[up_and_up]

My wife was from a very competitive school district which forced overachievement and I got beat up by bullies in a small town school. Besides the personal anecdotes,

1. we felt like time was passing too quickly and wanted to have them around, we wanted to be together basically.

2. with 3 kids my wife hasnt been able to work (her line of work is not well paying), so it made sense to start homeschooling vs private schooling.

3. I have issues with what public schools are now, hyper focused on testing, lack of critical thinking, no outdoor time.

The "socializing" concern is a farce imo. Granted we live in area with plenty of groups. Maybe a solo kid way out in the sticks will have problems. Our kids also regularly play with kids 2-5 years older or younger so things are different. Our kids have activities with other homeschool kids 4 days a week.

The schedule looks like this:

M: Outdoor Nature camp: think building fire with bow drills, axes, skinning animals, foraging for wild plants

T: Academic day at home then occasional horseback riding

W: Academic day at home, private music lessons, then playdate at friends house

TH: Homeschool meetup group: think art, music, dance, karate, extracurricular classes with a group of 100 kids and 10 teachers

FRI: another Homeschool meetup group: with various classes and open play

SAT: Climbing, iceskating, skiing, biking, something outdoors

Our life is a mellower version of "Captain Fantastic"

[iambateman]

I was homeschooled for 8 years and this schedule sounds very familiar, except it was surfing and working a part time job for me. School does not need to take 8 hours to be effective.

As far as socialization, I’ve been asked this a hundred times: “so...like...how do you talk to people when you’re at home?” Now, I understand they mean well. But for someone who just implied their superior social capabilities, they sure seem rude and unsocialized. ;)

[winchling]

It's also worth pointing out that the social environment within most schools is far from ideal.

[ekianjo]

Most schools are just like jails: you are forced to be there, and forced to be there with people who don't want to be there either. A good recipe for disaster as soon as the group becomes large enough. And don't expect the guardians/educators to do anything when someone picks up on you.

[ultrarunner]

> And don't expect the guardians/educators to do anything when someone picks up on you.

Well that's not entirely fair. I know of several situations (including my own) where students were punished for fighting when attacked by other students. You can't say that's not "doing something", I guess.

[Matticus_Rex]

It's "doing something," but it's doing something stupid, which isn't better.

[badpun]

Social environment _anywhere_ is far from ideal. I've felt that school gave me great training at recognizing and dealing with assholes. I was more of a sensitive kid and if I was isolated from school (and the playground), I may not be able to join the society later on - the state of it it would've been too much of a shock.

[winchling]

Yes, we don't really know what a good social environment for children looks like.

But it does seem obvious that being forced to associate with brutes is unpleasant, demoralising and inconducive to academic learning. By the same token why not teach people to deal with pain by tapping them daily with hammers?

We also have to factor in also that many people will become brutes as a result of this forced association, like the way criminality incubates in prisons.

[badpun]

Academic learning is not nearly as important as good socialisation (dealing with brutes etc.) IMO. For most people who are not smart enough to get a good, competitive office job (like software engineer, doctor etc.), those years in school seem largely pointless, apart from learning basics like literacy, algebra etc. And even for academically gifted, life without social skills must be worse than being an under-performer in a sub-optimal job. Hell is other people, and social skills is how you deal with them.

[winchling]

But again, what about the people who become bullies and brutes as a result?

The way we learn to get along is through a combination of shared challenges and by trying to emulate people we admire. Not being locked up with Bane seven hours every day.

[jonny_eh]

It strikes me as similarly naive as "If you're not religious, how can you be moral?".

It turns out that humans are innately moral and social, outside of extreme situations.

[michaelchisari]

This seems extraordinarily well-balanced. I'm often skeptical of homeschooling (especially for religious or political reasons), but you've got a great curriculum and motivation.

[up_and_up]

Thanks! Yeah we feel lucky to have local groups and resources to make this happen. Granted we have also worked hard to get there!

[ced]

Where are you from? If you mind sharing, could you tell us at least country, and urban/suburban/rural?

[up_and_up]

USA, MI, peri-urban

[rigorman]

Curious what about his description appealed to you?

[EdwardDiego]

Congratulations on doing it right with regards to socialisation. Sadly, many homeschoolers (in my anecdotal experience) do it wrong - they tend to be the same ones who homeschool for religious reasons.

[ultrarunner]

Also anecdotal, but I suspect that the religiously motivated homeschoolers were already going to suffer socially, homeschooled or not. The only way that government schools would have altered the outcome was by providing peers to challenge their (often poorly-supported) religious positions. Assuming the methodology bordered on bullying, I'm not sure that would necessarily lead to an outcome of better socialization. I could certainly be wrong, though.

[burfog]

An interesting example is the Westboro Baptist children. They are sent to public school in order to learn about how rotten the sinners are. The bullying they receive helps to drive home that lesson.

[EdwardDiego]

In my experience (from moving in religious homeschooling circles) it's more that they're doing it to "save" their children from the "world" - so having them at home is them already doing the best by their children, so having accomplished that, they're less worried about ensuring regular socialisation.

And as they often have large families, their children have a large number of sibiling so aren't lonely, so they presume it's all good. Which just leads to entire families of socially inept homeschoolers.

Whether or not religious people retain their views is not the benefit of socialisation - being able to function in everyday human society through direct experience of it, not a carefully curated and managed microscopic subset, that's the advantage.

[ultrarunner]

I agree with almost all of what you're saying. I'm not suggesting that a social experience outside of the purview of the insular groups this small subset of religious folks experience is not beneficial. What I'm suggesting is that the particular experience offered by public schools (especially in rural and semi-rural areas insular religious homeschoolers typically inhabit) is not particularly beneficial for the socialization of (otherwise) religious homeschoolers.

I don't know of any studies (or if any could be performed, really) that demonstrate the social impact of public schools on students like this, or at least easily-identified outgroup kids. I know from anecdotal experience that in the public schools I attended that they (the semi-cultish religious kids who were not/no longer homeschooled) were not treated well, never successfully integrated socially, and disappeared from my radar very quickly after graduation. With hindsight I feel very badly about that now, and wish there some way to impact the systemic cliquish nature of public schools, especially high school. Unfortunately I lack a time machine for the kids of the past, and simply don't have answers for those going forward.

Either way, my suspicion is that public schools specifically do not offer the best (or even a much better) experience for socializing students.

[GuiA]

It seems like you’ve achieved something great, congrats!

What are your estimated cost per year per child? (Including the aforementioned private teachers etc). It’d be interesting to compare that with the average expenditure per child in your local schooling district (it’s hard to compare directly due to hard to quantify factors like a parent staying home, but it’d still be interesting to see if it’s significantly more/less or not).

[up_and_up]

Thats a good question. I bet per child we are prob spending 2K-3K all told. Still way less than private school. Granted we also bring in a reading tutor and music teachers. But I am including all the camps and classes.

[sanderjd]

Where do you live? Can you do all these things (hunting, foraging, riding horses, karate, climbing, ice skating, etc.) without paying? Does that mean you live on a bunch of land? How far do you have to drive for these things? How did you find these meetup groups?

It sounds like a great setup, but it also seems difficult and expensive to me at first blush.