I am going from my own experience and generalizing.
From all of the reports from MN to the last home, it was reported that they were private. Even in MN it sounds like the children did not interact with peers outside of school.
A couple of years ago, a friend came to stay with us for three months, (I thought it was for three weeks, but I will be brief). I had known her for forty years although she moved a lot so I only saw her briefly over the years, except for a three year period where she lived close.
Anyway, I discovered while staying with us that she was a pathological liar. And she was a freeloader in a clever way. She ,white, told me she had married her black (deceased) husband as a statement.
When I asked friends what they thought of her, they said that they really did not know her that well. I was trying to see if I was being unfair in my judgment,
People for short durations can show a side and fool people. But we see from what the children said that there was an ugly underbelly to the loving facade publicly presented.
It sounds like the people that knew them were from festivals. The one woman who knew them from FB reported them to CPS when they stayed with her. Actual interaction showed a different story.
I wonder if there are other people they befriended somehow and they stayed with them? It seems hard to imagine that experience was a one of, but no one else has come forward to say that they stayed and the experience was lovely in the home.
For anyone who has children, can you even imagine having your six children in the home day after day, all day?
Kids need physical exercise. Running in the home was a forbidden acfivity. .