These quotes come from several different sources (or at least they will as I continue to add to this page). In order to give credit where credit is due, I will use an abbreviation after each quote which will match more specific book information at the bottom of the page.
Q. People ask me, “Aren’t your children missing out socially by not going to school?” I answer that they socialize when it really counts — after school. Are they missing out on something?
A. Your answer probably satisfies most of your questioners. And it’s like other answers I hear, where homeschoolers say that their children have church activities and team and club activities and so forth. And I think it’s fine to give these answers that your critics understand.
But I can’t help wondering if most homeschoolers don’t feel they’re playing a little game here with the larger society. To meet the question in this fashion is in a sense agreeing with the world that children need many hours of association with their age mates, and saying that homeschoolers provide those hours just as schoolers do. But do we agree? Is it natural to grow up spending many hours per waking day with thirty age-mates? Is this best? Is it Biblical? Or is this just an artificial child life that our part of the world has adopted in fairly recent history?
My opinion is that your children are only missing out on some things you should be happy they miss.
(Beechick HAB, 20-21)
You are in a better position to be a good teacher for your children than I was as a classroom teacher. When you begin teaching one-on-one, mind-to-mind as I like to say it, you very rapidly learn about teaching. I would say that most homeschool moms know more about teaching after a few weeks than I knew after two years of classroom teaching. I was managing a class, trying to keep everybody busy at something profitable hopefully, and only now and then did I have time to work individually with a child who was not getting it or who needed extra challenge or something. I made the greatest strides in understanding children’s learning when I worked in summer reading clinics where we solved reading problems with lots of one-on-one work. The fact that you know your children so well and you’re dedicated to the job makes you the best teacher your child could have.
(Beechick HAB, 25)
Q. What do you see as the greatest benefit to homeschooling? At times in the midst of seeing good kids in school, it’s hard to remember why we go through this.
A. Probably the greatest benefit is the character you can build into your children by spending so much time with them. You can instill your own values and worldview and spiritual outlook and so forth, without the intrusion of contrary teaching and unwholesome peer influence.
I can’t deny that some children manage to thrive spiritually in a school setting, and perhaps yours would, too. But benefits of homeschooling accrue to you, as well as to your children. You are bonding with them now as children, and they will become your best friends as adults. Also you have a chance to relearn the stuff you have forgotten from your own school days. When your children’s school years have passed, they will seem as a brief span of years. Live them well and fully.
(Beechick HAB, 187-18 
Beechick HAB = Dr. Beechick’s HOMESCHOOL Answer Book Q & A by Ruth Beechick; Selected and Edited by Debbie Strayer
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