There is a lot of pressure on parents of homeschooled children to find friends for their kids. The pressure comes from within and from without. I’ve had my share of well-meaning but misguided people inquiring, upon meeting us, how my children find friends. This is a common experience for most homeschool families, and it is usually the first question in conversations with strangers.
Complete strangers become very concerned about this topic and only this topic as soon as they learn you homeschool. They’re not at all interested in what your children are learning, the curriculum being used, or how much your children enjoy their learning. They don’t wonder about the literature they’re reading, the languages they’re learning, or how well they’re bonding with their siblings. They don’t ask about the harmony within the home. The children’s faith isn’t a topic of concern either. Even the kind and loving members of the churches we have attended in the past have never shown the slightest interest in our children’s faith development when it comes to questions about their homeschooling. We never get any inquiries about that. The only points of interest seem to be how our children are being socialized and how many friends they have. It is not terribly uncommon to be asked to list the activities in which they participate. This is rather understandable given our culture.
At this point, many generations have been taught that “socialization” is essential for children. We have been told that it is the process by which children make friends and learn to act normally.
We’re told it is the only way to produce normal, happy, polite, well-adjusted children. They simply must be socialized.
I don’t need to overemphasize the obvious here: our society is filled with children who display the opposite traits of those described above. Everywhere around us, we observe well-socialized children who are cruel, unruly, ostracized, defiant, and aggressive. They are depressed, anxious, and lonely, all while being textbook perfect in terms of meeting the “socialization” criteria. Somehow, however, they are not learning to interact appropriately with their peers or anyone else, and they tend to form friendships based on who happens to be around and willing to accept them, not on who is a true or good friend or a positive influence.
This is not a surprise. What did we expect children to do when left to themselves? They are, after all, young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. They are designed not to teach, guide, or make wise decisions, but to learn and soak up information. They are designed to be malleable, impressionable, and easily influenced.
We ignore this reality and pretend they are mini adults when we put them in a group of their peers and tell them to navigate the pitfalls wisely. Doing that places a burden on them that they were not designed to bear. Proverbs warned us of this when it says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child”[1] and “a child left to himself brings shame on his mother.”[2]
It is important to note that the word and concept of “socialization” did not exist until about the 1830s, and it took only about a century for the term to be used to describe a philosophy of child-rearing in which children were placed in groups of their peers, with the idea being that this is how they would learn to behave properly.
Over time, the word “socialization” has been increasingly used to describe what is believed to be a fundamental and necessary experience for healthy childhood development. It is more accurate to describe this as a philosophy or an ideology rather than just an innocuous term. The ideology holds that children will be happiest, make good friends, and learn to behave appropriately and thoughtfully toward one another if they are simply left to figure it out for themselves amongst their peer group. Many parents have accepted this out of an intense desire for their children to feel loved and to have lasting friendships. They desire something good, namely, healthy relationships for their children, and since they don’t know how to achieve that without doing exactly what our society tells them is necessary, they leave their kids in random groups of children and hope for the best. The result? Well, we’ve gone over that already.
The issue of friendship, however, is an important one to discuss. Parents want their children to have friends. No parent wants their child to experience loneliness. As Christian parents, we need to view the concept of friendship rightly in order to proceed wisely.
First things first: Friendship is not, in itself, an innate good.
Ask any parent whose child has gotten involved with a bad group of friends, and they will tell you that a bad friendship is one of the most destructive forces a child can experience. Proverbs says, “Do not be misled, ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’”[3] And that is all too true in reality and in practice. Parents should not want their children to have just any friends. They should want their children to make good and godly friends. We want our children to experience friendships in which they lift one another up, encourage one another in their Christian faith, and help one another as they walk the path God has set out for them.
“But how do you get that?” you may be asking. Let me ask you a question: How did you meet your spouse? Every story of a couple meeting that I’ve ever heard is special and spectacular. There was always—always—such clear providence of God in the way He brought those two people together. For some reason, people find it easier to credit God with meeting their spouse than with meeting their godly and faithful friends. Why is that? Perhaps because we forgotten how little we control and how much of a miracle it is when two like-minded Christian people meet and connect out of the billions of people in the world. Christian spouses are a gift from God, and Christian friends are also a gift from Him. You do not control when those people come into your life. You do not dictate their placement. God does that. Our job, then, is to wait on the Lord. We wait with outstretched hands for His good gifts. He delights to give them.
If He has laid silence on you during this season, and not given your children the good and godly friends you’ve asked for, take comfort in Lamentations 3, which says,
“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.
Let him sit alone in silence,
for the Lord has laid it on him.
Let him bury his face in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
and let him be filled with disgrace.
For no one is cast off
by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to anyone.”
I encourage you to pray for godly friends for your children. Pray for them fervently. Pray for them daily, and then let it go. He will provide. “Wait for the Lord. Be strong, and take heart, and wait for the Lord.”[4]
[1] Proverbs 22:15
[2] Proverbs 29:15
[3] 1 Corinthians 15:33
[4] Psalm 27:14
