I’m sure that you’ve heard the concerns. If your child does anything alternate, whether it’s an alternative school or homeschooling, that child will be weird. He will not fit in to social norms. He may vote the way he should vote. He will not be able to make polite conversation at cocktail parties.
Goodness, who knows? If your child is terribly weird, he might be so innovative as to invent a new nonprofit organization that works to change the world. He might do research on neglected diseases. He might develop a product like Apple, or Facebook – a little product that changes everything.
Many people homeschool because they do not like aspects of the prevailing culture, whether that’s institutional culture, peer-group culture or the culture at large. That’s all right. As adults, we are allowed to have dissenting opinions that stray from the norm. So why do we feel so worried when others tell us that our children will be weird?
I suspect that it’s because many of us had school experiences that we did not enjoy in some way and that we still have this quiet yearning to fit into that system easily. Perhaps you were teased, like I was. Perhaps you were criticized for being bright, like I was. Perhaps you felt stressed out by the need to perform. It took me years to start accepting myself for the weird and wonderful person that I am.
Being a supportive parent means that you seek out opportunities for your child to be supported by the wider community, and that might include homeschooling or being an advocate for your child in the school system. Embrace their oddities. Give your kids the confidence to pursue what they love. Envelop them in communities that support what they do. Gradually teach them how to deal with criticism from those who do not support them, and to learn from those people as well.