Anecdotally, most current or former homeschooled kids I meet seem pretty socially awkward. I wonder if It’s because the miss-out on the opportunity to learn how to socialize properly as children. But maybe I’m being too critical, idk.
Anecdotally, most current or former homeschooled kids I meet seem pretty socially awkward. I wonder if It’s because the miss-out on the opportunity to learn how to socialize properly as children. But maybe I’m being too critical, idk.
In my eyes, the two biggest problems are teaching competence and socialization. It’s possible for a parent to adequately cover a wide range of subjects if they’re quite intelligent themselves and they have good materials, but school teachers specialize in a few subjects and have plenty of experience teaching. Sure, a parent might have specific issues with parts of a curriculum, or think it isn’t suitable for their child’s intelligence, but that can be covered with spot checks and home study.
The bigger problem seems to be socialization. Sure, there are meetups and extracurriculars, but I don’t think that can really replace being around dozens or hundreds of students your own age, navigating social situations shoulder-to-shoulder with your peers. These are critical skills, arguably more important than the bulk of the actual school curriculum, and it’s much more difficult to build them later. We are social creatures, and we learn best through immersion. Like you, most of the homeschooled kids I knew were socially awkward.
I think much better than homeschooling is supplementing schoolwork with individualized study.