> > I've got a friend who was home schooled up until her senior years. Honestly, she's probably not the biggest social butterfly in the world, but neither am I. Hey, you know what? In some ways she's more outgoing than I am, and I've been in the public school system my whole life. So I don't think that home schooling necessarily stunts your social growth. I think it's a personality thing. People who are shy are more comfortable with being home schooled, so they tend to be home schooled more often than others. People switch around the cause-and-effect. It's just a theory, though.
> >
> > Sun"Don't take me seriously"dragyn.
>
> I've never been home-schooled. But I have awful social skills outside of online life. I never made any lasting friends in public school, probably because I always spent recess and lunch reading (even in first grade), and I always had my siblings to play with at home. So it really does depend on the person and other factors.
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> Aya"Not too sure about my social skills online, either, but I've had lots more practice."ko

I went through the usual public education system and hated it in the extreme. My parents taught me to read and write at an adult level before age 5, so school was a nightmare for me. Schools in my area in the '70s weren't equipped for kids like that. Socially, of course, I was a disaster.

I can't think of one single year from age 5 to 16, when I finally finished high school, which I really enjoyed. At best, I'd be learning new things, or I'd have a friend. I never had a year where both happened, and some years neither happened. But with all that, I have no way of knowing whether I'd be more extroverted, more introverted, or exactly the same if I'd been homeschooled. I've only really developed socially since my university years, and afterwards, through work and other activities. Maybe I could have skipped a lot of that school-induced social trauma, but then maybe it would have hit me during university instead, and done a lot more harm. Who knows?

If I had a kid, I would send them to a public school, and teach them at home concurrently to fill in the educational gaps and extend them as far as they can go with a subject. The school social experience might suck, but that's the world we have to live in. Like anything, "people skills" are something you improve through experience.

Brunnen-"but 29 years of experience still aren't enough to make me enjoy parties"G