Young kids can get plenty of socializing by going outside and playing with the neighbor kids in the afternoons.

The older homeschooled kids I knew as a teenager still played sports for the school teams and socialized there, they had friends and went out on weekends. Only one of them was being home schooled because of religious reasons, the other two were siblings who were taken out of public school when their parents looked at their homework, spoke with their teacher, and realized that they weren't happy with the public schools we had in that area.

I don't have the luxury of being able to home school my girls but I'd consider it if I could. Their teachers are both lovely women who I like a lot (as they were in all previous years up to this point) but the curriculum varies greatly in quality and relevance. Also no effort is made to encourage strengths or shore up weaknesses. My oldest is a math wiz but falls behind in reading comprehension. The school puts more emphasis on math because it's considered more difficult for the majority so she spends hours doing math she already has an excellent grasp of at school and then brings home pages of homework too, meanwhile her reading scores are consistently low Bs and I've had to start printing out reading comprehension worksheets at home to help her improve.

She's also developing an ego problem from being better at the subject they spend the most time on in class and I'm not sure what to do about that. She rolls her eyes when other kids can't answer simple math questions or she answers for them and when she gets in trouble for these behaviors she then sits quietly but is clearly exasperated by the waiting for other kids to figure out something she got right away. It's making her a little snotty and it's difficult to punish, how do you say "Stop looking smug or you're getting in trouble" to a 9 year old?

Anyway, home schooling can be a good thing as long as steps are taken to ensure your kids are developing properly in their social skills as well. Not every home schooled person comes across as being autistic nor are they all being brainwashed behind closed doors.