I have a nuisance in my life; my fiance’s best friend, Nick. Nick is 24 years old and is one of the most immature and irresponsible people I have ever met. He is very bad with stereotyping, having no filter, and overall being very disrespectful (especially towards females). How does any of this relate to social psychology and education? Well, I’d love to tell you.
Nick was homeschooled. He uses this as his excuse for all of his negative behaviors. “Sorry I said that, I was homeschooled”, “I’m socially stupid because my mom homeschooled me”, and so on… How much does being homeschooled actually affected your social learning behaviors?
Before researching, I would have based my understanding off of my experiences. These experiences have been mostly negative so of course I have been assuming that homeschooled children do not receive the same amount of social interaction and therefore, do not learn all of the necessary social behaviors as children who attend private/public school. I assumed that if Nick had attended a regular school with other children and teachers to interact with, that he would have had a more positive social influence and would have been able to observe better behaviors.
Surprisingly, the research is the complete opposite. The research suggests that homeschooled children have the same, if not better, social skills compared to their regular schooled counterparts (Abuzandah, 2023). This article did also suggest that the parent’s interaction was an important part and how the parent addresses the developmental needs of the child can make a difference (Abuzandah, 2023).
So what is Nick’s excuse for being an immature nuisance? Who knows. It could be how his mother taught him. Maybe she did not address problem behaviors and focus on his developmental needs, so he thought his behavior was acceptable. Maybe he modeled after his many siblings whose behavior was also not corrected.
Personally, I think that at least some of Nick’s behaviors could have been corrected earlier in his childhood and I also think that being around other teachers, students, and engaging more with peers may have benefited him.
References
Abuzandah, S. (2020, July 07). Social Skills for homeschooling students. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=101655#:~:text=The%20study%20reveals%20that%20homeschooled,child%20since%20learning%20is%20interactive.