Boys and girls. The truth is, even though we want to deny it with all our might, and even though it is the politically correct thing to be gender neutral, boys and girls are different.
Rcently I've been having discussions with other home edders about the 'feminine' (or 'feminised') environment of home education. To me it is plain to see. After all, the majority of home educators are women. Why? Financial reasons, the natural progression from childbirth to childcare or due to some other reason that make the universe turn.
I know personally of only two home educating families where the mums are the main income earners and the dads do the home education (plus one other family on a home ed list that I do not know personally). There may be more out there, but there is only one dad who participates regularly in home ed activities. I guess it's not an environment that dads feel comfortable in...
Because of this lack of 'man influence' at groups, activities, workshops, there is (to me) an overriding feminine influence. This is not a bad thing as such, particularly in the early years when children thrive in any communal environment that is nurturing. But when you have boys growing up this lack of maleness in their everyday life does concern me.
For instance, there are times when I look at the home education activities and how they are presented and I think 'Well that's ok for the girls, what are the boys going to do?' As anyone with boys know, one or two boys together is fine. Get 4 or more boys together with nowhere to channel their energies and they are quickly recreating scenes from Lord of the Flies! It doesn't take long for nature Walk to find flowers to press to turn into set up a base camp, give blood-curdling cries, and brain anyone who approaches with very large stick.
Now don't get me wrong. Of course, girls are capable of doing this too, it's just that mostly, for whatever evolutionary, social or cultural reason, they choose not to. Boys, however, tend to gravitate towards the loud, messy, and destructive end of any activity.
Is acknowledging this the same as having a sexist view or gender stereotyping? It's not like I decided to make my boys behave like boys (on the contrary, at first I tried hard to fight the testosterone-fuelled behaviour). A good friend of mine finds my views on this mildly offensive. I think she's in denial {g}, she thinks I'm trying to gender-pigeonhole the world. Perhaps we're both right. I'm not sure that we'll ever agree. (At least not until her 5 year old boy is 11 or 12 and she is in the same predicament as I am! lol). When you have an 11 year old boy whose natural desire is to find his place in the pack (the whole alpha male thing) and who desperately needs male role models around him to work out who he is and what he needs to do to grow into a man, then a feminine environment is just not enough. Nope. It's not enough.
So what do you do when your kids get to 11+ in the home ed world, when the home ed groups don't meet their needs? If they are into sports or drama or dance or gymnastics or scouts etc then there are other avenues they can move in, but if they aren't then what do they do then? In our area it seems that after the age of 11 most of the children disappear. Where do they go? Perhaps some go back into secondary school, or private education. Perhaps some are at home doing increasingly academic work. But what about the others? What about the non-academic, non-sporty ones?
My children are part of a large cohort of 7-11 year old home educated children. I was hoping that we could continue with the same circle of friends and companions at least until the children are in their teens. But having spoken to other home edders this just doesn't seem to happen. But noone seems to know why.
The only solution I have come up with is to design some activities specifically with the age 10-14s in mind. Social events - bowling, pizza evenings etc - and guided hands-on activities with an end product (maybe bicycle maintenance?). Will this work? I don't know, but it's worth a shot.
