Hey, I didn't mean to dismiss your concerns. I guess there's a fine line between saying "really, nothing to worry about" and "you're worried over nothing."
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The challenge about what you'd think would happen wasn't meant to dismiss you, but to.. well, challenge you. Fears are often about murky, vague things, and if we take the time to really figure out what we're afraid of, that can sometimes eliminate the fear all by itself.
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Please also understand that "but how will they be SOCIALIZED" is the most common objection to homeschooling, which can be tiresome to homeschoolers. Not that I'm saying you don't have a right to ask this question, and of course if I'm tired of answering a question I'm welcome to not answer it. I wanted to add my answer, though, and tried to keep the answer fresh rather than tiresome. Maybe I failed. Also I might have projected some of the common complaints onto you - because, really, it does sound like everybody (you know, my SIL, my neighbor, whatever) thinks I'm locking DD in a closet. I didn't think you thought so, but thought that challenging you to really think about your fears might help you say "hmm, you know what, of course it's not going to be like that."
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OK, reading your edit now... yikes, see, I didn't mean to be unfriendly at all.
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I think a later poster said it better... you will be surprised at how effortless it is. I mentioned that DH and I are introverts. But we end up with kids in the house and playdates elsewhere anyway. I mean, sure, there is a little effort involved, but I don't even really consider it effort because it's all folded into my desire to be a good parent. Making DD a snack is effort, you know? But you do it because you love them, and it's not even that big of a deal.
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So you wanted experiences. Well, DD is 6 years old. She has friends, and quite a variety - some closer than others, some boys and some girls. They are as young as 3 and as old as 11. Just talking about peers, of course - she is also friendly with adults. All (and I do mean all) the librarians know her by name. Ditto the postal workers. You get the idea.
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We have fewer social activities in the winter, since spontaneous social activities happen a lot more often in the warm weather. That's ok with us. In the summer she might have 2 standing playdates in a particular week, plus plenty of time at the park or the lake (she often ends up playing with some kid or another there). Even in the winter, she goes to the library once a week, and often will play with a kid there. She has several physical activities - swim, gymnastics, creative dance. She knows kids in all the classes and interacts with them during the class. She plays with neighbors (I call the group of them The Neighborhood Horde, as when they get together they just go galloping around the neighborhood together in a herd). So she gets both group and one on one time.
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She can judge if a kid or group is receptive and is willing to try to join (so she's not shy). She is as polite as can be expected from a 6 year old (pretty polite, actually!). Her friends come from a variety of backgrounds, though unfortunately are not very racially diverse (we live in a very undiverse area).
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How much effort do we put into it? Well, we take her to the YMCA. we take her to the park and library and stuff. Like I said, it's not like we have to put a lot of attention into social activities per se. It just happens along with other things. People invite themselves over, lol. They invite her over.
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I even think in a rural area it would be the same even if the details were different. DH and I were looking to move to a rural place last year (it didn't happen) but we noted there was a library, a 4-H club, a lake, etc. In our case, we would have had neighbors close enough to play with if they had kids. I would have joined something myself - I don't know, a ladies cooking group, a Bible study, it doesn't even matter what. And many of the people there would have had kids. It just happens like that.
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Very small, true story from this week. DH took DD to the grocery store to do the weekly shop. While shopping, they ran into a kid (and her mother) that DD sometimes plays with at the library. DH and the mom got to chatting, and the kids played for a good half hour right there in the grocery store - really, they had a great time, racing up and down the aisle, hopping, all sorts of things. DH and the mom exchanged last names and now are connected on Facebook, with a promise to get together for a playdate. It just happens.
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DD's swim teacher loves DD. And she has a granddaughter. One time her swim teacher wanted to come over our house to drop some hand-me-downs off. She brought her granddaughter, who is 9 years old (DD is 6). They totally hit it off! So now they are friends and get together. BTW the kid from the grocery store was 3. DD can relate to all sorts of kids, and I think that's just great. And it just happens!
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So, not to dismiss you, but... it really does just happen. I grant you that our story is easier than some other stories would be, because DD doesn't have any problems in the social department. However, I don't think homeschooling is a problem - at all - even for kids who need the extra help.
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Here's another experience. I used to know a kid (they moved away) who was homeschooled. His mother was very, very shy, and he was also very slow to take to new people, and very reserved. But things still worked the same way for them. His mother took him to playgroups. To the park. The museum. Whatever. And even though she was painfully shy herself, and her son too, she had amassed quite a few friends for him by the time they moved. I'm sure it was slightly more of an effort for her, but she still managed just fine. I know they had a good amount of friends for him because they'd have birthday parties every year, and there were always quite a few kids, and I could tell he was friends with them all.
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I know some other people who knew this family - and not all of them crunchy. The non-crunchy ones were kind of appalled at their choice to homeschool. I remember one guy in particular was going on and on about how SHY they were making their son "because" they were homeschooling him. This was when the kid was 4 years old, and I even pointed out to this guy "um, he wouldn't even be in kindergarten, how does their choice to homeschool IN THE FUTURE make him shy today?" Anyway, there's no reasoning with people. Everybody pointed the finger at them for "making" their son shy. They got the last laugh when they had their second son - who turned out to be as gregarious as his father! So they had one son who took after his mother and the other after his father. That's just how it is. Our job as parents is just to work with what we've got and not screw it up, that's how I see it.
