TOS Crew Blog Cruise – Lining Up for Comparison

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Regardless of whether you are a homeschooler or not, it seems inevitable that a parent will compare their child to another. I think a LOT of parents feel that their personal worth is based on how others judge their kids. If the kids misbehave, then it reflects ‘badly’ upon the parent. If the kids shine at something, then the parent has done something ‘right.’ As hard as I fight it, I do find myself not only judging at times but trying to brag on where my kids excel in hopes that others will think highly of me.

As a homeschooler, it is easy to succumb to the need to compare. Some of us might have friends or family that think we are doing a disservice to our kids by homeschooling. Even those that see the benefits might help pull you into the comparison game by mentioning all the public or private school students in their lives are doing. We might feel driven to justify our choice and how the kids rack up next to society’s norm becomes important to us.

Hearing about the great things our relatives are doing in school is nice. But, when I find myself trying justify our choice to homeschool by listing all the great things MY kids are doing… well, I know that I’ve been sucked into the comparison game.

So, I do my best to not compare my kids’ strengths and weakness to those of kids in public or private school. They might not have some of the same big group activities available in a school setting. We also have not pushed computer use heavily so far, but that’s being adjusted as I want the boys to have skills that will help them succeed in life. What “good” parent doesn’t want that? Thankfully, implementing things such as creating a Power Point presentation is not too taxing for us. But, providing all those extra activities might not work out as well.

I also try to avoid the desire to compare to other homeschooled families who seem to have it all together. Knowing my family has warts, I suspect those that seem perfect in public have a few warts as well.

Now that I have become more aware of my ability to enter the comparison game with kids outside our family I need to work on the comparisons between boys. Discussing the boys with another adult can quickly become an opportunity to highlight their strengths and weaknesses in a verbal quest to help them. Yet, if they over hear me, it can quickly become the “you think A is smarter than me” or “you love him more than me because you think he’s better.”

Unfortunately, I think it’s hard wired in our brain (or maybe just mine) to see things in comparison to others. That’s all well and good. But, at the end of the day an apple’s an apple and an orange is an orange. Similarities and differences are there, but I can’t say one is truly better than the other. I enjoy them both!