a negative way, and throw them in with homeschoolers, in a co-op or other setting, a bit of disruption is bound to happen. Clicks form, kids taunt, and groups that had been friends since they were 5 years old break up. Yes, these kids go through a normal middle school experience.
Fortunately, in a year or two, the new kids that were thrown im realize that this is not a normal and natural way to be, and they eventually settle into the Kum-by-yah atmosphere of the one-love homeschooler. In other words, the life-long homeschoolers eventually realize that their rhythm has been interrupted in a negative way (sometimes with the help of observing parents). They adjust, and break down the divisive societies that were beginning to form, and the new homeschoolers realize that they need to fall in line or get out of the way.
So the “naive” homeschooler gets a taste of what it is like to deal with difficult people, and the difficult people also find out that they no longer are in an atmosphere where they have to be difficult. It’s a beautiful thing.
Read: Homeschooled kids will still be kids
Are Homeschooled Children Over Sheltered?
Are Homeschooled Children Over Sheltered? Part 2