Today, as my beautiful 10yo daughter was playing with some of the neighborhood girls, I felt something new. I felt a real confidence about the "social" side of things.
I had a sudden understanding of how much mental energy it takes to survive the elementary and middle school years. I really felt in my heart the exhausting cost of always worrying about this or that drama that classmates get involved in.
This girl "hates" that girl and you have to choose sides. One child said something about someone else and tempers are flaring. I think it can be everything from petty jealousies to real cruelty.
When a child is in the school world for 8-10 hours a day, there is no time to recover; the student must return to school the next day. There is no safe space at school for one to unwind or contemplate, and rarely is there someone in whom children can confide. I am speaking of the day to day, ordinary interactions here, not the fact that there are wonderful social workers and guidance counselors there to help children with great need.
I know some folks reading this will say "that's life!" and I agree! But, I'm not going to throw my 10 year old into an adult job right now, and I don't see any need for children to cope with adult problems without the space and time for growth.
I asked my hubby if it is the same for boys (my son didn't experience anything like that while he was in school) and he said, he thought it was probably more intense and harder for girls, but I'd love to hear from all of you on that!
These experiences are not absent in home educating. They are just separated in space and time, and therefore not overwhelming. My daughter can experience her feelings with the time and space necessary to process those feelings.
So when she has trouble with a few of the neighborhood kids, she has the time to be angry, to contemplate her role, to forgive if necessary.... whatever the situation calls for.
In today's case she watched two girls being mean to another girl. She wasn't able to process what was happening as it was going on, but I watched her spend the rest of the afternoon asking questions, contemplating, drawing parallels and conclusions, and coming up with her plan of action (she says that next time she will be extra nice to the girl on the receiving end of the unkindness, maybe help her stand up for herself, maybe stand up for her).
So, it seems that, while I intellectually knew that one of the many upsides of home educating was avoiding the negative social "crap" aspects of school, I knew that only in my head. Today, I got a real vision of how she can benefit from a more natural and authentic form of socialization. She can master her emotions, she can work out complex feelings and urges, she can be allowed to both experience and process, and to know herself better.
Understanding exactly how this could play out for the rest of her life is very exciting to me. I once read an article about allowing our girls to grow up "whole". That is my goal for both my children... allowing them to grow up "whole".
Even if she elects to go to school at a future date, I will know that she had this time to strengthen her inner self and fortify against "the crap"!
For a far more eloquent version I can turn to Frederick Douglass who said, "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men".
