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Comment by AlwaysRock | Hacker News Reader

Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time was spent doing activities.

Was in high school ~10 years ago and the other homeschool families we knew were a mix of farm/ultra religious low social skill homeschoolers and fairly normal folks with decent social skills.

TLDR: I think there is a social aspect of being in school that homeschool kids miss out on, regardless of how many extracurricular or sports they may do.

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What do you mean by "social skills?" As an immigrant with parents who limited social activity with peers, growing up I felt handicapped by my social skills in some areas (particularly dating, which my parents discouraged up to the moment they started asking for grandchildren). Now I'm pushing 40 with three kids and a real job, I realized I had just learned a different set of social skills. Because I was always expected to converse with and participate in activities with adults, I had no trouble when it came to joining the workforce, interacting with bosses, etc. And whatever discomfort I had navigating the artificial social context of age-segregated school just didn't matter--it wasn't a valuable skill outside that unique context.

Same... was a 'weird' kid, but had no problem getting a job and keeping it, from a young age... a skill that seemed to escape many of my classmates. I loved talking to adults, and although 'normally' schooled, my parents -- due to them being immigrants -- had very different ideas compared to the mainstream

If it makes you feel better, I was public schooled, and a lot of the kids seemed to have really awful social skills. This kind of numb mindlessness. Not everyone, but it was too widespread. Something about sitting still doing nothing for 7 hours, surrounded by people but forbidden from interacting with them.

I'm sure there were many benefits but public schools don't seem to be doing great at socializing kids.

I have a bunch of siblings, all of us homeschooled. Between all of us, some are more "socialized" than others. You can't leave out the individual in this discussion.

In general, schools do a fine job. Do they do an exceptional job in every case? No. But most people who go to public schools end up with okay social skills. I really don't think the same can be said of home school kids. Or at least those same social skills will take dedicated work to develop and may not materialize until well into adulthood.

Not feeling comfortable could be question of time. You get comfortable when you go from kindergarten to 12th grade with the same kids. You know them well, because you've been in classes with a lot of them for 6-7 hours / day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year.

As I typed the above paragraph out, it actually makes me question. Is that really growing social skills if they're always surrounded by the same kids? For example, I moved to a different state between 8th grade and the start of high school. That experience helped me to understand what it's like to not have friends, how long it takes to make friends (2-3+ years), and how to interact with a lot of peers you don't know and who don't know you.

It was interesting when I went to college, and I found other students who were nice, but never really interested in being your friend because they went to the same college as many of their high school friends. Or they grew up near the college and had all their high school friends nearby still. I guess this latter point isn't really social skills, but it is something that I learned to be aware of.

> You get comfortable when you go from kindergarten to 12th grade with the same kids. You know them well, because you've been in classes with a lot of them for 6-7 hours / day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year.

Or you get to deeply hate these children ...

I was public schooled and also felt uncomfortable sitting around hanging out, without a purpose or a goal or activity. May not be home schooling that is the cause - people are just different.

I feel that same way but I wouldnt lump that in with social skills. When I went to a public high school we didnt do a lot of sitting around and hanging out. We went to classes.

I went to regular school from K-12 and I also felt like my social skills were significantly stunted for a long time. Which is not to say that homeschooling can’t negatively impact your social skills, but that plenty of kids experience stunted social skills, social anxiety, awkwardness, introversion even with regular schooling.

Also as an adult I gotta say, in most ways it’s traditionally schooled kids who are “stunted” (immature, have mannerisms/beliefs/habits incompatible with the adult world) until they hit about 20-26 more so than homeschool kids. I’ve met homeschooled kids who probably considered themselves stunted, and in some ways (being sheltered) they were, but they were also significantly more “adult-like” and mature in other ways earlier than their peers. This is also true for a lot of traditionally schooled kids who are “late bloomers” IME.

I don't know if I would equate adult like with social skills. I was very comfortable talking to adults. I was a kid and knew how to behave fine. I was not comfortable talking to kids my own age who I didnt already know very well.

I would imagine any kid who is viewed as lacking social skills who attends a regular school would be worse off socially if they were home schooled. But I don't have any data to back that up other than knowing lots of home school kids.

I feel the exact same also homeschooled. It’s also interesting being in this thread with homeschooling parents - I remember hearing about how “homeschool groups provide the same level of socialization” back then, and it wasn’t any more true then than it is today. Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers and you get 1 if you’re lucky. Not the same.

> Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers

As a parent, I have no say over who these “peers” are, how they treat my child, or what BS they try to push on them.

As someone who was surrounded by some pretty bad kids during High School I am very comfortable with my children not getting that experience.

    As someone who was surrounded by some pretty bad kids during High School I am very comfortable with my children not getting that experience.

Hey, that’s what all the other homeschool moms whose children don’t speak to them say too!

Its actually hilarious that in another comment you say 'Today is the greatest time in the history of our species to be alive', but yet you can't overcome the fear of sending your kids out in public.

Everyone is going to parent their kid their own way but is it even possible to protect your kid from hanging out with "bad kids"? I was fairly sheltered. Religious family, didnt have my own car, had to tell my parents where I was going when I left the house, lived outside of town farish from anywhere else but I still had plenty of opportunities to hang out with bad kids and do bad things. I had my own set of morals and those prevented me from doing anything TOO stupid in high school.

I know a decent number of people who came from homeschooled or religious families who went absolutely wild their first two years of college because they had been so sheltered growing up. This was at a Christian university where you had to live on campus for your first two years, drugs/booze were banned, and you couldnt have people of the opposite sex in your dorm rooms.

TLDR: eventually your kids will interact with "bad kids". What are they going to do then?

Is it possible that some social traits that influenced your parents to favor home schooling are genetic? Some people feel socially stinted despite attending public school, they just don’t have an obvious scapegoat.

Parents are both incredibly social.

I'm aware that not every kid who goes to a regular school is going to have incredible social skills. Just like how every home school kid isnt going to have poor social skills.

But there is something to being surrounded by peers and having to interact with them day in and day out that you don't get from home schooling.

It’s arguable whether public schools provide positive socialization in the first place. I imagine it largely depends on the school, the teachers, the other students, and the individual, but plenty of people come out of public school with poor social skills or (in worse circumstances) anti-social behaviors. It’s not like public school inherently does better at this.

> It’s not like public school inherently does better at this

I don't think this is true. Take those same kids with poor social skills and home school them instead. They almost certainly wont have any better social skills. Meanwhile plenty of kids who did learn strong social skills by being around others in school would have worse social skills if you home schooled them.

I'm not saying regular schools get a 100 out of 100 on this. I'm saying they do a significantly better job at this than homeschooling does EVEN WHEN you add in measures like sports, group activities, ect that op mentioned doing.

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