There are a wide variety of homeschool types. But in general, homeschool parents make conscious efforts to ensure the kids get social activities.

In standard school, there are very rigid age-based hierarchies. Sixth graders rule over fifth graders, who rule over fourth graders. And the adults rule over all of them. And then you have the cliques, etc.

You'll find that such hierarchies do not exist in the homeschool world, and the kids are better for it. If the homeschool environment is religion-based, you'll probably find that the children do not know how to interact well with people in other religions, but you still have excellent interactions between age groups.

I'm not in the US, we have a far smaller culture of homeschooling here from what i read, but due to my pre-dev activities and social engagements (i was young and full of hope :) ), i met a bit more than two dozen homeschooled children.

They all did pretty heavy extracurricular activities. Keep in mind that i met them in a particular time, either as a youth camp counselor or as a "street educator" (not really, basically i animated open physics classes with experiments/construction for kids, think Kiwico but free and with social settings).

They also were quite late in STEM, even those with engineers parents (definitely not the majority), but at least bilingual (i saw a 10 year old girl speaking 4 languages and playing violin better than i did). The most "advanced" i saw (at least in mathematics principles and understanding) where those with a formal musical education. Most of them could play at least one instrument, but those who understood underlying music principle were definitely more likely to "get" physics and engineering for some reasons. I think pattern recognition is definitely important for people to understand STEM work, and that can explain my limited, anecdotal data.

Another common point is that each of their familly were fairly religious (or spiritual rather), but not close-minded. I think around half were christian (not really defined), and the other half were more new-age. No Chomsky day for any of the famillies.

[edit] It's quite unfair from me, putting them in boxes like christian and new-age. Let say around half of them believed in a single entity we could call god creating the universe and guiding humanity, and the other half believing that the universe himself (or Nature, or the soul) guide them. I'm pretty sure one couple were active dualist proponents

Anecdotal, but I grew up in a cult that encouraged home-schooling. While I was lucky and did not get home schooled, nearly every person I know who did was socially stunted in some way.

I wouldn't say the homeschooled people I have encountered were "stunted" but definitely "different enough to not gel smoothly with the rest of society." They kind of just run in totally different circles: They socialize but with a totaly disjoint set of kids. All their friends are from their church and they don't know anyone in public school, their parents take them to totally different movies (Christian movies, no Marvel superheroes), listen to totally different music. Can't talk sports with them because they literally can't name a football team. No culture overlap at all. Totally siloed off in their own world.

Maybe these traits are specific to Christian homeschoolers and not homeschoolers in general, but frankly I have never met someone who was homeschooled because of secular, rather than religious reasons.

I don’t think life would be worse off if I never watched popular movies or if Football didn’t exist. I have actually given this some thought given recent events.

These last two years have changed my perspective. While the vast majority of people were bathing in hand sanitizer, hoarding toilet paper, locking themselves away in quarantine, and avoiding elevator buttons, the people who were least in tune with popular culture (Religious, rural, etc.) seemed like the most rational actors. In my opinion turning off the TV and ignoring mass media, sports, culture is probably the most healthy thing a person could do.

> I wouldn't say the homeschooled people I have encountered were "stunted" but definitely "different enough to not gel smoothly with the rest of society."

IME, the homeschooled people raised by people (homeschooled or not) to whom that description does not apply also do not tend to fit it, but people to whom (again, homeschooled themselves or not) that description does apply are overrepresented among those choosing homeschooling for their kids.

Personally I was homeschooled and sports was one of the main points of common ground I had with kids from "regular school"

There is a wide range of socialization that happens in homeschool. Some kids are practically hermits, only meeting other kids during church. Other kids have a full schedule of extracurricular activities that rival HS and college kids.

As a parent of three home schooled children, the social aspect is always brought up by those not informed about home schooling. My kids are socialized through various group activities (P.E, dance, piano, art classes etc.) and with close friends. They also have friends of various age groups since they are not forced to socialize with kids of their age group as they would in public schools. Overall I find the social aspect to be of higher quality than my experience as a kid going through public schools. One big benefit is not having to deal with being bullied, which is very common in public schools.

There's this joke I often see about homeschooling: "I didn't want my kid to miss out on the high school social experience, so I beat him up and stole his lunch money."

This is not universal but there are often times groups of homeschooling families that get together and have their kids socialize. It is likely significantly less than at school but probably changes the formula a bit.