I'm sorry, but it's not a myth. It's something that can and does happen in many cases, depending pretty much entirely on the attitude of the parents. I was homeschooled. My religious parents viewed it as an opportunity to shelter me from the evils of the world. I now have social anxiety, difficulty relating to other people, an inability to make and keep friends, and several other mental health issues.

The majority of "homeschooled" students I knew (and know) were barely homeschooled - starting in middle school or high school, most of their classes were taught co-operatively by other homeschooling parents, or paid community college professors looking for some extra money. (I took several math and science classes this way.) Full homeschooling (where every single "class" from K-12 is done in the home) needs to be undertaken with extreme caution, if at all, especially when the kids get past grade school, and need to be hearing the ideas and input of peers as they relate to the things they are learning. The also need to be having social experiences with peers many times per week, which becomes very difficult even for dedicated parents.

We don't do education otherwise, we wanted to flexischool (UK) but the teachers vetoed it. However, we know quite a few families who homeschool and they have an incredible bunch of socially active, artistically skilled, intellectually capable kids. Socially, they seem to be ahead of other groups, to me, because (I contend) they get/got a lot of inter-age interaction. There's probably a lot of selection effects too.

My own kids seem, in contrast, to have gotten more out of clubs fitted in around schooling, as opposed to their socially fulfilling time seeming to be more co-terminous with educational experience.

One thing I'm concerned about with school is that up until 12yo the kids only regular day-time contact with men is the janitor ... it's a slightly orthogonal issue, but I guess in general "you can't pick your teachers" applies for most people and even in our pretty nice neighborhood a couple of the teachers have had lasting negative effects on our kids.

My guess is yes, but I have no direct evidence of that. The thing I think I can say with certainty is that there's a long tail of parental effects on socialization for homeschooled kids. Very severely conservative or religious parents are very likely to have kids with these problems to a moderate or strong degree. And quite a few homeschooling parents in the United States are like this - you might very well be in a liberal or urban bubble if you don't see this in your local homeschooling community.

> My own kids seem, in contrast, to have gotten more out of clubs fitted in around schooling

I don't mean to sound like I'm totally opposed to homeschooling. I actually think it can be much better than public schools with the right parents, the right environment, the right amount of money, and so on. I'm not clear on exactly how old your kids are, but I would warn that I do think it's significantly harder to encourage the best social development once they become teenagers.

> a couple of the teachers

By "teachers" I assume this means you are hiring outside instructors or doing co-op classes with other homeschooling families where your kids and there kids are being taught at the same time. This is a very different kind of experience and not what I referred to as "full homeschooling" in another comment in this thread.

    It's something that can and does happen in many cases, depending pretty much entirely on the attitude of the parents.

Also, can you use ">" to offset quotes instead of four spaces? Because HN uses that for code, it's not readable for mobile users.

For sure, I'm not denying that, I'm just saying there's a difference between the possible outcome of having an awful time and being so socially abnormal that you get panicky talking to the cashier at the Burger King and can't make any friends.

The absolute worst-case, most socially-awkward homeschooler I ever met ended up just fine after a couple of years of college, which fully made up for any socialization deficiencies he may have suffered from being isolated from his public school peers.

>Our preliminary research suggests that homeschooled children are at a greater risk of dying from child abuse than are traditionally schooled children.

https://coloradosun.com/2018/10/08/homeschool-child-abuse-co...

>In a 2014 study published in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, Knox seemed to confirm that. Examining cases of severe and fatal child abuse, Knox found that 47 percent of the young victims had been removed from school to be home schooled

I agree with everything you’re saying about social experiences. I think making sure kids have plenty of opportunities to interact with people outside of their immediate circle is super important. It’s just as doable with homeschooling as with traditional schooling but it requires more intentionality because it might not happen naturally in the same way.

On the other hand, I can understand the frustration that homeschooling parents feel when other people assume that homeschooling will cause their kids to grow up weird.

I’m also annoyed when a discussion about the pros and cons of choosing to homeschool one’s kids leads to people citing cases of child abuse (further down the thread; I’m not talking about any of your comments).

The fact that some parents homeschool as a cover for abuse isn’t relevant to my decision on whether or not homeschooling is a good path for my kids.

I plan to homeschool my kids. My parents did a decent job with me, but I can do much better with my kids (in part because of my experience with my parents’ choices).

This site is filled with introverted engineers -- not exactly a representative sample. 3.4% of kids are homeschooled, 64% of which are doing so in order to provide religious instruction.

Most friendships are based on serendipity and closeness and repeated interactions.

While public schooling does have its drawbacks, and some bad bullying scenarios (we’ve all been there), it also does have some good things. And you meet a variety of other kids, that comes from different walks of life, that may positively (or negatively) influence your own life.

Sure, you can supplement your kid’s social activities with going to church, or karate, or ballet, or piano, or other extracurricular activities, but it’s not quite the same.

Church, for one, is too cohesive, and results in groupthink. And that’s if you really want your kid to worship a bible, instead of understanding science. The other extracurricular activities on the other hand, lacks cohesion, that you don’t build lifelong friendships through that.

The other thing is, home-schooling tends to shelter your kids. You need them to build the toughness and mental resilience, from peer competition with other kids at school, in order to face the real world.

Because in the real world, you now compete with other adults, and a lot more is at stake. And you tend to learn these lessons along the way, as you grow up.

    If you’re home-schooled, then how do you make childhood friends? How do you meet that dreamy girl, that you remember after all these years, just because she did something nice for you once.

   While public schooling does have its drawbacks, and some bad bullying scenarios (we’ve all been there), it also does have some good things. And you meet a variety of other kids, that comes from different walks of life, that may positively (or negatively) influence your own life.

    Sure, you can supplement your kid’s social activities with going to church, or karate, or ballet, or piano, or other extracurricular activities, but it’s not quite the same.

    Church, for one, is too cohesive, and results in groupthink.

    And that’s if you really want your kid to worship a bible, instead of understanding science.

    The other extracurricular activities on the other hand, lacks cohesion, that you don’t build lifelong friendships through that.

   The other thing is, home-schooling tends to shelter your kids.

Is an online class with a diverse crowd a sufficient replacement for actually going out, interacting, and being next to people of various racial, ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds?

I've spent half of my life on online communities. If I went out into the world thinking the average person I interact with online was the same as the average person outside, I'd be very stunned by the reality and very ill-equipped. The types of people I encounter on Hacker News and other communities/groups I participate in online, well, I've almost never encountered similar people outside.

    Is an online class with a diverse crowd a sufficient replacement for actually going out, interacting, and being next to people of various racial, ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds?

I know there is plenty of diversity in small monocultural towns. But it is of a qualitatively different type.

When home schooling is used as one aspect of minimizing broader social contact for your children, it can be an issue. But it's not the home schooling per se that is the problem, but the attempt to narrow their world. And I agree it's totally unfair to paint every home schooled child with that particular brush.

But they do exist, and where they exist, most would highly benefit from traditional schools if for no other reason than it breaks the bubble a bit.

Having know a bunch of people who were home schooled in various ways I think your claim of clear superiority of preparation for adult life is also a bit too strong. On the whole I'd say it's a bit of a wash.

You need to elaborate, it is not at all clear how homeschooling will lead to a kid being exposed to a much wider variety of social situations.

If a homeschooled child never leaves the house, then yeah I can see it being a problem. But if they are allowed to go out and experience the world with their parents then they learn social skills by interacting with people of all ages, but mostly with adults who (most importantly) are already socialized and therefore model proper behavior instead of the insanity that goes on in age-segregated classrooms.

A shared culture is important, and each generation has their own touchstones.

You're basically just saying "if your parents socialize you then you'd be socialized." Sure, but if your parents don't socialize you then at least you'd have a slight chance to pick it up at school, if you're also kept away from school then you're just completely fucked.

I'm speaking as someone whose parents didn't socialize me.

On top of all that, even when engaging in core curricular study, homeschool kids are usually doing so in mixed-age groups, according to subject ability level--especially if they are part of a co-op.

Personally, I don’t think the occasional shared class or meetup with their peers compares to 8 hours every day being around hundreds of different personalities. Sometimes it can be hell, but you learn a lot about social interaction.

All that said I live in an area where most people that homeschool do it for religious reasons, so that could definitely be skewing things.