In her book Quiet, Susan Cain emphasizes that introverts function better socially with one or two people at a time. In my posts about her book, I’ve noted that I believe that homeschooling can help the introverted child.

I’m not saying that the extroverted child shouldn’t be homeschooled. But if they’re not part of a large family, they’ll need and want more social contact than an introverted child does. It’s likely that they’ll want to be involved in regular group activities, so these are the kids you’ll want to sign up for co-op classes, Awanas, etc. (unlike the introverted child, who shouldn’t be pushed into more social time than they want).

As I read this book, I realized that three of my four adult children are introverts or mostly introverted, while one tends to be more extroverted. While I never sent any of them to school, I’ve often thought that the extrovert would have excelled in school. But our convictions about the primacy of homeschooling kept us from sending that child there. Given that there are other things to consider regarding modern public education, worries and concerns that go far beyond whether a child will be “socialized,” we don’t regret keeping that child home with the others.

But I can see where parents would be wise to identify the extroverts in their families and make sure they have ample social opportunities, just as they’ll want to provide a quiet, accepting atmosphere for their introverts. Volunteer and work opportunities will be more useful and teach more valuable lessons than activities that are purely social in nature. Nevertheless, it’s important that you give your extroverts ample access to a variety of social outlets.

Next week: The Exception to the Rule

In this series of posts on introverts, much of the information comes from a wonderful, thought-provoking book by Susan Cain called Quiet. Last time I discussed how you can tell whether your child is an introvert or an extrovert (I forgot to mention there’s a quiz in the book that gives general insight into identifying introverts), but I noted that it can be a bit harder to make that determination about adults.

That’s because many adults are what Ms. Cain calls “closet extroverts”; they’re introverts who have had to work so hard at fitting in that they appear to be extroverts. She notes that:

Introversion—along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness—is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology…Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of feel we must conform.

Much of this oppressive standard is first impressed upon us in school, where extroverted behavior is expected and rewarded. How well I remember this from my own school experience. For example, we were regularly required to read aloud in front of the class. For some kids, this was no big deal. But for many, it was torture. While it did make me nervous, I was fortunate to have been an early reader, so I usually had no problem reading aloud well enough to avoid jeers. But some of my quieter classmates really suffered, and it breaks my heart even today to think of how often they were teased, how they must have dreaded it and how regularly it occurred.

According to Ms. Cain, today’s schools are more extrovert-oriented than ever. Many have done away with desks and individual study, seating children instead at “pods”: group tables that make it easier to do group activities. But group activities are the extrovert’s métier; how much is an introvert really going to learn in an atmosphere of noise and competitive behavior?

In a similar vein, there’s a huge emphasis on competitive sports and team-building, the thought being that today’s workers need to be team players, so why not start young by teaching kids to be team players. Whether working in teams is as productive as it’s cracked up to be is beside the point; the problem is that introverts tend not to be competitive and prefer to work on their own. It hardly seems fair to use these activities to force them to become someone they’re not.

As always, I’m going to take these observations and say that homeschooling wins again. A supportive home environment promotes learning; for the introverted child, it sounds like the ideal situation.

Next week: What of the Extroverted Child?

How can you tell if your child is an introvert? There’s no definitive test you can give your child to make that determination. Your own knowledge of how your child thinks and acts is much more helpful. But scientists have found that studying babies can offer insight into which ones will be more introverted than extroverted.

In her book Quiet, author Susan Cain refers to a study that scientists performed on a group of four-month-old babies; they later followed up on these same children throughout childhood. Using visual observations as well as measurements of heart rate, blood pressure and other physical signs, they determined that how a baby reacts to new experiences can predict whether he will lean toward introversion or extroversion:

The infants heard tape-recorded voices and balloons popping, saw colorful mobiles dance before their eyes, and inhaled the scent of alcohol on cotton swabs. They had wildly varying reactions to the new stimuli. About 20 percent cried lustily and pumped their arms and legs. Kagan called this group “high-reactive.” About 40 percent stayed quiet and placid, moving their arms or legs occasionally, but without all the dramatic limb-pumping. This group Kagan called “low-reactive.” The remaining 40 percent fell between these two extremes. In a startlingly counterintuitive hypothesis, Kagan predicted that it was the infants in the high-reactive group—the lusty arm-pumpers—who were most likely to grow into quiet teenagers.

Later studies of these same babies, now older children, found that many turned out just as predicted:

The high-reactive infants, the 20 percent who’d hollered at the mobiles bobbing above their heads, were more likely to have developed serious, careful personalities. The low-reactive infants—the quiet ones—were more likely to have become relaxed and confident types.

As Ms. Cain said, the results seemed counter-intuitive. But when you consider that introverts tend to be more sensitive, while extroverts like noise and lots of stimuli, it makes sense.

What this means for our children is that they’re wired to be where they are on the introvert-extrovert scale. Trying to change them is not only pointless, but can be harmful. Letting them be who they are and providing them with an atmosphere where they can learn, how ever they prefer to learn, is optimal.

If you take this information and look at your own children, consider that whether a child is introverted or extroverted is not always a clear-cut issue. Most people lean in one direction but may have a few characteristics from the other side.

That’s especially true of adults, by the way; I’ll explain why in the next post.

Next week: How Schools Try to Convert Introverts to Extroverts