Ideally if you are homeschooling, you will be involved with others homeschooling in your area. There are lots of great organizations around the US that help support homeschooling, and the kids have regular get-togethers. In my personal experience, most homeschooled kids have better social skills vs. traditionally schooled kids due to having to interact regularly with a much broader range of peers. They spend more time with kids of different ages, and adults, than kids in school do (as they're generally segregated by grade, and spend nearly all of their time socializing only with kids their own age).

I was homeschooled for about half of my primary and secondary education. Where I grew up in a small town in Ohio (Mount Vernon), the local homeschooling group had dozens of families (50+ kids) from around the county and beyond. I was in a chess club, drama club, and even a beginner programming class. There were other organized activities too, all organized by members of the local group.

During my first few years in university, I was a real asshole. My friends and I had this game called "spot the homeschooled kid", which was more or less exactly what it sounds like. We'd observe other students in class or social settings, and attempt to determine which had been homeschooled before attending university. One of us would make a wager, we'd all bet on it, then one of us would befriend the subject of the bet and determine who was right.

There is little doubt that our false-negative rate was very high, but our false-positive rate was also astonishingly low. You play the game long enough and you start to notice some pretty damning "tells".

(This said, the damage doesn't seem to be permanent; after about the second year the game became much harder as people acclimatized to university life.)

Hell, maybe this anecdote supports your point. We all went to traditional schools and we were serious assholes...

What 'damage' are you talking about with regard to the homeschooled kids?

Different social skills. The "tells". They can be very strong for people who just got done being homeschooled, but seem to fade after two or three years.

One example of such a "tell" is attempting to have a personal discussion with a professor during class. People who were schooled traditionally will have long since realized that should not be done, but somebody fresh out of homeschooling may not have that inhibition.

Some (many? most?) people who were homeschooled do not exhibit this.

You haven't explained why that is 'damage' - only that there is difference from people who went to school.

> ARE going to have to interact with people who weren't raised by very involved, homeschooling parents.

This is true, but Paul Graham resolved this:

Children pick on each other. Adults do not - not because they're grown up but because they have other things to do.

So yes, of course you DO want to limit your childrens interaction with "kids from tougher backgrounds" until they learn to say "No", "Go away" and "No, I don't want French Fries with that".

> "Children pick on each other. Adults do not"

I am very suspicious of this. For the most part, children are not free to associate with whoever they want. Those decisions are generally made for them by adults. It can therefore be very difficult for a child to remove themself from the company of somebody who picks on them.

Adults on the other hand tend to have a great deal of freedom when it comes to determining who they associate with. They will naturally disassociate with people that they don't get along with, minimizing social interaction with people who pick on them.

In the few situations where adults are not as free or able to avoid other adults that they do not like (prisons, lower-paying/status work environments, anything retail, lower income neighborhoods, crowded concerts, etc), adults picking on adults seems to be much more common.

It's funny that you used the word "few" here. "lower-paying/status work environments, anything retail, lower income neighborhoods" probably covers a very substantial minority of the population

It is a matter of degree. Even your standard adult retail worker will have more power to influence their social environment than their children. While it may not be practical for them to change their job, they do technically have the option. A child cannot even hypothetically change their school; they can only convince adults to change it for them.

That was actually the point of the essay by Paul Graham, you can perhaps find it on his site.

Through middle-school my sister and I were homeschooled, and my mom overcame this by getting involved with our church and a couple local education co-op groups. Two days out of the week my sister and I would go to a local church and meet with about a dozen or so other families that homeschooled and have classes. All the families used the same curriculum, and there were a few parents that volunteered to teach classes. It really helped with the socialization aspect, and also took some stress off of my mom since if I had any questions she couldn't answer, I'd be going to a "classroom" with someone who might be better able to answer them. I'd say it's worth looking into, search for homeschooling resources for your location. Or looking into Montessori schools in your area might be a good compromise.

I've tutored kids in math for quite a long time now. I get a lot of homeschooled kids who I'm tutoring because they know more math than their parents and the math is getting too difficult to learn only from a book. Of course, there is some self-selection involved -- they are from families that would seek out tutoring, etc...

As a group, I have to say they are the most mature, well adjusted high schoolers I've known. Virtually all of them schedule the tutoring sessions themselves. They are self managing and self directed.

I've never heard horror stories of socialization from people who homeschooled. It's always people who haven't homeschooled their kids and quite often people with an axe to grind against them (people employed by public schools).

Most towns have homeschooling groups where kids meet each other for common lessons. They will have greater flexibility in schedule to meet a wide variety of kids and adults outside of a small group of kids their age and the teacher. Most importantly, I've found they have learned to interact with adults as people, where not every adult interaction involves the adult telling them what to do.

Over the years, I've known a lot who have transitioned to public high schools due to the variety and depth of course material being beyond the parents ability. I've known of no problems. These kids are probably better equipped to navigate high school than the average incoming freshman.

I send my kids to a great public school, but if I had the resources, I'd definitely consider homeschooling and wouldn't give socialization a second thought.

Homeschool co-op for whatever amount of time you think is appropriate. They can be anywhere from one day a month to several days a week.