[jamisonbryant]

I was home-schooled as a child, which made me intellectually advanced but socially inept. When I got to college, the myriad of social experiences to be had quickly led me astray. I think I actually went to class no more than a dozen times my first semester, and I think I sat an exam exactly once.

After that I dropped out and moved back home, choosing to attend community college for a while. Unfortunately I would repeat the experience one more time at a different university before finally getting my head screwed on straight and my priorities in order. It was at about this time that I was also diagnosed with clinical depression and began to get treatment for it, which helped immensely.

Home-schooling was an interesting experience that has given me many advantages, but it is not one I recommend to anyone because it also beleaguered my foray into the real world in a way that has had and will continue to have lasting negative consequences to this day.

[bicx]

I was also homeschooled, and it turned out pretty well for me, but knew people who had negative experiences. I think the main pro and con of homeschooling is that the parents have full control. As a parent, you can help your child advance beyond the academics of normal schooling, but you are also responsible for a holistic upbringing that includes social activities. Luckily in my area, there were a lot of homeschooled kids who got together a good bit, and later on in high school, I got a job that exposed me to a lot of the other things in life.

[otakucode]

This might be far too personal of a question, and if so just tell me to piss off, I won't mind. But I'm curious, do you think, compared to others, that you might experience intense interpersonal relationships (intimate friendships, romantic relationships, etc) very differently from people who were schooled differently and thereby able to have formative early relationships of that sort during early adolescence - the period of maximal neuroplasticity? I've always worried that being forbidden such intense experiences might be a 'critical period' phenomenon similar to needing to be exposed to language before age 5 or else never being capable of grasping its fundamentals.

[bjt2n3904]

You were far from socially inept. ;) Somehow I have that feeling.