Is homeschooling and/or unschooling good or bad?

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http://www.sbs.com.au/news/thefeed/article/2017/06/28/home-schooling-and-un-schooling-rise-and-results-look-promising

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/compass/RN1611H014S00 - Interesting piece by the ABC on it

There are currently 55,000 children to 25 ,000 kids being home-schooling around Australia.
Home schooling is when people teach kids from home and unschooling is taking kids out of school.
…
Traditional schooling vs home-schooling   
Traditional schooling is where kids go a public school and learn with many hundreds of kids … class activates, sports, musical bands, etc… you get the idea.

Home schooling is where parents or carers teach kids from the comfort of their own home.
..
Why do parents choose home schooling/unschooling?
-   Closer bonds with kids
-   Religious reasons
-   Special circumstances (people with physical and mental illnesses)
-   Distance from school
-   The system is a “failure”
…
Pros of schooling
-   Socialising skills
-   Different points of view
-   Life skills
-   Resources
-   Educational standards
-   Broad support standards

Disadvantages
-   Cost
-   Favouritism
-   Negative experiences (bullying, school drama)
-   Less attention for kids
.......
Home schooling Pros
-   Stronger bonds with kids
-   Own pacing of education
-   Adapt teaching to suit their own kids
-   Flexible schedules
-   Shelter children from things
-   Religious and ethical instructing

Cons
-   Lack of experience in teaching
-   Cannot get an HSC
-   Lack of social interaction (may need to develop coping skills later)
-   Lack of education standards
 .....
What are your thoughts? Ultimately, is it more of a good or bad thing? Did your parents ever consider homeschooling for you?

Personally I knew a few people who were home-schooled, on the books they were absolutely geniuses. Their parents wanted to move them at a faster pace than at what school did. On the social side, they had a lot of trouble and were fairly sheltered. They could not handle the slightest, of slight criticism and did not know how to do teamwork.

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[geminii]

Interesting topic!

I voted 'yes' in the survey, because I think the majority of homeschooling parents do a great job - however, I'm sure there are always some that are incompetent and cannot properly teach, thereby making the situation for the child even worse.

One of my best friends was homeschooled from Prep to the middle of high school. Her first year of high school was the year I became friends with her, so I've seen how she's changed over the years, from the transition from homeschooling to regular schooling.
In the beginning, she didn't have the same social skills as everyone else, although she could definitely communicate with others well and make friends (in fact, she was the one who approached me first). But, her social skills were a little...different. She and her siblings were homeschooled together so she was quite affectionate with everyone. She was also super religious and was extremely well-mannered. Not that any of these things are bad - not at all - but they were just different. She adjusted quite quickly though, and now you wouldn't be able to tell she had ever been homeschooled.
In terms of intelligence, she's extremely smart, so that was never a problem.
Her parents did an extremely good job teaching her at home, and one has a teaching degree, so they were definitely competent.
So this has definitely impacted my perception of homeschooling.

Personally, when I get older and have kids, I think I would seriously consider homeschooling them. I don't see anything wrong with it at all. It's a well-perpetuated myth that homeschooled kids don't have any social skills - my friend did, they were just a little different, and she had homeschool outings where she and a few of her other homeschooled friends would go out and play games and stuff. So she definitely had enough social stimuli.

In terms of criticism, my friend handles it really well. She's great at teamwork - although I think she was a little less great at the beginning of starting school.

So overall I think homeschooling is fine, so long as the parents are able to properly teach and proper discipline is practiced on the child.