In my post about socialization a poster has bought up one of the main concerns I have.
The post:
Well, we homeschool and are currently wrestling with this question also. First, I think "socialization" is best done in the family, but as our kids age I am increasingly recognizing another aspect of socialization. Before becoming an adult, we have to learn how to deal with adversity and with different opinions, even hatred towards us and our religion. Now that our oldest has a pretty solid foundation, I am wondering if the next step would be to send him to institutional high school so that he can develop practical skills in dealing with this type of adversity/diversity while he still has daily contact with his parents.We have made no decisions yet, but a big part of me wonders if this would be preferable to having his first major dose of "the world" when he is an adult living far away at college or now. He would have a better foundation if we waited, but less contact with his support system.
Since it is quite a few days since I did the post I decided to bring this comment here and see what others think.
As stated yesterday Madeline has changed school's. The main reason we changed schools was because she was so unhappy and her self esteem was getting a huge beating from exclusion and bullying. The reason we changed schools is because she wasn't learning any skills from it, she was just becoming an unhappy person. In my opinion she was starting to hate the person she was and wanted to be someone different. I am pretty sure that her unhappiness stemmed from this and nothing else.
Now Madeline is only 12. Maybe things would have been very different if she had come up against the adversity when she was older. Maybe if she had been homeschooled up until now she wouldn't have been so affected by it.
In truth do we ever learn to cope with diversity or hatred? What are your thoughts on this?
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4 comments:
I don't know....it was the middle school years that hurt me more. Maybe junior year of high school was bad.
Do I regret it? It formed me as a person in a way. I can say the experience was miserable but helped me. Did I do well academically during the stress? Nope, but then I didn't have family support either. In retrospect I see God in there. He planned this out, what my experiences were going to be.
I am doing better with diversity. I used to be too "everyone should be 100 percent orthodox Catholic or I will let them know what the Truth is". And that converts no one.
I struggle with annoyance when people are eager to tell me what they *think* the Catholic Church teaches. And get it all wrong and there is nothing you can say to change their minds. That can be a delicate balance of correction and diplomacy.
People who are regular Catholic Church goers yet their belief system in no way reflects Church teaching boil my blood.
I avoid people who hate me!!!!
Each life experience throws us these people I guess.
This thread should be interesting!
I agree with you Diana. There have been some people in my past that hated me and I too avoid people like that now. If someone makes it obvious that they disagree with my philosophy or life decisions I just don't mix with them.
I am looking forward to others thoughts on this.
A friend of mine solved this problem for her daughters. She continued to homeschool them (one is still homeschooled) while registering them for different courses at a community college. It was enough for them to experience such adversity, while still having full time contact with their mom. It was also enough for them to see how cruel people can be, without actually putting them in an institutional school setting. I've considered doing the same with my dd, but I do believe she gets enough of this adversity from some "friends" at church, who attend public school.
Just my $.02 :)
Yes you can, and really must, learn how to deal with diversity and even hatred. The people who can never learn to walk away, will make themselves ill trying to bend to everyone's desires. And the people who can't cope with other's differing opnions will spend life in there own anger and confusion.
Unfortunately, and I really wish I did know, I don't have a clue as to how to teach a child to deal with these issues. I had to as a child, I remember, but I don't seem to remember how I got over it.
There was a preschool show here, Little Bill, that was dealing with a boy in Kindergartin that said only very mean insulting things. Little Bill's dad told him to always reply "so" and the little boy would eventually stop. And that Little Bill should not be hurt becuase the things that the mean boy said simply were not true. And, of course, this worked for Little Bill... but it gets harder as children get older.
The worst part for pre-teens especially is that they are still trying to figure out who they are... it's hard to see that the insults being thrown at them from peers are not true. :-(
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