[geomark]

That's a weak reason. Instead of being locked up with a bunch of classmates which you have no choice about you get to associate with people you choose.

[gregjor]

Yes, exactly. And children should have opportunities to socialize with adults, in ways that aren't based on authority and following arbitrary rules. All of us who went to school know the feeling of disorientation when school ended and we had to face "the real world," which has very different rules and expectations than the school environment. Imagine raising children who didn't have to make that adjustment, because they only know "the real world."

[soco]

Not kidding but my real world is based on authority and arbitrary rules - see laws, police, bosses, army, traffic...

[ink_13]

> a bunch of classmates which you have no choice about you get to associate with

This is actually extremely valuable as a life experience, and not gaining it as a child represents a major loss

[gregjor]

This happens with homeschooled kids too. My daughters didn't get to choose the other kids they took ice skating or salsa classes with. My son didn't get to pick the kids on his soccer team or Cub Scouts group. You're making a false dichotomy, as if homeschooled kids inhabit a parallel universe with no contact with kids who go to school. That just isn't the case.

[aleph_minus_one]

> This is actually extremely valuable as a life experience, and not gaining it as a child represents a major loss

Indeed: if you don't get this life experience, you don't learn to cultivate a fervent hate towards other humans. :-( Whether this is a desirable trait for you children to get is up to you to decide ...

[geomark]

I hear that said but I completely disagree. Being surrounded by mostly game-addicted goal-less classmates is a drag on even a motivated high achiever. It was such a difference to have the flexibility of homeschooling and be able to get him in with some like-minded kids and watch him bloom (my anecdote, n=1).

[sanderjd]

Yes, but there's a sampling bias. Most people (where I live) send their kids to school. So the "people you choose" to associate with during has to be drawn from a smaller population that has self-selected into that group for reasons I may or may not be aligned with.

[gregjor]

There's no reason homeschooled kids can't make friends with kids who go to school. All of my kids did. Most of our neighbors went to school. Most of the kids they met at sports, music classes, ice skating, friends of friends went to regular school. There's no hard partition keeping homeschooled kids away from other kids. Too many people imagine homeschooling as "kids locked up at home," cut off from the rest of the world and other kids.

Homeschoolers divide fairly neatly into families who keep their kids out of school for religious reasons, and families who choose to homeschool for other reasons, usually referred to as secular homeschoolers. Those groups can mix and do activities together, or they can stay partly or completely separate. I think that's what you allude to, but I'm not sure. We did not homeschool for religious reasons. Some of our friends did, and a larger number of homeschoolers we knew about chose not to associate with the secular families. But plenty of people homeschool for reasons other than religion or wanting to isolate their children from society, it's easy to find them.