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What do you mean by "only gets you so far?" Opinion, experience, or do you have some evidence? Homeschooled kids can get high school diplomas in most states (a

What do you mean by "only gets you so far?" Opinion, experience, or do you have some evidence? Homeschooled kids can get high school diplomas in most states (all three of my kids did), and get into college (two of my kids decided to go to university, and had no problems get admitted). In the group of ~30 secular homeschooling families I belonged to when I had school-age kids, many of the kids went on to college, got jobs, and turned out just as functional (if not more successful) than kids who went to public schools.

bilsbie 2y ago
My main concerns are where would they make friendships.
- geomark 2y ago
  That's a weak reason. Instead of being locked up with a bunch of classmates which you have no choice about you get to associate with people you choose.
  - gregjor 2y ago
    Yes, exactly. And children should have opportunities to socialize with adults, in ways that aren't based on authority and following arbitrary rules. All of us who went to school know the feeling of disorientation when school ended and we had to face "the real world," which has very different rules and expectations than the school environment. Imagine raising children who didn't have to make that adjustment, because they only know "the real world."
    - soco 2y ago
      Not kidding but my real world is based on authority and arbitrary rules - see laws, police, bosses, army, traffic...
  - ink_13 2y ago
    > a bunch of classmates which you have no choice about you get to associate with This is actually extremely valuable as a life experience, and not gaining it as a child represents a major loss
    - geomark 2y ago
      I hear that said but I completely disagree. Being surrounded by mostly game-addicted goal-less classmates is a drag on even a motivated high achiever. It was such a difference to have the flexibility of homeschooling and be able to get him in with some like-minded kids and watch him bloom (my anecdote, n=1).
      - sanderjd 2y ago
        Both experiences seem useful to me. The first is useful as a lesson that lots of people are like this (which is just true) and maybe it's not what you want for yourself, and the second is useful for the obvious reasons. Finding time to get both of those lessons is hard though, I get it.
    - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
      > This is actually extremely valuable as a life experience, and not gaining it as a child represents a major loss Indeed: if you don't get this life experience, you don't learn to cultivate a fervent hate towards other humans. :-( Whether this is a desirable trait for you children to get is up to you to decide ...
      - sanderjd 2y ago
        The point is to figure out how to associate with arbitrary people without cultivating a "fervent hate" toward them. Everyone will have to participate in arbitrarily composed groups of people throughout life. Is it more or less likely for that experience to be one of hatred if exposed to it earlier or only later?
        aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    Yes, but there's a sampling bias. Most people (where I live) send their kids to school. So the "people you choose" to associate with during has to be drawn from a smaller population that has self-selected into that group for reasons I may or may not be aligned with.
    - gregjor 2y ago
      There's no reason homeschooled kids can't make friends with kids who go to school. All of my kids did. Most of our neighbors went to school. Most of the kids they met at sports, music classes, ice skating, friends of friends went to regular school. There's no hard partition keeping homeschooled kids away from other kids. Too many people imagine homeschooling as "kids locked up at home," cut off from the rest of the world and other kids. Homeschoolers divide fairly neatly into families who keep their kids out of school for religious reasons, and families who choose to homeschool for other reasons, usually referred to as secular homeschoolers. Those groups can mix and do activities together, or they can stay partly or completely separate. I think that's what you allude to, but I'm not sure. We did not homeschool for religious reasons. Some of our friends did, and a larger number of homeschoolers we knew about chose not to associate with the secular families. But plenty of people homeschool for reasons other than religion or wanting to isolate their children from society, it's easy to find them.
      - sanderjd 2y ago
        For kids in school, all of those things are additive. They also do all those same kinds of activities in the hours between school and bedtime and on weekends and during the summer. For kids not in school, the options for social experiences during the school day are limited to the adult(s) with them, and other siblings or kids who are also not in school. During the school day, for most kids living in the US, that's a smaller pool of other kids to spend time with during the day. That's all I'm saying! Of course that doesn't mean they have no other ways to make friends! And I don't mean to imply it's a bad thing. "Having a larger pool of kids to see during school days" is certainly not the only metric worth optimizing for! But I think it just is true that, in most places in the US, kids who are in school spend more time with other kids than those who are not in school, just by dint of being in school being the default and more common thing.
- gregjor 2y ago
  Same way everyone makes friends. Homeschooling doesn't mean locking your kids in the house, unless that's the reason you homeschool (and some parents do, usually for religious reasons). Our kids went to sports activities, all kinds of classes, music lessons, activities, group trips to the park, etc. Depending on where you live you will find groups of other homeschooling parents. In some states homeschooled kids can participate in at least some school activities, such as sports. For older children community colleges and universities may have programs. There's plenty to do, and many ways for kids to make friends. If you live in a rural or remote place that will be harder, of course, but that would affect your kids regardless. We moved to a place (suburban Portland) where we would have neighbors with kids, in a state that has liberal laws regarding homeschooling. People move for jobs and careers all the time, why not move to raise kids in a better environment?
- mrob 2y ago
  Alternatively, how do publicly schooled children make friendships after their schooling teaches them that the default social interaction is hostility? A large proportion of socialization found in schools would be illegal if you tried it in the workplace.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    I think this is pretty close to being equivalent to asking "how do people turn into adults when they were once children and adolescents?". They grow up. Hormones change, brains develop, lessons are learned, wisdom is gained. The primary reason workplaces tend to be better than high schools is that they are not full of teenagers.
soco 2y ago
Sample size only 2, because not being interested in homeschooling I don't have those support groups. Getting admitted to university after homeschooling is easy, staying there is tough. One kid struggled, flew out then needed one extra year of preparation, the other kid went directly to two years of preparation to be able to successfully go through university. But it's true you don't need those higher studies to get jobs, and for that homeschooling works just as fine. If you ask why I wasn't interested in homeschooling: not interested in becoming a teacher either as full or part time job (because no, teaching latin grammar to your kids is not parent quality time), and same argument for the wife.
- gregjor 2y ago
  About one-third of students who start university drop out. Difficulty staying there isn't a homeschooling problem. And every university grapples with students unprepared for college, almost all of whom graduated from public schools. No one needs to learn Latin grammar to get into university today, or to succeed in a professional career -- strange example to pick. The bar is actually quite low, have a look at the state exams for granting a high school diploma. We unschooled our kids (no curriculum) and just taught the basics -- reading, writing, arithmetic -- then let them choose what interested them and made those things available. They all passed the state diploma requirements exam on the first try, and scored in the higher percentiles. Homeschooling doesn't mean re-creating the classroom environment and following the school curriculum at home. And it doesn't doom your kids to low-end careers.
orwin 2y ago
I was a youth camp counselor, then a 'physics counselor' for a small non-profit that teaches a lot of stem via experiments and who got called at youth camps, schools and by other non-profit. Let me guess how you were successful: You had at least one adult not working but present (I saw that with parents, but also an uncle and a greatfather once). - You probably lived near activities, in an urban or suburbian area, with OK to great public transportation (forgot you could drive as early as 16 in the US, maybe I'm wrong about the public transportation, but it help). - you probably had a support network (non profit with other parents who homeschool their kids). All this is practically mandatory for successful homeschooling. Then stuff that help: access to the official curriculum, independant home, curious parents (all this non mandatory) Also, when comparing success with homeschooling VS public school, you have to compare socioeconomic class and home stability. In country like France or the US with terrible public school system, I guess homeschooling 'the right way' should be a bit more successfull, I doubt this is the case in northern Europe or in countries with good to great public schools.
- gregjor 2y ago
  I mentioned our situation (back when we had young children) in other comments. I could work from home at least some of the time, my wife quit working while we had young children (because I make more money). We moved to suburban Portland to have other families and activities nearby, and because Oregon has relatively liberal laws regarding homeschooling. And we had family and friends there already. We found groups of homeschoolers -- easy to do, they're all online now. We did not follow the official curriculum, just made ourselves aware of the requirements for obtaining a high school diploma should our kids want to do that (they did, all got it easily). We more or less "unschooled," which means no rigid curriculum, no trying to re-create the classroom at home, and letting kids choose how to spend their time, within limits (we didn't allow much TV and video games and social media weren't much of a thing back then). Our technique, if you can call it that, was based a lot on Montessori, which I recommend to parents who can afford that but can't manage homeschooling, or don't feel like they can competently do it. I know not everyone can homeschool their kids, for practical or personal reasons. I don't suggest everyone do it, or that kids who go to school are necessarily getting damaged or harmed (though that does happen). Ask any teacher, the number one predictor of academic success is parental involvement. Whether that takes the form of homeschooling, or just paying attention and spending time with your kids, that time makes a huge difference in the long term. I don't mean going to school board meetings and screaming about snack machines or sex education classes, I mean spending actual time with your kids so they feel valued and part of the family rather than an inconvenience.

bilsbie 2y ago

My main concerns are where would they make friendships.

geomark 2y ago
That's a weak reason. Instead of being locked up with a bunch of classmates which you have no choice about you get to associate with people you choose.
- gregjor 2y ago
  Yes, exactly. And children should have opportunities to socialize with adults, in ways that aren't based on authority and following arbitrary rules. All of us who went to school know the feeling of disorientation when school ended and we had to face "the real world," which has very different rules and expectations than the school environment. Imagine raising children who didn't have to make that adjustment, because they only know "the real world."
  - soco 2y ago
    Not kidding but my real world is based on authority and arbitrary rules - see laws, police, bosses, army, traffic...
- ink_13 2y ago
  > a bunch of classmates which you have no choice about you get to associate with This is actually extremely valuable as a life experience, and not gaining it as a child represents a major loss
  - geomark 2y ago
    I hear that said but I completely disagree. Being surrounded by mostly game-addicted goal-less classmates is a drag on even a motivated high achiever. It was such a difference to have the flexibility of homeschooling and be able to get him in with some like-minded kids and watch him bloom (my anecdote, n=1).
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      Both experiences seem useful to me. The first is useful as a lesson that lots of people are like this (which is just true) and maybe it's not what you want for yourself, and the second is useful for the obvious reasons. Finding time to get both of those lessons is hard though, I get it.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > This is actually extremely valuable as a life experience, and not gaining it as a child represents a major loss Indeed: if you don't get this life experience, you don't learn to cultivate a fervent hate towards other humans. :-( Whether this is a desirable trait for you children to get is up to you to decide ...
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      The point is to figure out how to associate with arbitrary people without cultivating a "fervent hate" toward them. Everyone will have to participate in arbitrarily composed groups of people throughout life. Is it more or less likely for that experience to be one of hatred if exposed to it earlier or only later?
      - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
- sanderjd 2y ago
  Yes, but there's a sampling bias. Most people (where I live) send their kids to school. So the "people you choose" to associate with during has to be drawn from a smaller population that has self-selected into that group for reasons I may or may not be aligned with.
  - gregjor 2y ago
    There's no reason homeschooled kids can't make friends with kids who go to school. All of my kids did. Most of our neighbors went to school. Most of the kids they met at sports, music classes, ice skating, friends of friends went to regular school. There's no hard partition keeping homeschooled kids away from other kids. Too many people imagine homeschooling as "kids locked up at home," cut off from the rest of the world and other kids. Homeschoolers divide fairly neatly into families who keep their kids out of school for religious reasons, and families who choose to homeschool for other reasons, usually referred to as secular homeschoolers. Those groups can mix and do activities together, or they can stay partly or completely separate. I think that's what you allude to, but I'm not sure. We did not homeschool for religious reasons. Some of our friends did, and a larger number of homeschoolers we knew about chose not to associate with the secular families. But plenty of people homeschool for reasons other than religion or wanting to isolate their children from society, it's easy to find them.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      For kids in school, all of those things are additive. They also do all those same kinds of activities in the hours between school and bedtime and on weekends and during the summer. For kids not in school, the options for social experiences during the school day are limited to the adult(s) with them, and other siblings or kids who are also not in school. During the school day, for most kids living in the US, that's a smaller pool of other kids to spend time with during the day. That's all I'm saying! Of course that doesn't mean they have no other ways to make friends! And I don't mean to imply it's a bad thing. "Having a larger pool of kids to see during school days" is certainly not the only metric worth optimizing for! But I think it just is true that, in most places in the US, kids who are in school spend more time with other kids than those who are not in school, just by dint of being in school being the default and more common thing.
gregjor 2y ago
Same way everyone makes friends. Homeschooling doesn't mean locking your kids in the house, unless that's the reason you homeschool (and some parents do, usually for religious reasons). Our kids went to sports activities, all kinds of classes, music lessons, activities, group trips to the park, etc. Depending on where you live you will find groups of other homeschooling parents. In some states homeschooled kids can participate in at least some school activities, such as sports. For older children community colleges and universities may have programs. There's plenty to do, and many ways for kids to make friends. If you live in a rural or remote place that will be harder, of course, but that would affect your kids regardless. We moved to a place (suburban Portland) where we would have neighbors with kids, in a state that has liberal laws regarding homeschooling. People move for jobs and careers all the time, why not move to raise kids in a better environment?
mrob 2y ago
Alternatively, how do publicly schooled children make friendships after their schooling teaches them that the default social interaction is hostility? A large proportion of socialization found in schools would be illegal if you tried it in the workplace.
- sanderjd 2y ago
  I think this is pretty close to being equivalent to asking "how do people turn into adults when they were once children and adolescents?". They grow up. Hormones change, brains develop, lessons are learned, wisdom is gained. The primary reason workplaces tend to be better than high schools is that they are not full of teenagers.

soco 2y ago

Sample size only 2, because not being interested in homeschooling I don't have those support groups. Getting admitted to university after homeschooling is easy, staying there is tough. One kid struggled, flew out then needed one extra year of preparation, the other kid went directly to two years of preparation to be able to successfully go through university. But it's true you don't need those higher studies to get jobs, and for that homeschooling works just as fine. If you ask why I wasn't interested in homeschooling: not interested in becoming a teacher either as full or part time job (because no, teaching latin grammar to your kids is not parent quality time), and same argument for the wife.

gregjor 2y ago
About one-third of students who start university drop out. Difficulty staying there isn't a homeschooling problem. And every university grapples with students unprepared for college, almost all of whom graduated from public schools. No one needs to learn Latin grammar to get into university today, or to succeed in a professional career -- strange example to pick. The bar is actually quite low, have a look at the state exams for granting a high school diploma. We unschooled our kids (no curriculum) and just taught the basics -- reading, writing, arithmetic -- then let them choose what interested them and made those things available. They all passed the state diploma requirements exam on the first try, and scored in the higher percentiles. Homeschooling doesn't mean re-creating the classroom environment and following the school curriculum at home. And it doesn't doom your kids to low-end careers.

orwin 2y ago

I was a youth camp counselor, then a 'physics counselor' for a small non-profit that teaches a lot of stem via experiments and who got called at youth camps, schools and by other non-profit. Let me guess how you were successful: You had at least one adult not working but present (I saw that with parents, but also an uncle and a greatfather once). - You probably lived near activities, in an urban or suburbian area, with OK to great public transportation (forgot you could drive as early as 16 in the US, maybe I'm wrong about the public transportation, but it help). - you probably had a support network (non profit with other parents who homeschool their kids). All this is practically mandatory for successful homeschooling. Then stuff that help: access to the official curriculum, independant home, curious parents (all this non mandatory) Also, when comparing success with homeschooling VS public school, you have to compare socioeconomic class and home stability. In country like France or the US with terrible public school system, I guess homeschooling 'the right way' should be a bit more successfull, I doubt this is the case in northern Europe or in countries with good to great public schools.

gregjor 2y ago
I mentioned our situation (back when we had young children) in other comments. I could work from home at least some of the time, my wife quit working while we had young children (because I make more money). We moved to suburban Portland to have other families and activities nearby, and because Oregon has relatively liberal laws regarding homeschooling. And we had family and friends there already. We found groups of homeschoolers -- easy to do, they're all online now. We did not follow the official curriculum, just made ourselves aware of the requirements for obtaining a high school diploma should our kids want to do that (they did, all got it easily). We more or less "unschooled," which means no rigid curriculum, no trying to re-create the classroom at home, and letting kids choose how to spend their time, within limits (we didn't allow much TV and video games and social media weren't much of a thing back then). Our technique, if you can call it that, was based a lot on Montessori, which I recommend to parents who can afford that but can't manage homeschooling, or don't feel like they can competently do it. I know not everyone can homeschool their kids, for practical or personal reasons. I don't suggest everyone do it, or that kids who go to school are necessarily getting damaged or harmed (though that does happen). Ask any teacher, the number one predictor of academic success is parental involvement. Whether that takes the form of homeschooling, or just paying attention and spending time with your kids, that time makes a huge difference in the long term. I don't mean going to school board meetings and screaming about snack machines or sex education classes, I mean spending actual time with your kids so they feel valued and part of the family rather than an inconvenience.