I have some mixed feelings on homeschooling. Mom did it as a response to horrible New Mexico schools. Gang violence, poor academics, drugs, sex etc. I definitely had 0 opportunity to be involved in any of that. I grew up quite sheltered and naive, and frankly for that I am grateful. It made my entry into the young adult world pretty awkward and strewn with weird interactions, but all in all it was worth it I think. BUT, there are three reasons that I was not as weird as all the other homeschoolers I knew.
1. Mom and Dad were not weird. They homeschooled because they didnt like the alternative, and it was 20 minutes to the bus stop and thats when the road was not muddy.
2. I had 2 brothers who were also homeschooled. The oldest brother had gone through 5th or 6th grade and was firmly entrenched in the "being cool" culture. So he was the leaven in the bread so to speak. We modeled ourselves after him, and he wanted to be with it socially, so we got a little by default.
3. I hate to say it but the church provided a ton of social development opportunities. Not to say you cannot get it elsewhere, but its going to require some more effort. Church gave me public speaking opportunities, leadership opportunities, taking direction/orders opportunities, conflict resolution at Wednesday night mutual opportunities, doing things you dont want to do opportunities, and a whole bunch of other social interaction opportunities. You can get these other places, and I would strongly recommend doing that. 4-H is a good one, FFA is another I am aware of. But you got to give them something where you are not in the picture.
Academically I did fine. Mom was pretty involved until I was 14 and my sister was born like 12 or 13 weeks early. After that she pretty much was occupied and I did it on my own. Some things suffered, Math mainly. But I knew how to teach myself and that got me through a Masters degree in a science field. Thats what I feel homeschool does best. It teaches kids how to figure it out on their own. It should anyway. That is something public school doesnt do well.
I think the best of both worlds would be to do some kind of coop where one parent will teach a group of kids something and a different parent will teach something else depending on what they are good at. I dont know where to find this sort of thing though.
I worry I'm going to transfer my social anxiety to my kids.
I'm not going to lie, that is a common theme I see with homeschooling kids. My younger sister (14 yrs younger), has also been homeschooled. But she has had to do it without any siblings. She is like a little version of my Mother. All I can suggest is to get them out in situations where they have to act on their own without you. 4-H and church were our outlets.
is there anything that stands out to you that you either loved or hated about having been homeschooled?
I hated feeling like I didnt measure up to my friends at church. They would all talk and commiserate over pre-calc homework, and I was still working on algebra at home and could not participate in those types of discussions and bondings. There was such a big divide between us. Little did I know that it would all even out in college. They werent as smart as I thought they were, but I didnt know that at the time.
Related to that was the lack of a close friendship. I never had a close friend growing up. Brothers didnt count for me at the time. I was lonely for all of my childhood and most of my teenage years. I worked for my uncle later in my teens earning money for my mission and we became great friends, and the mission was a HUGE experience as far as trying to make friends goes. I still have great friendships from my mission. But as far as my childhood goes, I didnt have a friend. There were two neighbor boys I would play with, but there is only so much we had in common. This plays into how fast I got married after I got home from the mission. I was lonely.
I also hated having to have dad explain math to me. Mom was terrible at math, and Dad was really good. But Dad stunk as a teacher and would often make me cry when I didnt get it. This may not be unique to homeschooling, but when I think about what I didnt like about school it stands out.
I LOVED all the free time I had. Schoolwork took maybe 2-3 hours per day? We lived in the booneys and after that I would go for hikes, play outside, work at the ranches and farms around, ride horses all over the place, raise animals and just generally have fun.
We would often go into Albuquerque or Santa Fe and do different things. It always felt special because we were the only ones at the museum because it was 10 in the morning. The swimming pool was never busy when we were there. Mom would try pretty hard in the early years to get us out to see stuff whether it was a museum, fossil hunting in the mountains, sketching nature scenes, going with Dad to work, etc. The flexibility was wonderful.
Mom would create her own curriculum for us in the beginning. She would decide what we needed, research the books and supplies she wanted, then buy it all and give it to us on a day we called "homeschool Christmas." That was always a cool day, we made it a big event with a fancy dinner and stuff. We did Saxon math, which sucked. I can see know that it was a crappy curriculum. English typically was some aBeka book. Towards the end she was having us read out of the great book collection (Plato, Aristotle, Kant...) and having us essay on them. Reading was always the biggest part of school for us. We went to the library once per week and came home with stacks of books each. I would spend whole days reading and have to catch up on other stuff. Or not depending if I could slip it by mom. We were quite nerdy.
All in all it was great. Some drawbacks, some positives. It worked for us pretty well. I am not homeschooling my kids. I dont think my wife is up for it. But she loves the thought of creating curriculum for the kids.