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I suggest that you maybe missing some details around home-schooled children.

> Homeschooled kids often do well on tests - but they all lack an awareness of the real world because they don't meet republicans or non-christians or whatever is outside of their parents groups.

I will assume that in "lack an awareness of the real world", you mean first hand experience with non-scholastic environment of all varieties - If so, this is incorrect. Most home-schooled children have significantly more opportunity to experience "real world" than public school ones. This is because the very nature of home-schooling often involves traveling and often interacting with different people. (e.g., counting money - public school, in class with same teacher same people, home school might take to grocery store and talk to manager who shows how she does it; history - read book, explained by teacher, maybe show pictures, video clips; Home school meet with individuals who lived through or have relatives that told stories, show historical objects.)

If you mean that they lack socialization, that is also incorrect. Homeschool parents often prioritize character development, moral understanding, and meaningful relationships over the large-group peer interactions typical in public schools, which may align better with long-term social fluency but differ from conventional metrics.

Of course, there are terrible outliers where home schooling ends up nothing more just laziness by the parents, and ends disastrously.

[0] Medlin, R. G. (2000). Homeschooling and the question of socialization. Peabody Journal of Education, 75(1–2), 107–123.

Smedley, T. C. (1992). Socialization of home schooled children. [1] Smedley, T. C. (2004). Social Skills: A Comparison Study. National Home Education Research Institute.

[2] McKinley, M. J., Asaro, J., Bergin, J., D’Auria, N., & Gagnon, K. E. (2007). Social skills and satisfaction with social relationships in home-schooled, private-schooled, and public-schooled children. Home School Researcher, 17(3), 1-6.

2 comments

The great thing about schools is they throw hundreds or thousands of kids together. The fat ones, the skinny ones, the annoying ones, the gross ones, the white ones, the black ones, the mean ones, the cool ones, the weird ones, everyone. And you're FORCED to be around them and make it work. And then you do that every day for 12 years.

This is all anecdotal of course, but of all the homeschooled kids I knew, even going into highschool, they were freaks of nature. I mean, just deeply unlikable people. They were always "off", often rude, often meek, and had this sort of air of desperation for socialization, with none of the tools to make it work.

Now, some of them grew out of it - I met some in highschool working at the Dairy Queen. Turns out, a couple of years of dealing with food service will help you out socially too. But a lot of them never did. Not when I knew them, anyway.

I don't know why, I don't know how, and I can't tell what, exactly, about the public school experience causes this. But it's what I've observed.

I’m sorry, I am not familiar with homeschooling as I wasn’t but is it actually common to go to the grocery store and have the manager of the store teach how to make change to the child?

Many your points do not sound like something uniquely possible because of homeschooling.

That was an anecdotal example. I watched a pod (i believe that is what is called when several parents get together for a specific topical teaching) instructed by the grocery store manager when I was there.

> Many your points do not sound like something uniquely possible because of homeschooling.

I am open to elucidate if you give me details you think that is not possible.

Half of your points sound like museum trips, that plenty of non-homeschooled children go to on a regular basis. Additionally why can’t a non-homeschooled child be taken to a grocery store and demonstrated how to make change on a Saturday or after school?

That’s my problem with your specific examples. None of them seem unique to homeschooling.

Thanks for the clarification, albeit I still do not see which half you think is equivalent in public schools.

I will say that the likelihood of school trips in public schools is possible, but significantly fewer and less likely than for home schooling. A home schooled child can take a field trip every week. This will not happen for public school student, just for logistical reasons.

My point was to counter the argument that "they [home schooled children] all lack an awareness of the real world". If you look at my response from that context, it is clear, at least to me, that a public school student has significantly less opportunity to experience "real world".

I would disagree and say the opportunities are probably equal. There are plenty of stories of homeschooling that leave a lot to be desired may be borderline abusive and there are regular schools that offer better education and enrichment opportunities than some colleges and vice versa.