I was home schooled from K-8. You’re right that school work gets done quicker but everything else is wrong. I played sports and did extracurricular activities. High school was so socially awkward for me. It wasn’t until early-mid college that I actually got the social skills down.
You think a kid will get the skills but not being around other kids my age (I was around my younger brother who was also home schooled) impacted a lot. Yes we would both get done early but there weren’t any other kids to play or hang out with. My brother has a mental disorder that, at the time, I didn’t know or understood how it impacted him and I just assumed he was an ass instead of actually learning what was going on.
Yes you can meet other home schooled kids (my mom tried to do this to help “socializing”). Every kid that I had as forced to hangout with, while the moms just talked their voice boxes out, was really socially different. I didn’t notice that I myself was this as well. I got along with the kids but it wasn’t natural and felt forced. It wasn’t until about late high school that I actually learned about this as I reflected through my college apps.
Going from 8th grade home school to public high school was awful. I got bullied and taken advantage of because of how I didn’t understand social cues. I would come home after school crying because I had no friends. When I thought I made friends, they took advantage of me. Copied my homework and then left me out to dry.
This is just a little to my childhood. It has fucked me up to the point that I don’t and haven’t spoken to my mom in now 5 years. I live over 1k miles away from them and really try not to have any interaction with them. I even skipped my brother’s wedding last year because of how bad my mental health got due to my childhood (I am doing a lot of self-discovery and really working my ass off because I know this isn’t healthy for me as my initial thoughts of any family member is pretty much all negative). I am currently in therapy and hoping to see a psychiatrist because I feel such malice and rage towards my parents, especially my mother as she was the one to make these decisions while my dad went to work to pay the bills.