Everyone I met who was homeschooled has some sort of bizarre personality or comes from some messed up family with obscure beliefs. Most of the ones I met lacked social maturity as in they had strange personalities. Also, in some cases their parents removed them from public school because their belief system did not align with the school’s curriculum. they were anti-vaxxers, far right, super religious, or maintained some sort of conspiracy belief about public education. Anytime someone tells me that they were homeschooled or they homeschool their kids I feel really bad for them and the kids involved.
I went to college with a guy who was homeschooled up until he was 15. He had super conservative, Baptist parents. Honestly, he was really cool. Definitely the most awkward person I’ve ever met. But he owned it, and I respected the fuck out of him for it. Jacob, I hope you’re doing awesome.
School is an important aspect of social development. Kids have to learn how to be social, how to connect with others and in general participate in this thing we call “society”.
Homeschooling takes this away from children. Unless special efforts are made to “socialize” the child it can easily result in someone who is not great at socializing and comes off as “weird” because he/she simply doesn’t have the experience to act properly (as the rest of us understand it).
I think that it’s because:
Kids don’t get the social interaction they need to become functioning adults
Kids are not exposed to different people and ideas.
Parents, for the most part, are not capable of teaching all subjects.
The parents that choose to home school their kids have, let’s say, different views than the rest of society, and they teach those views to their kids.
My parents always say to me about my daughter, “but she’s going to turn into a weird homeschool kid!” and I always say yep, that’s kind of the point! I do feel that homeschool kids are different because of homeschooling, its a totally different setting to school so they are bound to be. Its interesting going to homeschool groups and then going to groups with kids who are in school and seeing how everyone act and interacts with each other differently. Personally I’ve found the homeschool groups much quieter and the kids much more comfortable around adults, be it the instructors or other parents.
Probably due to a lack of social interaction. When you go to a school and are surrounded by children your own age, you develop a general sense of how you should interact with others.
I have a friend like that. IDK how long he was homeschooled but his parents were the hyper conservative Christian type. He lived in an area with a lot of big families (he was one of six) and all the mothers would get together and teach certain grade levels. And it worked out well from what I’ve heard. My friend, while a bit awkward, is a very nice, funny and articulate guy. He’s currently in school to be an engineer and all of his older siblings are on good career paths as well (electrician, accountant and lawyer).
He is also the only kid in our friend group that didn’t go through any extreme emotional trauma when they were younger. So maybe homeschooling does have it’s benefits
I also knew someone who was homeschooled, and he was my best friend for a long time. Even had a platonic friendship with my sister, so we all hung together. When my sister died it brought us even closer, but unfortunately we both moved shortly after. Out of all my friends, I’d say he was indeed my best friend and the only friend of mine who has ever been homeschooled. His tendencies were different, they weren’t that of the typical guy you meet. It’s hard to explain, he was just different, and sometimes people who have been homeschooled can make some of the coolest people.