frumpygrumpy said - ...my DT2 can be a bit of a clingy soul, very tactile, would probably always choose home to school. I think he would retreat into himself if he was never exposed to the hustle and bustle of the playground.
Sounds very much like home ed would be just the thing, then!
I know that sounds odd, but my younger daughter was much like this, in fact she probably had more problems than this socialising. She never wanted to play with other children at school. She never wanted to leave me. Teachers used to make her work in groups or twos but she always said she wanted to work alone. She used to tell me she hated other children. She started telling me that when she was an adult, she would do all her grocery shopping online and work from home so she never had to meet anyone but me. She would rip up party invites so I didn't make her go. 4 years of the hustle and bustle of school just weren't working for her.
Home ed was a dream come true for her (we took her out for other reasons, actually, but the increasing social isolation she was experiencing at school did worry me).
For over four months she would not meet another child in any capacity. She wouldn't entertain the idea of going to home ed groups or anything where other children were involved. For four months she worked dilligently and quietly at home, did craft activities, researched stuff on the internet, baked cakes, walked the dog. Every day she would wake up and say "this is the best day of my life!" She started singing as she went round the house. She started enjoying shopping trips with me. She started making trips to local museums and chatting to the staff there.
I've since learned that this period of adjustment is called "deschooling". I look back and that's what she was doing all that time, all that time I thought she would stay in the house with me for the rest of her life!
Then one day, she was ready. One day, when I suggested meeting some other children, she said yes. She was terrified they would be unkind to her, but decided to give it a go.
The children we met knocked both of us back. I've never before met such confident, happy and friendly children. They took DD2 under their wing immediately - and she has been great friends with them ever since.
Two years on and I know the school wouldn't recognise her. Her life is a constant social whirl. She goes to sleepovers, shopping trips with friends, drama groups, ice skating groups, parties, book clubs, craft days - you name it, she does it. She really enjoys being with other children now, both schooled and home ed children, and she is no longer clingy at all. Instead, people remark on how confident and self assured she is. She recently took her Grade 3 piano exam and the examiner actually called me in afterwards to say he had never, in all his examining time, met anyone like her, anyone so chatty, so polite, so confident. He said I should be very proud. But of course, I've met lots and lots of children like her. They go to the same home ed groups as us.
If you go to a home ed group, you will see what I mean. And I've come to realise that all the hustle and bustle of the playground does, is damage. You may well find after a bit of home ed that you don't have a clingy child any longer!