I was homeschooled K-12. I have mixed feelings about its effectiveness, and I harbor resentment against my parents for many of their choices. Most of it revolves around their strong religious reasonings for homeschooling, and the denial of my wish to attend standard high school. There was also a very strong "us vs them" philosophy that took me years to get over.
The hardest part was simply being "normal" in the real world. Even though we had friends outside of the homeschool groups, it took me literal years to learn normal group interactions so I would stop sticking out like a sore thumb. Lack of socialization is brought up as a downside to homeschooling, and is frequently rebuffed bringing up extracurricular activities and clubs. I believe that no matter how much you think a few clubs and extracurricular activities may substitute, sadly our culture revolves around working in groups and within a bureaucracy. Homeschooling and its ilk are a poor preparation for working effectivly within those systems. I seriously felt mildly retarded when I got out into the real world, and would frequently joke that my first few jobs were my substitute for the social systems of HS and College.
While I do think that homeschooling can offer younger children a lot of benefits, such as accelerated reading and math skills in the early years (I was performing these at a high-school level in early middle school), I don't believe that parents can ever replace the structure specialized learning that formal schools give older children. The option of me attending a public school for high school was never taken seriously, I wish I had at least been afforded that.
The hardest part was simply being "normal" in the real world. Even though we had friends outside of the homeschool groups, it took me literal years to learn normal group interactions so I would stop sticking out like a sore thumb. Lack of socialization is brought up as a downside to homeschooling, and is frequently rebuffed bringing up extracurricular activities and clubs. I believe that no matter how much you think a few clubs and extracurricular activities may substitute, sadly our culture revolves around working in groups and within a bureaucracy. Homeschooling and its ilk are a poor preparation for working effectivly within those systems. I seriously felt mildly retarded when I got out into the real world, and would frequently joke that my first few jobs were my substitute for the social systems of HS and College.
While I do think that homeschooling can offer younger children a lot of benefits, such as accelerated reading and math skills in the early years (I was performing these at a high-school level in early middle school), I don't believe that parents can ever replace the structure specialized learning that formal schools give older children. The option of me attending a public school for high school was never taken seriously, I wish I had at least been afforded that.