Was anyone homeschooled? How did you like it?

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I ask because I want kids someday, and there's a good chance that my kid will have an ASD given all the research. I was homeschooled myself, but I think it made my social skills even worse.

I went to preschool for two years (I don't know how I managed to repeat preschool), and after that my mom pulled me out and homeschooled me. I remember not being able to interact well with the other kids and my teachers were always trying to tell me how to play. I was clueless as to what to do with plastic bears and houses. I only liked parquetry blocks and those wooden puzzles, but my school didn't have those. The elementary schools in Chicago are generally bad anyway, so my mom decided to homeschool me (she didn't know I had AS). I started going to school again in 8th grade, and it was brutal. Academically, I was two grades ahead of everyone else, but I was really behind on my social skills. If I was terrible in preschool, I was twice as bad in 8th grade. Plus, younger kids don't tease as much as middle school kids. I sometimes wonder if I would've been more socially adept if I went to the younger grades instead, and skipped the middle school trauma.

Has anyone here been homeschooled? and do you think it socially hindered or helped you?

I wasn't, but I have a close friend who was. There's nothing wrong with her social skills, but she seems to have been very sheltered. She doesn't handle budgeting and finance very well, and she neither knows nor cares about events if they don't affect her personally (global news, politics etc).

I was. It messed me up big time. I'm great with academics, but I think my parents made me a bit of a sociopath. I have a hard time with emotions and social cues!! I'm in college for physics, and chemical engineering though, so I guess it evens out "p

i did most of my schoolwork via a correspondence school who used to send the weeks work for me to do every monday.
i used to do all the work on monday and i was then free for the other six days per week.

I've been personally homeschooled. My answer is, it depends on how homeschooling is done.

Homeschooling certainly gives the student more free time, but will the free time be used for studying or doing otherwise productive things, or will it just be eaten up by video games and television?

Socializing is not a problem. The child can always get involved in their community and join local events without having to go to a lord of the flies high school.

I wouldn't be so hard on myself if I were you. If you call yourself a sociopath that implies you have no sense of right and wrong. People on the autism spectrum have a conscience, they just don't intuitively pick up on the feelings and social cues of other people and if they do, they don't know how to respond. They have to be taught that, and that's why I think home schooling isn't always the best idea. You sort of need practice, even more than NTs. I know NTs who were homeschooled and they're just as sociable as anyone, but for someone on the spectrum, homeschooling might exacerbate the issues with empathy.

This is totally off-topic, but people confuse the definition of empathy alot. When someone says that ASD people lack empathy, that only means that they don't know how to recognize and react to the feelings of others. It doesn't mean they have some terrible personality disorder and lack a conscience. For example: I see people suffering in Japan, but I don't get emotional about it, simply because I know there is nothing I could do except send money. From what I know about AS, and through my personal experiences, the majority of people on the spectrum would give practical help to someone in need, just not emotional support. A sociopath probably wouldn't care at all.

video games and TV were two big no-nos in my house. I used to sneak in TV time, but I got in alot of trouble for that. My mom put me in all sorts of activities (art, ballet, basketball) but she has absolutely no understanding of Asperger's and her philosophy always was to just indiscriminately push me into everything with no guidance and support. To add to that, I can't dance or play team sports, so it didn't exactly help me socially. I wasn't at all interested in these activities and I hated them. On top of that, I could never interact with the other kids in the class.

I think the most intelligent conclusion is to do mainstream schooling until bullying issues and special ed come up. Then pull the kid out and homeschool him, and sign the kid up for activities that agree with his talents and interests (most likely not ballet). I also like the fact that homeschooling compliments the natural self-teaching that alot of Aspies have. I'm in college now and I can't learn anything from the professors, but I still get good grades because I'm good at information deduction, at least in text format.

I tried it one year in high school. I hated it: no social interaction. I was bored to tears.

Yes. It entirely depends on the person. Some people depend on having an instructor. Some can teach themselves. The latter is far more in tune with reality after high school. There are some people who do not have the self-discipline to learn on their own and would waste the day rather than use it to learn. In that case, having a schedule dictated by somebody else is better. Though for us, the school schedule wastes tons of time. An eight month high school course is about 130+ hours long, and that excludes homework. I could personally spend under half that time in less than one month and learn far more. Also, it costs less money.