I can't answer for the OP, but I was homeschooled and I was around a lot of people from other cultures that were also homeschooled. In the case of the American

I can't answer for the OP, but I was homeschooled and I was around a lot of people from other cultures that were also homeschooled. In the case of the Americans, they were homeschooled primarily because the parents felt they could do a better job than the US school system, and because they wanted to use Christian-friendly learning materials. For social contact and 'real-life' social education, they'd put their children into a variety of (sports) clubs. In the case of my parents, it was a practical necessity, as we lived in a developing country. The nearest international school was a long drive away, it was expensive, and reintegration into the Dutch school system would have been much more difficult. Instead, their solution was the get a just-out-of-school teacher to have one or more exciting years volunteering and practicing their craft on me and my siblings, which my parents would augment with personal attention and long-distance help from retired teachers back in Holland. The teacher would use a Dutch 'long-distance learning' approach that was the defacto system for Dutch expats. For high-school material, this meant a book that explained, day by day, what should be read and what exercises should be done. Now, I personally feel the results were so good, that I would do everything to make it possible to either home-school my children (if I have 'em), or to get them into some alternative school (montessori, etc.). Aside from some difficulties adjusting to Dutch society, my siblings and I did quite well, and I believe on the reasons we are all active learners and autodidacts is a direct result of not having been part of the normal system. The primary argument I hear against home-schooling when normal schooling is possible is that it hampers a child's social development. I never bought that. Kids get a lot of that from playing out in the street, or being part of clubs. Furthermore, for a significant portion of kids I believe their 'normal' schooling can have a negative social impact, through various degrees of bullying, and the group pressure to believe that learning is stupid. I did not have a clue that voluntary study was stupid and nerdy until I returned to high school at age seventeen... (of course, I also understand that for many people home-schooling isn't a practical option. I think that's a shame. And I also understand that some parents might not be any good at teaching, and that a mandatory educational system can be a benefit in that case.)