Children who are home schooled throughout elementary, junior high, and high school have often times been recognized as having a lack of social skills and facing some challenges in social situations. The simplest, and I suppose non-politically correct, way of saying this: kids may be disadvantaged and perhaps even socially awkward if they are home schooled through their high school years.
My point is not to discourage home schooling but rather give some awareness to the downfalls of home schooling all the way through high school.
My mother home schooled me from kindergarten through fifth grade. I'll say this right now, those were some of the best years of my life, and during that time period I was able to determine what I enjoy doing and begin shaping into a young adult. My brother and I were able to do many enjoyable and interactive things at our leisure that I knew children in traditional schools could only dream of. I regularly went to plays and museums, I designed and planted a vegetable garden, I built things, I painted, I read countless books, and I wrote my own books.
I explored life without the stern hand of an elementary school teacher trying to keep me focused on prepackaged curriculum that is designed as one size fits all. Life was wonderful and most often times carefree.
So, yes, home schooling is a great experience for the early years of life. Yet children need to interact with other children and realize what kind of behaviors are socially acceptable and what kinds are not. Do not think at all that I mean to discourage a young person's desire to pursue their own goals just to be accepted by others or something of that nature. I only mean that as children grow up, if they have not been exposed to what life is like outside of the home schooling bubble, they are going to find challenges arising with others around them who have not shared these experiences.
Perhaps worst of all, these home schooled children will not understand why they are facing difficulties. I know a lot of families who home school their children. In order to gain interaction between their own children and others, they organize things such as "home schooling groups". Here home schooled children get together, socialize, and do such activities as projects and field trips with each other. One would think this to be an efficient way of allowing home schooled children to experience interaction with others and supply them with sufficient social skills, yet take heed: this often times will hinder a child's social skills. Let me explain why in the form of an analogy.
Let's imagine there are eight musicians who all have studied folk music their entire life. Nothing else at all, always folk music. Each can create wonderful folk music, completely uninfluenced by any other type of music because folk music is the only type of music they have ever known. Now these eight musicians group together and create even more wonderful folk music. Then one of them hears a Pop song and tries to recreate it with his band mates. But they are unable to do so because each of them is only knowledgeable of folk music.
In the same way, a group of home schoolers learning together will not be able to develop the type of social skills needed in the world, namely to interact with others of far differing backgrounds and customs, and they will only further develop their dependency on the protected life of the homeschooling community.
Home schooling during the early years of life can be very beneficial, and I would, in fact, recommend it. However, high school is an experience like none other and can only be experienced once. Should not students experience this unique opportunity, making friendships and developing socially, rather than remaining at home isolated from their peers? After elementary school, or at least junior high, children should get the chance to explore the world a little bit further by interacting with a diverse group of young adults.
Difficulties will be faced at any high school such as bullying, drug-offers, and other such peer-pressured ordeals, but this too is part of life and kids cannot remain unexposed to these things forever.
For those who choose to home school their children during the high school years, please be aware that your children are missing out on perhaps one of the most important avenues for growing up and developing into adults and that when they finally do step out into the world, they will be in for some trials and difficulties due to their lack of experience with those with different backgrounds, values, and customs.
