Boys and the Dangers of Homeschooling

Avoid the smothering that comes from a domestic environment.

I’m a big fan of homeschooling. There is no better environment to tailor your children's education to their specific needs. You get to prepare them for the world before throwing them into the deep end.

Of course, there are other good options. Private schools and private tutors can be viable options. Public schools, on the other hand, should be avoided. Or at least, you shouldn’t just choose a public school because it is the “default.”

But…

There might be a reason to send your boys to public school. Eventually. This has to do with the differences in how you treat boys and girls.

Homeschooling and Girls

For girls, there is almost no reason to ever send them to a public school. It is wholeheartedly corrupting. It will seek to chew them up and spit them out and make them twice the daughter of Hell that many teachers are. This goes double for many universities.

Girls should be able to flourish with homeschooling all the way through high school. It is a domestic environment, and they will always be comfortable under the authority of their mother. They can be cultivated like flowers, slowly blossoming with care and attention.

But Boys Are Not Girls

Boys, however, need to assert themselves. They need to go out and conquer. They need to put themselves into some risky situations and wrangle themselves out of those situations. They need to be forged in a furnace of testing and trial.

Not having an outlet for this testing is one of the primary dangers of homeschooling, especially if the father is not involved. They are smothered into effeminacy by the feminine environment of the home, or they lash out in rebellion against that feminine environment.

How to Mitigate the Dangers of Homeschooling

Homeschooling can still be a great option for boys, but like most aspects of the education of your children, you should not choose the default.

• Make sure you, as the father, are involved in teaching

• Make sure your son is taking on some markers of masculinity

• Make sure your son is not being coddled

• Make sure there are plenty of activities outside the home where your son can interact with other boys and men

If you do these things consistently and have a clear definition of what it means to be a man, your son will probably do fine homeschooling through the high school years.

But he might need more.

He might desire to test and prove himself on a livelier battleground. A boy bristling under the domestic environment at home might not be rebelling. His uneasiness could be one of the consequences of raising him right. He wants to test his strength against greater challenges.

And the scary thing: he might be ready. If he has a clear idea of who he is and what is expected of him as a member of your family, consider the possibility.

In this circumstance, if you can’t provide a proper outlet, you might want to send him to the local public school. There, he will find the testing he so desires.

Is it a risk? Of course. But so is life. Your son was born to take risks. And so were you.

As always, homeschooling provides flexibility to meet the needs of your children, and for your son, that flexibility might mean that he should no longer be homeschooled.