I wish I could keep them home forever and they would be happy with just their sisters for friends

I've been looking at home schooling helps forever now, when Scout was a preschooler, Grace and now I am thinking about it with Abi also. Nothing I find is quite what I want, except one which is what I want but way too elaborate for me to pull off when I am pregnant and not very fun for preschoolers but would be awesome with say a 2nd grader, but that's not going to happen for a variety of reasons, the primary one being there are younger ones at home to "get in the way."

It has made me think about what it is I really want to teach my children while I have them in my home. My kids will go to public school, at least until they start having problems, so what do I want them to know before they are sent off to an institution that I have no control over their environment or how they interact with people, or how people interact with them? It's changed what my goals are with with my "home school."

Socially and Emotionally- This is the one I most worry about. Scout is so shy in groups and struggles making good friends. Grace over compensates for her lack of friends by being really loud and overly interactive with people she wants to make friends with. Abi is afraid of one and two year old boys. Personally, I stink at making friends and talking to people, even people I know. How can I teach my kids to be open, inviting, friendly and accepting of others when I am not able to be an example? Maybe this is why we are encouraged to do service in the church, since it forces you to interact with others in a positive way. I think it's very possible that is the best way to each your kids social skills, but I lack the experience in service to verify that hypothesis.

On a slightly different note, how do I teach my kids that they deserve to be treated with respect and thus have a responsibility to treat others that way too? How do you prepare your child for the possibility that they will have nobody to hang out with at lunch and recess, or that the kid they want to be friends with might not want to be friends with them, and how do you teach them not to take it personally? How do I convince them that is what they are doing to the neighbor when they just want to watch tv instead of play with her?

Scout has recently made a "best friend." I'm glad, and hope next year they will be in the same class since this year they aren't. We had her over to play this week and it's great to hear that they are real friends, they don't fight or quarrel like I did with my best friend at that age.