6 ms·

I was homeschooled all the way through 10th grade, and as far as social development is concerned it's a really mixed bag. I was involved in quite a few homescho

by valine 10y ago

I was homeschooled all the way through 10th grade, and as far as social development is concerned it's a really mixed bag. I was involved in quite a few homeschool groups where I got to see first hand the wide range of social skills of other homeschooled kids. In my opinion the majority of kids I knew were just fine socially. There was also a small percentage that had significant trouble making friends and vocalizing their thoughts, however that was the exception rather than the rule. Being homeschooled I had a completely different childhood than most of my peers, and that alone can make it more difficult to connect with people. At the same time I can also tell if someone my age was homeschooled just by listening to them talk, so finding other people with similar backgrounds usually isn't too hard.

petertodd 10y ago
...and plenty of kids in public schools have significant trouble making friends too! So it's tough to evaluate this stuff based on just anecdotes; I'm not aware of any large-scale studies on home-schoolers that have good controls, and it'd be very hard to do that given how much of a self-selecting group that is. I agree re: different childhood, although that's not unique to homeschooling by any means. I also spent a few years in a "gifted kids" program, and even that by itself has the exact same effect given how unique the social environment of such programs are. For that matter, I did go to public school for high-school, and again anyone at that school had a similar experience for a totally different reason: the school happened to have an unusually diverse student body, with a very high percentage of recent immigrants, and this lead to an unusually diverse social structure in the school. For example, every year no-one had any clue who the prom king and queens were because the social structure didn't have a school-wide hierarchy. More like multiple smaller groups based roughly on shared backgrounds and interests, with quite a bit of overlap. My brother on the other hand went to a different school which had a social hierarchy straight out of a American movie.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > ...and plenty of kids in public schools have significant trouble making friends too! Absolutely. I went to a private school up through 5th grade, then public elementary school for 6th grade, then junior high at a school that wasn't the one that my elementary school sent people to (the one I went to had fewer knife fights). Coming into a school where I knew nobody two years in a row was rather rough...
r00fus 10y ago
> At the same time I can also tell if someone my age was homeschooled just by listening to them talk, so finding other people with similar backgrounds usually isn't too hard. Just curious, what cues do you notice?
wehadfun 10y ago
Even people that go to school have significant trouble "making and friends and vocalizing their thoughts"

by valine 10y ago

petertodd 10y ago

...and plenty of kids in public schools have significant trouble making friends too! So it's tough to evaluate this stuff based on just anecdotes; I'm not aware of any large-scale studies on home-schoolers that have good controls, and it'd be very hard to do that given how much of a self-selecting group that is. I agree re: different childhood, although that's not unique to homeschooling by any means. I also spent a few years in a "gifted kids" program, and even that by itself has the exact same effect given how unique the social environment of such programs are. For that matter, I did go to public school for high-school, and again anyone at that school had a similar experience for a totally different reason: the school happened to have an unusually diverse student body, with a very high percentage of recent immigrants, and this lead to an unusually diverse social structure in the school. For example, every year no-one had any clue who the prom king and queens were because the social structure didn't have a school-wide hierarchy. More like multiple smaller groups based roughly on shared backgrounds and interests, with quite a bit of overlap. My brother on the other hand went to a different school which had a social hierarchy straight out of a American movie.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> ...and plenty of kids in public schools have significant trouble making friends too! Absolutely. I went to a private school up through 5th grade, then public elementary school for 6th grade, then junior high at a school that wasn't the one that my elementary school sent people to (the one I went to had fewer knife fights). Coming into a school where I knew nobody two years in a row was rather rough...

r00fus 10y ago

> At the same time I can also tell if someone my age was homeschooled just by listening to them talk, so finding other people with similar backgrounds usually isn't too hard. Just curious, what cues do you notice?

wehadfun 10y ago

Even people that go to school have significant trouble "making and friends and vocalizing their thoughts"