Most of the home schooled kids my family has met have been very strange kids. Their academic attainments vary but I would guess that as a group they are significantly better than average.
The social weirdness is another thing, but maybe it sorts itself out when the child becomes an adult and enters the world of work and society.
I think home schoolers probably learn better because of the lack of harmful peer influence, but not all peer influence is harmful and some may even be essential in developing a normal personality.
See my post #29. I’ve met some of my grandkids friends and there hasn’t been any weirdness that I’ve noticed, of course this isn’t straight home schooling.
I have met strange kids who go to public school.
My “goth” god-daughter comes to mind.
I’m sure you can find examples of “strange” most anywhere you look.
Homeschooling kids are in the most natural, organic, wonderful state, as kids should be. Kids who homeschool are like generations of pub educated students of yore; before socialism and the cult of "celebrity" became the models of instruction.
And that's why, amid the millions indoctrinated by the State, homeschooled kids seem "different".
My home felt like Noah's Ark, back in the 90s. Children of all ages were asking to be a part of my homeschool. Asking their parents to talk to me. We helped where we could. College students were asking if they could do their studies at my home. And be tutored. And additionally instructed in matters and topics they'd never heard before.
In homeschooling children, you are seeing students in their natural state. Despair, envy, wanting to fit "in" is what is happening to kids in pub ed. Many don't wish to be there.
Most homeschooling kids want to be exactly where they are. And yes, this makes them stand out as "different" amid the madding crowd.
It does sort out. Although my family is heavily social, always has been - my kids and I talked about this "difference" in the mid90s. I'll tell you what I told them, asked them to decide about:
You can always learn advanced social skills -- the right clothing, the "hep" verbiage, the hand languages, the "right" cliques -- but you cannot get back those years where your brain is tracking, or not. You cannot suddenly grow "new synaptic pathways" just by associating with the larger culture of work and society.
Or conversely, explaining this to Ken Hamblin, years ago: Yes, there's partial birth abortion. And then there's the metaphysical lobotomy taking place in pub ed during a child's most formative years.
Yes, SBprone - as far as the "coolness" factor in re homeschooling kids: it's a snap for them to "catch up" and play the "social game" and WIN it. But, what they can't do is go back and retrain their minds anywhere as readily or easily when they are grown.
Kids in pub ed get grooved into the coolness factor and suddenly arrive at adulthood with no idea of what they want to do. Homeschooled kids generally arrive at adulthood with a passion for what they wish to do. And in this regard, it usually makes them very popular, especially around those lacking a fulfilling passion in their lives.