> But on the flip-side, would you want to go your entire life without facing any conflicts?
This is a false dichotomy. It's not like you need to be exposed to drugs, violence, and sexual assault in order to 'face conflicts'. For 100% of children, simply disagreeing with a friend, fighting on the playground, etc is enough. Unfortunately, public school provides a lot of the former, and not exactly a lot of the latter.
I think the vast majority of public schools don't have any problems with drugs, violence, or sexual assaults. I went to a pretty low-tier HS, and we never had any of that. The same type of HS where only 5%-10% of students to to college.
But with that said - my initial thought is that at schools, at least you're forced to interact with people you may not want to interact with. Good or bad, at least it preps you for the professional work, where you can't choose the people you work with.
I can only imagine that going your whole (juvenile and young adult) life with the option of being 100% selective on who you interact with, must have some bearing on what kind of person you become as an adult.
I'm not saying that friends or family don't fight from time to time, but it's not really the same as dealing with strangers.
> But with that said - my initial thought is that at schools, at least you're forced to interact with people you may not want to interact with. Good or bad, at least it preps you for the professional work, where you can't choose the people you work with.
You're not wrong, but this is a misplaced worry, IMO. Homeschooled students are consistently shown to do just as well at work as non-homeschooled students. It is a myth that homeschooled students don't interact with others. Many take classes at the local college, many take part in homeschool 'co-ops', which are not fully schools, but give that kind of experience.
As a homeschooled kid, I learned to argue with evidence against people who believed utter nonsense. I then went to play with them after. Not being stuck in school doesn't mean you don't interact with people.
Homeschooled does not mean “confined to home.” Most of us have made friends and dealt with strangers since we got out of school. Spend some time with homeschoolers before forming incorrect theories about how they spend their time.
This is a false dichotomy. It's not like you need to be exposed to drugs, violence, and sexual assault in order to 'face conflicts'. For 100% of children, simply disagreeing with a friend, fighting on the playground, etc is enough. Unfortunately, public school provides a lot of the former, and not exactly a lot of the latter.