Why are homeschooled kids so annoying?

About a year ago, when I first started considering taking my kids out of public school, I wasn’t met with the kind of incredulous questioning that I expected after suggesting something so reckless and foolhardy. For the most part people were excited and supportive and helpful. Many thought we were already homeschooling, in fact. What surprised me most though is that folks who were concerned about the prudence of such a decision weren’t worried that my children might not learn enough or the the right things. They didn’t wonder how my kids would know how to be quiet when they were supposed to or to wait in lines when they have to.

No, the biggest concern among the concerned was: SOCIALIZATION. Ahhhh! Socialize those kids! Learnin’, schmlearning- those kids need to be among herds of other kids their exact age in order to learn how to be normal. In other words: homeschooled kids are annoying and weird, and you don’t want your kids to be annoying and weird, do you?

Well, if someone tries to tell you that their kids are never annoying, they’re lying to you. And if someone else tries to tell you that any child of mine isn’t going to be at least a little weird no matter how they’re educated, they’ve lost their minds.

Why is this perception of the weirdo homeschooler so pervasive? Why is it that despite the clear academic achievement of most homeschooled students, the fear of them “acting like that one weirdo guy I knew when I was a kid” is enough to turn otherwise supportive folks against the idea? I’ve thought about it a lot and the best explanation I can come up with is this: ridicule.

See, everyone is born with a certain temperament. Parents of more than one will all attest to this. Same parents, same environment, same rules….completely different reactions from their children. And some kids- well, some kids are annoying. And what do I mean by “annoying”? I mean what people mean when they say that homeschooled kids are annoying. I mean kids who ask too many questions and know too much information and like certain stuff and refuse to like other things and don’t care what other people think about their silly hobbies and their know-it-all-ness.

When “annoying” kids like this go to a traditional school, they’re ridiculed. They have a hard, or even impossible, time finding their niche. They must either hide their true personality and inclinations in order to be accepted or they’re pushed to the fringes and made to feel abnormal. Not good enough. Made to feel less likable than those who keep their ideas and opinions to themselves or fail to form any to begin with. Made to feel that convictions and fascinations are stupid and that pop culture is the only culture. Not because “normal” kids are mean. They mostly don’t even know they’re doing it, I assure you. They just don’t know what to do with someone who’s so, like, weird. Ya know?

But when one of those “annoying” kids is homeschooled, no one makes fun of their outfits that don’t match. Or the fact that they like to memorize things and wish the math assignments were harder. No one looks at them askance when they know every answer to every question and are eager to share their knowledge. When an annoying kid like that finds a new hobby and wants to learn everything they can about it and talk about it incessantly, no one treats them like there’s something wrong with pursuing an interest like that, no matter how dull it may seem to the other members of the homeschool classroom. They are not ridiculed into trying to be who God didn’t create them to be.

“Oh but dweej…that’s real life! You can’t just go around being annoying all the time. Better they learn now than later!”

Better they learn what? That the crowd knows best? That their interests are boring and a waste of time? That they need to wear a certain thing and buy a certain thing in order to be worth people’s time? Better they learn now not to stand up for themselves?

Because that’s the thing. By the time annoying people like that are older, they’re older. They’ve advanced beyond certain stages of childhood and are better able to confidently stand up for what they believe in. The idea of being ostracized by a group of people that they don’t really like anyway no longer sends them into a panic. If they spend their whole childhood trying to be something they’re not or believing that what they are is weird and weird is bad, they’ll enter adulthood with those same perceptions, that same lack of self-confidence.

If, on the other hand, they’re able to cultivate their interests, learn to be comfortable in their own quirky skin, encouraged to achieve as much as their little over-achieving hearts desire, they’ll enter adulthood with the confidence to continue on that path. They won’t automatically wonder if people will disagree or make fun of them when they make assertions or cling to ideals. And if those people do disagree or make fun of them they won’t care. Because they’re not kids anymore. They’re all grown up!

Of course, not every homeschooled kid is like that. Not even every one of the kids who lives in this house is like that. But no one asks the “normal” kids and adults if they were homeschooled. It doesn’t cross their minds. Because they’re so, you know, normal.

But the homeschooled kids who are like that, who are “annoying” are so different, so confident, so willing to allow themselves to be something that the majority of society has labeled as weird, that people can’t help but paint all homeschooled families with the weirdo brush. Because shouldn’t kids like that want to keep their mouths shut and keep their opinions to themselves?

And that’s why homeschooled kids are so annoying. Because no one tells them that the way God made them isn’t cool enough.

I respect everything you say. Yes, I was a public school teacher for 10yrs. I left a Bible on my desk and was not afraid to tell students about my faith. Having said that, I was told by a homeschooling devotee that I was sending my kids to hell because I put them in the public school. I did not want this narrow mindedness and intemperance to be a part of their faith. I believe all truth and revelation comes from God. We do not need to fear any attacks vy secularists. I do respect homeschoolers. I would be that 80% or better of my church friends homeschool. But don’t restrict their vision by ultrafundamentalist precepts that are not part of God’s Word!

All sects of schooling have their arrogant ‘my children are superior’ parents. I found it worse among private school parents. But there were even some among the public school parents. I found homeschooled parents to have less arrogance overall, probably because they are involved on a daily basis with their kids and aren’t in denial about their kids’ abilities.

But the facts are that, overall, homeschooled kids do better academically. Colleges now recruit homeschooled students which is a far cry from just 20 years ago when they had to jump through hoops just to be allowed into college.

“If you don’t encounter bullies in school where will you learn to knuckle under to tyranny when you are an adult.

Who is more of a bully/ The child who picks on a kid because he is insecure or the thug bureaucrat in the EPA who hounds an entire industry out of existence thereby bankrupting and destroying thousands of jobs? Perhaps they are one in the same.”

Ha, great post! so sadly accurate.

I’ve only comment on what I personally have observed. I am a fan of home schooling as I believe the government is complicit in training students to be good socialists, atheists, homosexuals and otherwise promiscuous, baby killers and to resent and betray their families.

Ha!

I bet they are way smarter than the adults who are annoyed by them and that is probably the very reason for their annoyance.

“I am a fan of home schooling as I believe the government is complicit in training students to be good socialists, atheists, homosexuals and otherwise promiscuous, baby killers and to resent and betray their families.”

I agree 100%.

The agenda of the unions is NOT to education but to brainwash. The students also learn to feel entitled. Without the responsibility that goes with the freedoms we have.

Back to the original topic - in trying to figure out the private school parents and the prevalent attitude that resembled pageant moms, I think it was justifying spending all that money on the kids’ education. In the classroom, I saw more scared kids trying to live up to their parents’ expectations than in public school. That part was very sad too. There is no ‘perfect’ situation, but public school is dead last, IMO.

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