I don't know what kind of, I know Brother James could help me with that. If y'all could stand up here every now and then, just kind of beep or whistle or do something that those video games do. People do those things for hours. They can just sit for hours. And so I figure if you whistle or beep or do whatever those sounds are, I can hold your attention. So we might give that a try if I see you falling asleep. And Miss Debra had a good idea that if the children, any of you, don't look at the preacher and be still and be good, then we won't let you come up insane. And then you don't get your palm sugar. You just decide. If you want to wiggle and be naughty, we'll just take care of it that way. Well, let's go ahead. The title of my message is Children and Socialization. Children and Socialization. The Parroted Robotic Objection to Homeschooling and Christian Separation. Dear God, we do pray that you help the preaching of thy word today. Lord, let it be true, Father, we do pray that you will give me good ground to preach upon, good and honest hearts. God, help us be attentive and let us get through this sermon, Father, and leave with greater conviction, greater understanding, of thy truth and ways in the name of Jesus, Lord Jesus, we pray, amen. Romans 16, I'll start with my text. For your obedience has come abroad unto all men, and that's good, isn't it? I am glad therefore on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. Much of this socialization argument is they want your children to not be simple concerning evil. They want them to go to these schools and learn all types of lewdness and things that I can't even say from the pulpit are going around in schools in this country right now. And I read of some of it last night, World Net Daily, and I'm like, I can't even preach on this stuff that's happening in the schools of America. And now that this sodomy thing, this gay marriage in the Supreme Court, I'm telling you, it's going to be even worse in schools. So, God says He wants your children, He wants you as a Christian to be simple concerning evil. And, you know, I was thinking about this. What gave me the idea to preach upon this is My children were in Ava, and I'm telling you, three times, three times, somebody walked up and said, your children are homeschooled, right? And I said, well, how did you know? They said, we can tell. Now, they did not mean that as an insult. They meant it as a compliment. And just about every one of those people said, we can always tell the homeschooled children. And I started thinking about that. Well, that's not what the world says. The world's trying to tell you you can tell who is homeschooled by the fact that they lack socialization skills. But here, we're being praised for something. And I do believe that The world is wrong about this. See, the objection that is parroted and robotic is that if you homeschool your children and you separate in a Christian way, in a biblical way, your children will not be socialized. For years, it's been a strange thing to me that even the world and the most worldly people in the world sometimes would ask what I do to get such well-adjusted, proper children. And I'm sure some of you have also received this from the world. I don't say this to boast, for we all have faults. Sometimes it was on the worst days of my children that you get those types of compliments. But I want you to try to understand this phenomenon. Why are we getting praised by the world, but yet, and not only just praised, but the world is asking, how did you do that? But yet we're being told by the media that what we're doing does not work. So, I've had worldly people come to me and say, I don't understand, I disagree with everything you're doing, but it works. Well, maybe what you're hearing from the media and the psychobabble, maybe that doesn't work, and maybe you're being lied to. In fact, I know you are. I was in a courtroom years ago for somebody else. And the judge called me afterwards, I had my children there, and they praised the children. And that's when I began to think about socialization. It's like, now wait a second. The judge is praising my children, but if I told the judge, my children do not go to public school, perhaps the judge would say, well your children need to be socialized, but yet they're sitting in a courtroom and getting praise from a judge. I started to realize that what they mean many times by socialization is simply good manners. And I'm telling you, you do not have to go to public school, and if you do go to public school, that might be the last place that you're going to learn good manners. Evil communications corrupt what? Good manners. I think that's what they mean. Not only how your children look, but how they behave. They say, your children must be homeschooled. They have good manners. Where do good manners come from? Good manners come from being consistent as a parent. If you're not consistent as a parent, you're not going to have children. And of course, if you never require good manners, you're never going to get good manners. The Bible says, the rod and reproof give wisdom, and it's in that order, brother. The rod and reproof. If somebody has broken a commandment, then they need to be disciplined for that, and then taught, remember, don't do that. But parents don't do that. What parents do is they say, now don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, and it's like the millionth time you've told them, but you're never disciplining them, and you're not going to get good manners. Unless you practice good manners as a parent. And it's not good manners to be inconsistent in your discipline. I always, from the time my children were very small, I treated looking away when spoken to, looking away when complimented, not greeting somebody, I treated that as bad manners. And bad manners need to be disciplined consistently. I didn't beg my children. If we go to Whole Foods and the lady says, oh, that's a pretty dress, or you sure are sweet children, and they look away and play with their hair and turn around and show them the back of their head, hide behind mama. I don't treat that as some type of disease that my child has. I treat it as bad manners. That's being selfish. That's not being polite. That's not being courteous. And I'm talking about within reason. I mean, if there's some scary person that walks up or something, but at the same time, the point is that bad manners need to be dealt with. So usually when people say, your children need to be socialized, they're saying they need good manners. Number two, sometimes they mean, by socialization, Webster's second definition, and that is to make you a little socialist, communist, new-ager. I added the new-ager part, but nevertheless, you understand. That's what they really mean. Your children need to be socialized. How are they going to learn to be a good little communist, new-ager, witch, homo, if they do not Go to public school, where we have got a system there to protect these children from you parents, whatever's left of you Christian parents. Do you want your children to be socialized in that way? There's a system in place to make sure they grow up sodomite, communist, new-agers, humanists, and they get very angry. when you slip outside their system. Because they wanted you there. In fact, Hillary, with her village, it takes a village, she's saying, we're done with you parents. We want them not only in first grade up, we want to come get your children even before that. You need to make sure that you leave the raising of your children to the professionals so we can make them socialized. Hey, I don't want my children socialized in that manner. How about you? Now, others finally mean by socialization the ability to make friends. And this is also a part of just being good and kind and not selfish. But it also has to do with personality. And personality is a result of genes plus environment, plus free will, and proper training. And I'm telling you, going to school is not going to do anything about your genes. And there are many people that go to school, many young people who go to an institutionalized government school. and they're just as shy in school as they would be if they were homeschooled. In fact, being homeschooled, they can at least have a safe place where they can branch out and learn to meet people and that type of thing and not have to be shoved in a classroom with all these hundreds of other students. The Bible tells us we ought to be friendly. The Bible tells us that we ought to greet one another. And to not do so is disobedience to God's command. Family Bible note says, in doing good, Christians should have that wisdom and skill which result from practice, experience and habit. But they should be wholly unskilled and inexperienced in doing evil. If you want your children to be experienced in doing evil, send them around a bunch of other children where there's not enough teachers to watch them, there's not enough supervision, and the child left to himself brings his mother to shame. 1 Corinthians 14, Brethren, be not children in understanding, how be it in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. To be childish when it comes to wolves and snakes and serpents and false prophets and bad teaching. No, you don't want to be childish. Many people want to be childish then. Oh, let's just be kind and nice and have grace. No, no. It's not funny. It's not sweet to be deceived. But when it comes to malice, I tell you, people go to school and they start learning how to be evil. They start learning how to rebel. And they start learning it and they get practiced at it. Newell tells us, Paul distinctly warns us against a knowing spirit as to worldly things. Sophisticated is what many young people today so desire to be considered. But it is a horrible term, implying experimental knowledge of the unclean things of this world with all its evil ways. You want your children to be sophisticated? You want them to be socialized? I don't think so. Oftentimes people who raise this socialized argument want children to be experienced concerning evil. But I want you to think about this biblically. Think of Noah, alone on the face of the earth with probably thousands if not millions of others. And his family alone was saved and not drowned. He was a preacher of righteousness. Was he socialized? The whole world will look at Noah and say, well your children aren't being socialized. You think about that. When somebody says, well, your children are not going to public school. They're separated. I hope they're separated. How do they get socialized? You need to send them to school to be socialized. And they mean a government school. You think of Noah for a second. Think of Abraham. Abraham went out and he kept himself separate from the heathen, separate from the Canaanites. Was Isaac socialized? And then you think of Lot, who wanted to get near Sodom. He wanted to socialize his children with the heathen. And his children end up marrying Sodomites. And they were so confused, some of them didn't even get out of Sodom, and the two that did were so morally confused, you saw the effect of their socialization. And then you saw Lot's wife. She got socialized real good, didn't she? So when people say, you're not socializing your children, you mean like Lot? How did it work out for him? Well, he was around a bunch of sodomites. What do you think is out here in these public schools? I told you the story of a little young fellow that would write me from time to time, and I didn't hear from him for quite a while, and found out that he had become a sodomite. I said, how in the world does a King James Bible only Christian, how did this happen? He goes, oh, my parents sent me to public school. He got socialized real quick, didn't he? Yeah, they want you to be socialized. Hey, not only Lot got socialized, but what about Dinah? Dinah was living the separated life. But like many young women, she started getting a little bored. She started getting curious about the things of the world, as if she's being sheltered. Well, you are being sheltered, Dinah. You're being sheltered from rape. You're being sheltered from all the evil that's out there. But Dinah wanted to go out to see the daughters of the land. She got socialized real quick. In fact, the whole Old Testament you will find. It's about God getting angry, much of it, with Israel because they got socialized. And they would mingle with the people of the land. It is a biblical virtue to be separated from evil and from evil people. Now, I do not expect the world to understand that virtue. So when you're talking to unsafe people and you try to explain to them Christian separation and separating from evil, how can you explain that to them? They're not going to understand that. They do not have the spiritual mind. They have a natural mind. They're carnal and they see things... of this world and they only see things according to this world and they do not understand God's command to be separated from evil and evil people. So when you try to explain why you do not want your children socialized with sodomites, they don't understand this. Until they sit there with their earrings all over their face and their hair and they say, how do you get your children to behave like that? So they don't like your answer, and normally that's what I say, you wouldn't like my answer if I told you. But I found many times at Whole Foods and other places where you have these New Agers and things like that, many of them, when you say no sugar, spank them, love them, and separate them, and don't go to public school, Many times they sit there and say, you know what, I wish I'd done that with my children. I'm like, wow, here I am in this place with somebody dressed like that telling me, I wish now I had done that with my children. You know, there's a lot more light sometimes left in people than we realize, even in this corrupt day and age. 2 Corinthians 6 says, Wherefore come out from among them. Does that sound like socialization, brother? And be ye separate, separate, not socialized, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. How can you do that and send your children to public school? 1 Corinthians 15, Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners. In other words, a lot of people will be deceived about this. They'll think, I can go socialize with these people and they're not going to affect me. Are they going to affect your children? God forbid. Well, you can't take children and shelter them. They have to learn. You know what? They have to learn in a controlled setting. You teach them in a controlled setting. You don't put them around lesbians and dope and all kinds of things like that and just say, well, I hope it all works out. Ephesians 5, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Have no fellowship. How in the world are you going to socialize? See, some of you folks want to be social butterflies, and that's your problem. That's why you can never grow. Some of you young folks will never grow and cry, because you want to be social, see. Proverbs 13, and I'm not speaking to just this church, I'm speaking to anybody that listens to this sermon. Proverbs 13, he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. What happened? They got socialized. Now, if you can show me there's wise people in that classroom with wise teachers, that would be one thing. But even then, it wouldn't be right for a parent to just walk away and leave their child as a sitting duck out here to a people that are preying upon them. I tell you, what a world we got out here today. It is a biblical command and a virtue, according to the Bible, to separate from the world. Now, not only that, The Bible says, Love not the world and the things in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, and he that is a friend of the world is an enemy of God, says the Bible. But it's another biblical command and virtue to not follow a crowd, to do evil. Jesus says, Woe to you, and all men shall speak well of you, for so did they to the false prophets. He says, The things which men esteem are abomination to God. If that was true in the days of Jesus, what about now, Junior? It's weakness to be men-pleasers if you have to compromise or hide light or be silent. So, I'm telling you, if it's a biblical command and it's a virtue to not follow the crowd, how are you going to let your children go and basically fall as a victim to this peer pressure? That's the crowd, is it not? You say, I want to teach my child to stand up to it. Well, great. Do it in a controlled setting. Do it in a controlled setting. You don't just send them out to a place. They say, I want my child to be a missionary. Well, great. Do it in a controlled way. You don't just send them to public school. There's a little video out there by some homeschool groups portraying this socialization mantra. I got some of the text here for you. I love this time of year. It's so beautiful outside, says a father at the park. Another lady walks up and says, I like this time of year too. I also like that the kids are in school so I don't have to watch them all the time. Well, we homeschool. Homeschool? What on earth is that? We teach our three children at home. That sounds crazy. How do you socialize the children? The children must be socialized. Your children will not grow up properly unless they are socialized in a government-sanctioned school. Socialized? What do you mean by socialized? When our children were born, we did not ask ourselves, how on earth are we going to socialize them? Children are quite good at socializing themselves. Well, they need to be in school to be properly socialized. Throughout all of human history, all children were homeschooled. And I never heard about a socialization crisis before we created public schools. Well, you really need to think more about how to socialize your children. But our three children have many social outlets. They have church, they have get-togethers, they have family, they have, you know, I don't understand. No, they should be in a government-approved, state-run school to be properly socialized. The children must be socialized or they will grow up weird. You cannot cite a single scientific study, but how do you socialize your children? I think I have answered your question at least seven times. We interact with other families and children, but how do you know they are properly socialized? How do you socialize your children? I'm sorry, but Matthew 5.22, whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hellfire, limits any further response on my part. I really don't know what else to say without being in real danger of hellfire. I think I had better go. Okay, nice talking with you too. And think about what I said about socializing your children. You should really get them into school. Then they show the fellow taking a deep breath, exercising self-control so he doesn't go to hell. I think that's funny. Matthew 5, just for the record, is saying don't call somebody a fool without a cause, a biblical cause that the Lord would agree with. Anyway, that's pretty much the robotic response you're going to get from people about socialization, and I thought they did a pretty good job. Now we need to ask, what is the end result of this socialization? What is the real goal? I'm not going to give you the quotes, I've quoted it so many times, but in 1930 you had Charles Potter, who was pretty much associated with John Dewey and all the National Association of Education, and they were involved in the educating of America, and he wrote a book called Humanism, the New Religion, and in 1930, Charles Potter said that you Christians are so stupid You think evolution's the only thing wrong with public schools, but you don't understand. We tricked you. We set up a humanist church, and public school is really a state-sanctioned humanist church. And when your children go to public school, you're sending them five days a week to our humanist church so we can create little humanists out of them. He said that. And he said, you only have your children in Sunday school one day a week, and within a few generations, we're going to have all of America a bunch of little humanists running around. And you're not even going to have church without it being a humanist church. So, Charles Potter was bragging, even in 1930, how bad are the schools now? That was in 1930, folks. Manly P. Hall, another occultist, said that, We're setting it up just like Hitler so we can use education to indoctrinate your children and brainwash them out of the King James Bible. That's what he said. He said the public school is there to keep your children from believing the King James Bible. See, these people sometimes are quite honest in their deception, aren't they? Let me read you something from a European Court of Human Rights that ruled on Germany's ban on homeschooling. In the present case, the court notes that the German authorities and courts have carefully reasoned their decisions and mainly stressed the fact that not only the acquisition of knowledge, but also, listen to this, integration into and first experiences of society are important goals in primary school education. In other words, the purpose of school is to integrate you into society, not just to educate you. See, you thought school was for reading, writing, and arithmetic. No, they said, no, no. The German courts found that those objectives could not be met to the same extent by home education, even if it allowed children to acquire the same standard of knowledge as provided by primary school education. So, what they're saying is, we don't care if you can learn better at home, You can't socialize them the way we want them to be socialized. The federal constitutional court stressed the general interest of society in avoiding the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society. Wow. So, Germans right now are quite honest. America is still trying to hide what they're doing. But the Germans say, we don't want you teaching children contrary to our philosophies. We don't want you teaching a parallel society, a Christianized society to your children. We want you to be integrated into our nice humanist, socialist, sodomite society. See, what you don't realize, or you might have forgot, is this is how public school started. See, the Germans are saying, no, we don't want any minorities coming over here thinking differently. We all want to think the same way. Well, what happened was the Catholics were sending people by the thousands into America as minorities, and you had this immigration from Catholics into America, and the Christians were getting afraid. And not just the Christians, any Bible-believing Protestant person that had just a little bit of Bible did not want the Catholics coming in and changing our beliefs. They knew that the Pope had said that he defies our Bill of Rights, that he hates our Constitution, and the Popes were bragging that we're going to send enough minorities into your country that pretty soon we'll do away with your Constitution and your First Amendment and your religious liberty, because we defy religious liberty. We do not believe in religious liberty, the right to worship as you please. We want you to be a follower of the Pope, and we do not believe in religious freedom. The Christians got together and they joined with the Unitarians and they said, here's what we'll do, we'll set up public school and we'll make sure that when these Catholics come over here, we'll teach them the Bill of Rights, we'll teach them the Constitution, we'll teach them our Republican form of government and that way we'll be ensured that the more these immigrants come over, we'll mandate public school and that way we'll save our country. Well, of course, Satan was over here saying, oh, yes, bring your children into a mandated public school, because we're going to actually teach them humanism. And the whole goal was a unitarian, humanistic, once they got the children trapped in public school, they came out a little humanist, and they laughed. And by 1930, they're laughing that the Christians fell for it. They said, you stupid, ignorant Christians, we have your children now. What are you going to do? Well, it took another 40 years for Christians to start waking up and men like Roloff and people like that to say, look, we've got to get out of these schools, we've got to get out of these schools. I mean, they were laughing 40 years before people even woke up! And now it's become a snowball of trying to get out of these schools now, realizing that we've been tricked. Hey, you're like 150 years too late! But better late than never, right? How are schools bringing children in conformity to their expected behavior? Not a paddle. Drugs. Drugs. We want you to sit and conform to our expected behavior. And this is how we'll do it. We'll drug you against the authority of the parent. We'll drug you. You don't sit still, we'll drug you. Ronald E. Williams, director of Hepzibah House, says, it has been a great interest to me to observe the critics of the fast-growing home education movement. It has been my experience that one of the most common accusations made to parents wishing to educate their children at home is that the children will suffer due to lack of socialization. By this, the concerned critic of home education is voicing the fear that Johnny may end up socially retarded if he does not rub shoulders with enough of his peers and may not know how to get along in society as a well-adjusted personality. Many voices of this school of thought are convinced that maximum exposure for Johnny to friends and activities is an absolute necessity for his well-being and has a far-reaching impact on his ability to get along in a complex world. Not surprisingly, many Christians have obligingly accepted this serious fact and have diligently sought to socialize their children. Many have found out to their chagrin that once their child has been properly socialized, they have more than they bargained for. Socialization has largely produced carnal, worldly, feeling-oriented Laodicean Christian youth. Even the pagan world has authoritatively documented the deleterious effects of television on young minds. Yet Christians are still heard to not only defend its usage and ownership, they maintain one is depriving his family if he destroys the family altar, the television, or computer, or whatever it is now. My dear Christian friend, your TV is indeed socializing your youngsters, but in a way you will profoundly regret in years to come. How about friends? Surely our children should have many of them, especially if they are found in church and at our Christian school. May I respectfully point out that our churches and Christian schools in this country are filled with hard-hearted youth whose hearts are clearly inclined toward this world. How a child behaves and adjusts to his family can be a possible forecast of how he will function in the world around him as an adult. I mean, it's almost a given. If a child is older than another child, the younger child will follow the older child. If the older child is worldly, you're going to produce a worldly younger child. If the older child talks about boys and all that kind of stuff, the younger child is going to follow. That is pretty much how things are. And you just got to watch that, even inside the churches. This is precisely why it is so vital that he be taught to immediately and sweetly obey authority, learn the lessons of self-control over his flesh and feelings, and learn how to lovingly interact with his siblings. A child vigorously trained to responsibly interact with his several brothers and sisters, the Bible presupposes the normal family has many children, will be able to successfully integrate himself in most social situations as an adult. witness an early agrarian America with its rural economy, which in many instances saw families living in comparative isolation from their nearest neighbors. On the other hand, socialization and peer interaction of contemporary Christian youth may reinforce hardened hearts and questionable character if the child's home is weak. Because youth left to socialize, especially in unstructured, unsupervised ways on their own, will tend to reinforce one another's weakness of character. That's why the Bible says a child left to himself brings his mother to shame. I am convinced no child should be allowed unfettered and unsupervised fraternization outside the family circle if he is not correctly responding to his parents or siblings. A rebel may well find comfort, acceptance, and solace in the arms of uncharactered friends, but he has bypassed his primary responsibility to first find his pleasure, joy, peace, and fulfillment in his family. To put it another way, a child properly socialized with his parents and siblings is a far better prepared candidate for marriage and ministry than one who is primarily socialized with friends. I mean, you ought to be able to get along with your family. If you go and shut yourself in a room and you never talk to them and you just grunt, you've got a problem, see? And you're not going to fix that getting out here in the world. See, you've got to fix your problem with your home life and then branch out and learn how to not be selfish. It is about time some Christian parents said to another set of parents, our kids are not good for one another. This is not unloving. That is love and genuine caring. We must very carefully gauge the effect children have on one another. Scripture warns us that evil character is contagious. Look at those verses. You must very carefully choose his friends and associations and just as closely monitor his activities. The chief friends of a child ought to be his godly parents and secondarily his godly siblings. Our friends and associations should have a lesser priority. To some these ideas seem narrow and restrictive. This is true. So are the Scriptures. In fact, the scriptures picture the godly life in that way, and yet it is filled with happiness, peace, and joy. Whereas worldly Christians are busily socializing their children to their detriment and exposing them to all manner of things this world has to offer, the narrow-minded fundamentalist agrees with Paul, I would have you wise into that which is good and simple concerning evil. Ask Jacob and Leah how happy they were when their daughter Dinah was socialized. Read the Old Testament closely to see how God was pleased when Israel became socialized with the pagan nations around her. Compromises in her ultimate apostasy should stand out as clear warnings for us today. Noah appeared to the world of his day as a religious fanatic, yet his family alone was saved. Abraham kept his family at arm's length from his Canaanite neighbors and their filthy abominations and produced a godly Isaac. It is my prayer that you see the two contrasting principles in all this. It is the satanically dominated world which says socialize, where it is the word of God that says separate. Separate. Even the Washington Times, one article piece here, editorial. 2009 said one of the most persistent criticisms of homeschooling is the accusation that homeschoolers will not be able to fully participate in society because they lack socialization. It's a challenge that reaches right to the heart of homeschooling because if a child isn't properly socialized, how would the child be able to contribute to society? Today it is accepted that homeschoolers on average outperform their public school peers. In other words, that argument is now over. They barely even bring it up anymore. They moved on to the socialization argument. In part to address this socialization question from a research perspective, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association commissioned a study in 2003 titled Homeschooling Grows Up, conducted by Mr. Ray, to discover how homeschoolers were faring as adults. The news was good for homeschooling. In all areas of life, from gaining employment, to being satisfied with their homeschooling, to participating in community activities, to voting, homeschoolers were more active and involved than their public school counterparts. How about that? Now we have a new longitudinal study titled 15 years later, home educated Canadian adults from the Canadian center for home education. The results are astounding. Home educated Canadian adults aged 15 to 34 were more socially engaged. Average income for homeschoolers also was higher, and there were no cases of government support as a primary source of income for homeschoolers. Homeschoolers also were happier. Almost all of the homeschoolers, 96%, thought homeschooling had prepared them well for life. This new study should cause many critics to rethink their position on the issue of socialization. Not only are homeschoolers actively engaged in civic life, they are also succeeding in all walks of life. Many critics believed and some parents feared that homeschoolers would not be able to compete in the job market, but the new study shows homeschoolers are found in a wide variety of professions. One blogger writes, how does public school assist in socializing people? The majority of people in public school are kids, not adults. So any socialization will produce adults with the ability to interact in a socially acceptable manner with kids, not fellow adults. This is why so many people today act just like kids in a public setting. This is why they fight. This is why they're rude. This is why they don't respect anybody in authority. They've been socialized to interact in a childlike society. How about that? Another blogger says, socialization is just a PC term, which really means aping. Your average public school eighth grader apes his classmates. He apes their social habits. He apes his friends' attitudes, values, and dress. He's not learning anything positive. He's learning just how to mimic. If your goal is the communist animal farm, then by all means, yes, a public school process is the answer. I'd rather my kid not become socialized at 12. If it means that he learned how to become pregnant, get high, drunk, arrested, be disrespectful to his elders, thanks, but no thanks. Another blogger says, your assessment of socialization is way off. Homeschool kids are generally awkward creeps, incapable of connecting with their peers, interacting normally only with their parents. Homeschooling does not emulate real society where you're required to deal with a variety of people on a regular basis. It creates an unhealthy environment of isolation. Just stop. You know, I've noticed some of these people that say, Well, homeschoolers are weird. You have to be socialized so you won't be weird. They're some of the weirdest people, if you really think about it. Some of the most social misfits are the ones telling you, well, you want your kids to be normal, like you. In other words, you want them to turn out. Were you public school? OK, so you want my kids to be like you? No thanks. No thanks. I'll tell you what. I'm glad. If that's what normal is, I'm glad my children are not normal. Aren't you? I've heard you speak. This blogger gets answered. That's funny. Although my daughter was only homeschooled for a year, we still have many homeschooling friends, and those kids are the ones that seem to have a gazillion friends and also are able to talk to me or other adults easily and maturely, more so than her public school friends. I've also seen many homeschoolers now doing well, and others doing well in their work environments. A couple of other people get on to him, so he finally writes, believe it or not. Okay, it seems I was wrong on this one. Thanks for the info. And then they tell him, thank you for being willing to learn about this. We were very reluctant to start homeschooling because of the concerns mentioned in this article. And now six years into it, not only are our kids doing better academically and socially than their peers, they still engage with, but all of their homeschool friends are as well. We honestly do not know a single case where the homeschool kids did worse. Somebody else says, our experience confirms this. The homeschool kids interact with people of all ages consistently better than their public or private school peers. Another writes, my kids are grown up now, so I am not speaking as a parent anymore. It has always seemed to me that the homeschool kids I knew were more effectively socialized to interact with adults than were the public school counterparts. I believe that our culture started going downhill about the time of the development of mass media in the 1920s flappers area. Mass media enabled psychological separation of children from the adult culture of their parents and allowed creation of a subordinate child culture through recorded music and such. You know, so you end up with the 50s where you have the teen music, this is our music, and you have the adult music over here. Well, what happens when they're now 75 years old and they got an earring and they're listening to ACDC? I mean, what's going on here, see? That they just stay with their teen music and it just produced It produced a deformed society, is what it did. Before radio came along, children grew up more isolated from each other in whatever adult culture their parents lived in. Child culture was immature and dangerous. How did we get this way? Notice I.W. Hoerth in 1898 says, the great problem of the age is how to get rid of our unsocial classes. Obviously, the only way to get rid of them is to socialize them. And this may be done by education, and this should be, we contend, its main object. So here's what happened. By the end of the 19th century, many were living in cities, and the days of the pioneer spirit were over. Remember how they would always go out and build a lot of cabins, and some people would kind of start getting close to them, and they would say, oh, what's happening here? So they would go out and leave their cabin and move further out in the woods, and that was the pioneer spirit. You just keep going and conquering. You kind of get away. You don't want people right here next to you. Well, by the time you get to the late 1800s, you had people moving into the cities more. Well, the question was, how are we going to get these people to live in these cities together in this way where they're putting house to house? Well, we're going to have to start changing school from teaching writing and arithmetic to teaching them to get along in a close environment like a bunch of tuna fish. And that's what they did. That's what they did. Here is a homeschooling mom and homesteader in 2015 in the Huffington Post, a very liberal feminist newspaper. Confessions of an unsocialized public school child. You can't convince me not to homeschool my son using the socialization argument. Not even because we want to customize our child's learning to incorporate our ethnic background, serve our children's unique interests, stay in control of our own time, and include basic real life skills and experiences as part of our educational plan. What I am calling the socialization argument is a commonly overvoiced belief among people, currently chief among them my mother, that homeschooled children are being denied, nay robbed, of the opportunity to become socialized with other children. I am living evidence that the socialization argument is flawed. I was a public school child. My mom moved in with my grandparents after her divorce. Everybody worked. I wasn't a social butterfly. I was awkward and little has changed. I am still not a social butterfly. I am still awkward. Being in a group did not help me learn or learn to be around people. It made me feel isolated and alone. I tell you, the ones killing themselves aren't homeschool kids. See? The ones feeling depressed and awkward and alone in this sea of other children, I tell you, those are the children that are depressed. Those are the children having trouble. Homeschooling families are more likely to be civilly engaged than families who send their children to public or even private schools. Homeschoolers display fewer behavior problems than do other children. Homeschoolers have higher levels of parental interest and communication and peer independence, a sense of responsibility, and lowered anxiety levels. Homeschooled children have higher achievement and mastery skills. Homeschooled children are more socially mature. Homeschooled children have better leadership skills than other children. Diane Flynn Keith, yes, my grown homeschooled children are odd, and yours will be too, in the homeschoolnewslink.com, says, one research study even concluded, the socialization of homeschooled or home-educated students was often better than that of their schooled peers. The research proves homeschoolers surpass standard social expectations, and in exceeding them, they fall short of social mediocrity. I hate to be the one, though, to break it to you, but there's nothing normal about our kids. Your homeschooled child is odd compared to the schooled population because they've not experienced ongoing school-based socialization and standardization. They will always think and act differently than those who attend traditional schools. How could it be? See, that's what they're really saying. We want you to be normal. Do what everybody else does. to do what we learned, the programming on TV, you're living outside the box, you're doing something different, and you're not supposed to do that. See, they've been brainwashed. And when your children are taught to go with the flow, whatever they tell you is, is, is, I mean, you just gotta go with what they tell you. If they tell you this pill's good for you, that's what you do. This is what you do when you get sick. This is what you do to educate your children. This is how you do it. This is how you dress. This is how you live. And when you say, you know what? Prove it to me. No, I'm not just gonna follow what you... I'm not just gonna be mindless. Then they call you radical and strange and odd. And you produce odd children, see. But it's okay to be odd. See, I did a sermon not long ago. It's been a few years. How to raise holy rebels. To rebel against this system. Rebel against the wickedness. To not be a friend of the world. If something's right, then be right. But don't just be wrong because everybody's wrong. That's just insanity is what it is. It's insanity. They will always think and act differently. How could it be any different? They haven't been indoctrinated in the same way. The very act of homeschooling questions the power and authority of government and societal norms. By choosing to homeschool, you have set an example for your kids to defy conventional wisdom and not to accept the status quo. Why would anybody expect that such a marked divergence from the norm would produce a person who is so common or usual or so well socialized? that they fit right into the mainstream. Others may admire homeschoolers' unique perspective or intellect, but they will definitely know that something about homeschoolers sets them apart from the rest. You can insist all you want that your children are well socialized, but the truth is they haven't been assimilated. If you have dared to challenge government schooling or conventional private schooling, I suspect you aren't normal or especially well socialized either. Somehow you are impervious to social conditioning. Enough to think outside the box. You're probably a little odd too. We're either deliberate, accidental, or reluctant social misfits who imbue our children with a set of values and beliefs that resist the siren songs of government schooling, pop culture, and social engineering. Rather than worry that your kids won't fit in or be well socialized, celebrate their deviant behavior. And I say amen to that. Raise a holy rebel. A rebel against Satan, a rebel against the world, and a rebel against the conditioning of pop culture, the rebel against the conditioning of these communists and these sodomites. And here's what I'm finding out. Because people have not been homeschooled and they have not, they're new to this thinking outside the box thing. They're slaves to propaganda. So if they see something on TV and it shows homeschoolers is not being socialized. Then they end up following it. Because they can't think outside the box. And then if it's a cartoon. And they watch it. One of these adult cartoons that come out that, you know, blaspheme traditional Christianity and that type of thing. Oh my, they fall for it just like that. Online it says, homeschool kids do not show up in media very often, but when they do, they are usually shown as either socially inept nerds or religious fundamentalists who have been sheltered by their paranoid parents. One of these wicked cartoons that people watch had a homeschooler. And very interestingly, from what I read about it, the homeschooler was presented as extremely smart and winning all the spelling bees. But they were very strange and odd and nerdy and repressed and all of that. So here's the world mocking homeschooling. And when they go to mock it, they have to show that they're super intelligent, super smart. But their one argument is that it produces these oddball characters that cannot get along with other children. So they have as their main statement, public school is the main place where children learn all of their social skills. You can't teach a child social skills, they have to learn them themselves. So everybody watching their cartoon is sitting there, yes, I don't want my child to be odd. Okay, I've learned now from this cartoon, and they think they're smart. They think they've thought something. See, no, you haven't thought anything. See, this is the whole reason you ought to be homeschooled, so you don't end up like you, see. So you can learn, number one, to stay away from stupid propaganda. That's not a cartoon, buddy. Somebody wrote the cartoon. Do you understand that? No, no, this is real life. See, I heard it in the cartoon. No, somebody sat there and designed that. You're hearing a sermon, but they knew you wouldn't listen to a sermon, so they gave you a cartoon because they knew you would sit and listen to that. See? Hey, look at the news about school shootings. How many homeschool shootings have you seen? Look at the epidemic of predator teachers. I remember people used to try to count them. Now they don't count them anymore. I mean, it's just everywhere. Predator teachers going after the girls. Female teachers going after the girls. Men teachers going after the boys and vice versa. I mean, it's insane. I mean, to send your child to school. How many know the teacher? Oh, I went to a PTA meeting and they were a nice person. You don't know these people. You're sending your child to sit under somebody to be indoctrinated. You don't know who's sitting next to them. You don't know anything. It's a very idiotic system. Very idiotic. How many child suicides are due to bullying in the media in school? And it's never presented in the media, another public school kid commits suicide. See, that's how they ought to say it. If a homeschool child picked up a gun and accidentally shot himself, it'd be homeschool kid shot himself, see. Well, what about all these thousands of kids killing themselves? Here's another public school, another public school, another public school. See, that's how you ought to report it. Common core, all this lewd fornication education. And then right over here in Missouri, the latest news now that's in the headlines, is a boy comes to class wearing a dress. You can't get Christian women to wear a dress, but you can get now all the boys in school want to wear dresses. They'll say, I'll wear it, preacher. So now you got this boy wearing a dress, and he wants to go to the girls' bathroom. And I clicked on the news report, and he talks in a very low voice. I mean, it's ridiculous. He sounds like Junior. He doesn't look like Junior. Thank God. But you know what? I just think I ought to be able to go to the girls' bathroom, you know? So praise God. The girls of the school said, if nobody's going to defend us, if there's no men around here, well, we'll take care of it ourselves. So they stood up and they protested. They said, we're leaving school today. We're going to do a walkout to protest you sending this pervert in the bathroom with us. Wow, so now nobody knows what to do. The whole world's watching this situation, and it's about to spread all over. Because how can you dare tell this pervert, well, you think you're a girl, but you're not. Oh, we can't do that. So welcome to public school. That's public school. That's socialization, see. How did he learn to think he was a girl? Lord help us. Are there potential problems with homeschooling? Of course there are. But address the problems and fix it. Here's another blog, because many people worry that the supposed lack of homeschool socialization opportunities will create shock kids. In fact, the opposite is true. Can homeschooling cause shyness? Can the supposed lack of homeschooling socialization opportunities create shy kids? First of all, there is no lack of socialization opportunity in homeschool. But still, it is perfectly true that no matter how many outside social opportunities homeschoolers take advantage of, they are not with a large group of kids all day every day the way students are in institutional school. So the question is, is it possible? that children who are somewhat disposed towards shyness will be pushed into shyness by being homeschooled, but would be pulled out of shyness by being placed into an institutional school setting. This idea that shy homeschooled kids are shy because of homeschooling contains a very big, if unspoken, assumption. Institutional schools have no shy kids. Well, are there any shy kids in institutional schools, whether public schools or private? Here's a shocking fact. Yes, there are. So just take all the shy kids and say, see, public school did that to you. How did that happen? If homeschooling causes shyness. And if shy homeschoolers should be put in school to make them not shy, then what should we do with shy public schoolers? The truth is homeschooling does not cause shyness. Many things can contribute to shyness. But at least one causative factor is forcing introverts into social situations where they cannot retreat when they feel overwhelmed. How do I know that being forced into unwanted social situations can cause shyness? Well, it did for me. Introverts do not enjoy social chit-chat. Not necessarily because they are shy, but because they prefer more meaningful conversations. Three of my four children are introverts. Introverts should go to school so they have socialization opportunities, right? Wrong. Yes, of course introverts need to learn to deal with social situations, but they don't need to attend an institutional school to do that. In fact, as we've already noted, it can often hinder social development. I found out a few years ago, I bought this big book called Foss Family History. After growing up, it was kind of neat to read. I kind of wish I would have read it when I was a kid. It's good to know your background and what's in your genes, so to speak. One of the things it says is that Foss are not usually big on social chit-chat. I'm like, well, that kind of explains. I just never liked to sit around. Now, I like it more now as a Christian, but I was never really big on that growing up as a kid. It said fosts are uncomfortable when they're not accomplishing things. And to just sit around and have meaningless chitchat, I was never good at it. I was never good at it. My dad's very good at it. He can go work on somebody's thermostat and meet them after three minutes and sit there for three hours and talk to them. I just was not very good at doing that type of thing, you know. And it's a good skill, but it's not a skill that most fosts have. As a boy, I was very reserved. I was far from the class clown. I was quiet, but I went to public school. I would raise my hand a lot in class and discuss literature, discuss the stories. I didn't want to get up and speak in front of the class, but I loved to raise my hand and contribute to the discussion. So many would have called me shy. Many would have said I lacked boldness. But I was a public school kid. Yet I remember one time there was a girl in the line and this big old tall fella was assaulting her and I beat him up. I did. I'm telling you that as a pastor. I think it's good to defend girls. I think it's proper. When I was a kid in elementary school, they'd have this big fella with this big giant afro and he would assault the girl. But I didn't beat him up. What I had to do was basically just occupy him and get sat on until finally the teacher would come back into class. But you know what? Does that sound like a shy kid to you? If nobody's gonna stand up? I'm telling you all that to tell you this. How do you define How do you define shyness? Who's the shy kid? The one that sits there and allows a girl to get assaulted? Or the one that's the class clown? See, how do you define socialization? How do you define boldness? How do you define confidence? I think there are many differing personality types, even among your siblings in your own house. You've got some that are very outgoing. Some that are going to just talk all the time. And then you've got others that are more reserved. They've got different genes, different things. So the first thing I would say is, If somebody says homeschooling creates shy children, I would say, how do you define shy? Secondly, there are many types of people. And whether you're homeschooled or public schooled, you're still going to have your personality. You might be outgoing. You might not be. You might be reserved. But all these people are writing these blogs now that they've grown up. They said, hey, I was the awkward kid. I was the shy kid. And I still am. And they said, I was public schooled. So your argument is dumb. But let me say this. There are factors that can contribute to a shyness that is overboard. If you have a ridiculing and insulting abusive parent that's always mocking a child, that can produce an awkwardness. I mean, that seems pretty normal. The Bible says you ought not provoke your children to wrath, right? I mean, if you're always insulting them, it can produce an awkwardness. Parents fighting in front of children can produce a type of shyness that's not normal, not right. Overprotective momism can produce shyness that's not right. where there's no fathers, or the father is being hindered from training. One of the things fathers are there for is to challenge the child, to get the child to come out of the shell. And if you've got a mama that's the head of the house, and she gets in the way and says, no, no daddy, no, you're not going to challenge my little prince, then what happens is, the children can't ever learn. See, they say the father, in many ways, is there to help that child get ready for life in the world. Mama has her part, Daddy has his part. So, of course, you have some family. Just being homeschooled isn't going to fix all those problems. You can still have arguments in the home in front of the children in ways that are not right, and it produces awkward kids. I don't care if you're homeschooled or not. You can have an overprotective mother, and you're still going to end up with a shy child. And finally, we've seen Sometimes, it's just a plain lack of good manners. You're raising selfish little children that are only thinking about themselves. They don't have any good manners. They're not interested in others. That's why I didn't talk to you. I'm not interested in you. All I care about is myself. I didn't offer you anything to drink because I don't care if you get anything to drink or not. I don't even want you here. I mean, that's how a lot of kids are being raised in America. You can homeschool all you want and still raise a selfish brat. You understand? so this this idea of homeschooling public school let's get back to the real causes of these things A writer named T.T. says, what is wrong with being shy? Raises this argument, if a child is shy, why is it so important to send them to school to cure them of their shyness? How did it become common knowledge that shy children who are not properly socialized by other children their age, then turn into self-closeted psychopaths who can't get along in the world? Shy kids might not win any popularity contests, but is that really the important thing in life? In school, it might be pretty important to some, but in real life, is that the point? To be considered social? If a child is shy or reserved or slow to get to know people, is it a trait that needs to be fixed? School doesn't teach kids to make friends. Let me ask you this. What is shamefacedness all about in the Bible? You explain that to me. What's a shamefaced woman? It sounds like, to me, if one of these modern worldly people saw a true Christian shame-faced woman, she'd say, well, she lacks boldness. She's shy. Well, the Bible says shame-facedness is a virtue. You ought to blush at certain things. Amen? You ought to blush at certain things. In the Bible, being loud, especially on a woman, is seen as a bad trait. And not only for women! What does the Bible say about being slow to speak, swift to hear? What does it say about those that talk all the time? I'm trying to let you see something here. They're trying to produce a certain character in you, and that character is not necessarily God's character. In fact, I know it's not. They're wanting your children to be a certain way, And I'm telling you, God wants your children to be a certain way. One blogger says, my dear husband is reserved, but I'd rather be like him. He doesn't have trouble keeping friends. I'm outgoing, and I'm always sticking my foot in my mouth. If you ask me, being outgoing is overrated, not to mention annoying, because we outgoing people tend to think we always have to say something, even when it's inappropriate. Another writer says, an old proverb says that a man has two ears and one mouth for a reason. Another writer says, I have them order their own food. I have my children pay for it. I have my children visit nursing homes where they learn compassion for others and how to reach outside themselves to be an encouragement to someone who needs it. When they have friends over, I teach them how to serve as a host or hostess, asking their friends if they can get them a drink, showing them where the bathroom is, etc. Homeschooling is as much about learning how to live a vibrant life as it is about book learning. So here's one person saying it's all about manners. Here's some other people saying, what's wrong with being shy? Another blogger says, I was the most backwards child ever. And I'm still a person that is hard to get to know. And I went from kindergarten to 12th grade in public school. Did public school help me? No. It's just some people's personality to be shy. Let me give you this verse, Psalms 127. As arrows are in the hands of what kind of a man? A mighty man. So are the children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath this quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Now listen to what that says. A man who is mighty, and not being hindered from his children, a man who is mighty, pulls his arrows back, he separates them, and then he aims them, and when they finally get older, they're not going to be ashamed. They're not going to be shy. They're going to speak to the enemies in the gate. This is why these homeschooled children are more civically outgoing. than the others. That's part of it. And the more a man separates his children and raises them right, the more bold they're going to be to address the world and rebuke it and rebuke other believers. They're going to speak to the enemies in the gate. They're going to be your defense. They're going to be your defense. Think about this for a second now. The word social, according to Webster's, means companion, ready or disposed to mix in friendly, converse. Does Jesus teach we ought to be social? In one way, yes. Matthew 5 says, if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the public and so? You ought to greet people, right? So this is just good manners. This is just good manners. I love it when a young fellow comes up and says, how are you doing? How are you doing? And shakes your hand. That's really good, isn't it? That's a blessing. I love it when the little ladies say, hello pastor, and it's sweet to be greeted, isn't it? That's a blessing. It ought to come naturally, but we got to teach children also how to greet, how to have good manners. And the Lord is saying, we as Christians disciples got to learn to greet people. I mean, we as Christians can walk around and be into our own little world and not greet people, but the Bible says that's part of your Christianity, is greeting. And of course, fellow believers, 3 John says, Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name. God bless you, Sister Elsa. Pretty dress. God bless you, Brother Orlando. So, you've got to greet one another by name. That's biblical, isn't it? So, when you practice that yourself, and then you raise children to walk in that, they learn good manners. There's so much we've got to teach children. What about sportsmanship? I mean, sometimes you'll be playing these games and you gotta teach a child how to win and how to lose, Brother Orlando, don't you? You gotta teach them how to not be little babies when they don't get their way, how to get along, how to say, hey, that was a good game. You gotta teach children not to be stingy, don't you? This is my bike. You gotta teach children not to brag. You gotta teach children how not to make people feel that you look down on them. You've got to teach children how not to be a baby, how not to be a brat. I'm just saying all of this stuff is part of our responsibility as homeschool parents. William Raspberry, a columnist, says, there is a strong association between fatherlessness and anti-social behavior as there is between cigarettes and lung cancer. So he would say the problem is not that people are being homeschooled. The problem in America is this anti-social behavior is because you don't have fathers or you don't have strong fathers. You don't have mighty fathers. Marshall L. Hamilton, in Father's Influence on the Children in 1977, says the author's note that well-socialized children tend to come from homes in which the demands made on the child by both parents are consistent, and that the opposite characterizes the families of anti-social delinquents. So really what you need is fathers and mothers that are consistent. In fact, another writer Marshall L. Hamilton, father's influence on children in 1977, again says, mother dominance was related to lower masculinity in boys. Let me get this straight. So, a woman who leaves her place produces many times perversion in her sons. Well, that makes sense to me. That would sound like all the more reason for God to tell you not to be out of order in the home. See, there's something about having the father in the position God put him in and walking in that, understanding the Bible says the glory of children are their father's. There's something about that, not getting in his way, not hindering him, letting him challenge and exhort and comfort, strengthen his children. There's something about that that produces children that are bold and able to be a defense and speak to the enemies in the gate. So I would say, instead of all of this blabber about how homeschooling creates children who are not well socialized, I would say, why don't we put the problem where God puts it? He said when Elijah comes to preach, he's going to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. So when you've got people in the secular world even agreeing with this, And if you want a child that is unnaturally, wrongly shy, it's because the father's not in the place he needs to be in that home. That's the problem. Or the father's not teaching good manners. He's not being obedient to God. I give you three verses in close. Job chapter... He says, but now they that are younger than I have me in derision, says Job, whose fathers I would have disdained to have sent with the dogs of my flock. They were children of fools. Now let me close with a question here to you. Thank you for your patience today. If Job says, I don't allow some people around my dogs, Do you think Job would have sent his children to public school to be socialized with a bunch of heathen? Job said, I protect the manners of my dogs. And if I allow them around fools, my dogs will pick up bad manners from these fools. Well, if your dogs will pick up bad manners from fools, won't your children pick up bad manners from fools? They were children of fools, says Job. And Job tells us in chapter 5, I have seen the foolish taking root. His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate. But what did the Bible say about the children of a mighty man? They will not be ashamed. They will speak to the enemies in the gate. And finally, Proverbs chapter 24, Wisdom is too high for a fool. He openeth not his mouth in the gate. You know what I think we ought to be concerned with, brother? Sister? I think the question ought to be, are you raising a fool? Are you raising a fool? See, everybody's parroting this robotic objection. I want my children to be socialized. Hey, you need to find out whether you're raising a fool or not. If you're raising a fool, they're going to be crushed in the gate. But if you're raising a bold, godly, righteous soldier for Jesus, they're going to grow up and they're going to be bold. They're going to open their mouth when it needs to be opened. They're going to defend. And that's what it's all about. I think we need to spend more time studying. How do you raise a fool? What do you have to do to raise a fool? Probably nothing. Just let nature take its course. But to raise a godly soldier for Jesus, you've got to pull them back and you've got to aim them. They need direction. And they need reinforcement with a rod and reproof. They need direction and they need to be pulled back from fools. Job said, I protect my dogs from fools. We ought to protect our children from fools. Dear God, I do pray that you bless us to raise godly children. I do pray, Lord, that we'll understand what's happening to America, what has happened. I pray, Father, that you would ignite some parents to be diligent teaching their children, not just teaching them the basics of writing, reading and arithmetic, but also teaching them, dear Lord, good manners. I do pray that fathers will stand up and be in their place, God, and any that are being hindered from their rightful job, that you would remove these obstructions and hindrances. that we might raise children that will speak to the enemies in the gate, Lord, children that will be bold to defend and speak the truth and contend. Help us, Lord, to resist these unbiblical, wicked arguments that so many Christians fall prey to. Thank you, Lord, for your salvation, for the cross, for your blood, Thank you for dying for us. Thank you for living a sinless life, born of a virgin. Thank you for dying and being resurrected and ascended to heaven on the right hand of God. Thank you that you're coming again, and we pray that you come quickly. Help us be found righteous. Help us be found raising godly children, well-mannered godly children. In Jesus' holy name, amen.