by Kris Kennedy

Created on: February 28, 2009   Last Updated: March 29, 2009

Boy Scouts and Homeschooling

Boy Scouts offers resources to assist in the socializing and the education of home schooled children. Whether or not to home school should be a parent choice and if they can offer that service and provide for all the education, social and nurturing needs of a child, it becomes an option and Boy Scouts can help. Most would assume children need opportunities for socialization but they also benefit from project oriented educational events.

Socialization
Children learn from each other how to get along with a wide variety of individuals. People claim homeschooling lacks the opportunities to intermingle with a wide variety of people while some people think that situation is good since the schools have some problem populations. The Boy Scouts have standards taught and enforced so the student would mingle with many types of young people to follow the standards of the boy scouts Boy Scouts have opportunities for the boys to be involved with other families and other adults. Cub Scouts place the boys in self-contained groups called dens. The dens are lead by den mothers. This gives the option of interacting with women other than their mothers. The men leaders offer models of men. The elementary schools in our country to this day still have a higher than normal female teacher population. Boy Scouts increases the number of males that the boys see as role models. Boy Scouts in a pack can draw from a large geographical area. Within a school, the children may only come from the same geographical area. In most communities, geographical breaks down along socio-economic lines, but packs and troops may draw from a church, school or other breakdown. This provides for an opportunity for the boys to interact with a wide spectrum of individual who might match the breakdown the child will encounter in adult employment.

Education
The limited number of children in the home limit the number of child directed learning opportunities because the child does not have another child for collaboration. With project in boy scouts, the boys can work together, to accomplish the projects and earn badges. The steps taken to earn badges might cover topics of history, science, social studies or vocational preparation. A well-planned combination of boy scouts and home schooling activities can make a well-rounded education possible. Boy Scouts offers opportunities for character education, which is not available within the public school system. Some parents consider this as important and one of the reasons given for home schooling their children. Parents may choose to home school their children and boy scouts can assist.

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