Socialization
Socialization is an important part of most kids’ development. Most people live a better life when they have good friends and know how to navigate various social contexts. In order to do this, they need to understand social rules and how people - including themselves - operate.
Standard belief is that this is best achieved at school. Likely because most people go to school, and therefore you should do what most people do in order to be social, by definition. Likely also because we’ve post-rationalized the importance of institutionalized education for socialization, when in fact this cultural phenomenon is a very modern construct in the context of human history. We started sending kids to school to learn to read bibles and/or so their parents could work, and now we believe they’re necessary for teaching kids how to be social.
Let’s say, though, that you were a parent who subscribed to a Substack written by A-Types who were prone to optimizing many aspects of their kids’ educational experience at the risk of doing what most people don’t do, and hypothetically were interested in Type-A-ing your own approach to socializing your kid, you would probably not automatically subscribe to this popular belief that school is the best or only way.
Breaking “socialization” down into first principles, we essentially want kids to get on with others. To do that well, they need to understand how individuals (including themselves), groups, and broader society, operate, and master these dynamics.
An optimal environment for developing high EQ would look something like one which affords kids:
A reliable sense of safety in order to best access and manage their feelings and thoughts. People (kids) can’t do this well when they’re in a defensive state, and we often are.
A reliable sense of safety in order to best access their desire to be good to others. When you feel good, it’s much easier to what to extend those good vibes to others.
A means of critically evaluating their context and inner worlds in order to truly understand and learn from them, under the guidance of a respected leader.
School environments generally do not afford these conditions, or at least not optimally. They necessitate a certain degree of emotional defensiveness in order for kids to survive the various social and intellectual stressors of the environment, and the adoption of associated, unideal coping mechanisms. They also encourage kids to seek guidance from their peers instead of adults - and we all know how that goes. School-aged peers do not have the brain maturity to provide the reliable safety net required for kids to truly relax in their environment, or to critically evaluate their experiences in an optimal way. They also encourage conformism and the adoption of a dominant culture in a way that doesn’t promote optimal growth of an individual. And as a homeschooler, that’s ultimately what I’m here for.
Kids’ (ahem, people’s) coping mechanism look like some blend of:
Suppressing parts of themselves in order to conform
Adopting (ultimately detrimental) practices in order to conform
Excluding others in order to conform
Defensiveness as protection against non-conforming parts - dominance over others, addictions, eating disorders, aggressive/anti-social behaviors
Low self-confidence as protection against non-conforming parts - fawning in order to reduce your level of threat, addictions, eating disorders, anti-social behaviors
Etc.
These behaviors will often mask as a well socialized kid. High-achiever! Accommodating! Polite! Hot and skinny! Cool! And then people spend the next two decades of their lives un-learning all of this conditioning - and learning actual emotional intelligence and who they are - from TikTok, therapy, or good old self help books. Or they don’t and just live out various degrees of dysfunction. High-achiever! Accommodating! Hot (botoxed) and skinny! Hey, cool outfit!
While many A-Types have taken to such means, this isn’t the way to A-Type your kids’ socialization. I’m pretty confident that, while schools can be a great way to learn to read bibles and find childcare, there are better ways to socialize them.
For me this looks like simply keeping our kids’ connections to loving adults as central. Kids are great as friends but I don’t want them as my kids’ leaders. By fostering relationships with people of different ages and with different interests. And by helping them to analyze their surroundings such that they are confident and capable enough to opt-in to conformity only as desired.