I was raised the same way, and it's really hard to go about life from the social anxiety from it.

When I was a child, all social interaction was done for me. If anything required me to talk to someone, my parents did it for me. It took me until 14 to order a meal by myself. I bought stuff alone at a store maybe 5 times until I got my first car. I wasn't ever told to avoid strangers or anything - it's just as soon as a third party would show up, my parents would automatically step in. They thought that they were doing me a favor, since I was a quiet kid, but it really hurt me.

I don't know how to approach people - I never needed to. I don't know how to really greet someone or start a conversation, because my parents ripped that part of social interaction out of my hands the moment that someone even looked at me. It made it hard to get help at school, because I was so afraid of asking questions or talking to the teacher. There were a couple teachers that I maybe said 2 or 3 sentences to the whole year. They always referred to me as the quiet kid and my parents were proud of my good behavior, but it wasn't actually a positive experience. I didn't talk out loud or say anything at the wrong time, because I knew better, but because I was afraid to. All of my friends started talking to me on their own initiative; I never reached out to anyone. If it wasn't for their kindness, then I would have never had friends.

I have a lot of trouble expressing myself to people. When I talk to someone in public, it sounds like I have a speech or mental impairment, because I'm so inarticulate that it's really hard to understand what I'm saying. If a stranger asks me a question, I often have to really think about it before I say something. It's killed the few job interviews (I'm still in school) I've had, because I can't think on the spot. When they ask me about my experience with things, my response is really choppy and clanky, because I can't smoothly explain anything. I'll start to repeat things a lot as well, because my brain doesn't do well with thinking on the spot. I was never given the chance to develop that skill.

I'm afraid of people; well, a lot less now that I was. For years, my fear was so bad that I'd break out into sweat when I walked around the mall. I was afraid that everyone around me was judging me and mocking me, and it took me forever to realize that they didn't really care. I don't get that bad anymore, but I still try to avoid places with a lot of people in them (I go to the mall with my friends, but that's because the mall is usually pretty empty). The reason that people were so scary to me was the fear of the unknown. It's why people are afraid of the dark - they don't know what's in there. They don't know if there's a psycho in the dark waiting for them to come in so they can attack them. That's what social interaction was to me - uncharted territory. I didn't know if someone was going to instantly ridicule me. I didn't know if someone was going to yell at me for daring to speak to me. I know now that they're most likely not, but a while back, I didn't. It took me years to figure out where the light switch is.

Neglecting a child the ability to form social skills is nothing more than abuse. Most parents think that keeping their kids away from strangers and in their homes is a way of making sure that their kids stay safe, despite crime rates going down over the past couple decades. The only thing that shutting in kids is going to do is ensure that they'll never be a functional adult.